Define Your Terms - Part 1

In my previous post, Sustainable Community Development - the beginning, I outlined the themes that I want to study over the next year and how and why I came to be interested in them. Having introduced my subject, the key next step in any good piece of research is to define one's terms. That is (loosely) what this post is about - defining "Sustainable" and comparing how the world defines this term with how it might be defined biblically.

Sustainable Community Development - the beginning

The challenge:

So Andy has laid down the gauntlet by announcing his aim to study the biblical principles of economics over the coming year (see Why metanoia). I will take up that challenge by announcing here to all and sundry that it is my intention to study the bible over the coming year to glean the principles of sustainable community development.

There. I've said it. Now you can all hold me accountable to it.

This is something I got passionate about whilst studying Engineering (of all things) a couple of years ago. I signed up for a module in my final year on sustainable development and I found that a lot of the concepts and ideas that were talked about really resonated with what I was coming to understand about the way God's kingdom works.

I've started reading through the bible with this as my focus. Admittedly, I haven't got very far yet (Genesis 4!) but that's partly because there's so much in there to learn.

Click on 'Read more...' for a summary of why I've chosen this as my focus and why I think this is an important topic to engage with as a Christian.

Insights on the financial crisis

In the run up to the announcement of the Government's spending review on Wednesday I thought I'd share these youtube clips. Click on this link for the first of five parts, then select the remaining four parts from the 'suggestions'.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSDGDerFst4

They are from a lecture by Prof David Harvey from City University New York which summarises his new book 'The Enigma of Capital'. The book and lecture seek to explain the structural causes of the recent financial crisis and as such they are the clearest and most eloquent attempt I've come across. Prof Harvey applies a distinctly Marxian analysis to this topic and unlocks a lot of really serious structural questions that I think need to be confronted if we are serious about reimaging the economy in the image of God.

Check it out. Measure it against the plumb-line. I'll post about a couple of specifics shortly and will try to refrain from shouting viva la Revolution since I'm in the library!

Nathan

At the city gate...

Recently some of the Metanoia team took part in a conference called CityGate near Manchester. The topic of the conference was biblical principles of Business and the keynote speaker was Landa Cope who is founding dean of the International College of Communcations within the University of the Nations (the training arm of YWAM) and who now runs the Template Institute.

The conference was great and I'll try and put together a summary of the key points at some stage soon. But first I want to take this opportunity, as we're just setting out on this venture, to introduce Landa Cope and acknowledge the significance of her teaching on my understanding of the importance and relevance of the bible to the whole of society.

What Genesis has to say about Property

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

If God created the universe, then either he is the current holder of its property rights or, at some point in history, those rights were transferred to somebody else. I think that the weight of biblical evidence (e.g. Deut 8:17-18, Psalm 24:1) points to the former hypothesis. Therefore it follows that nobody else owns anything.

Does this mean that God disapproves of private property? On the contrary, a large part of the law of Moses is concerned with establishing and protecting property rights. If God disapproved of property, at least two of the Ten Commandments (“Do not steal” and “Do not covet”) would be redundant. This is because God’s law is pragmatic, and designed for a fallen world. A system of property rights is an effective way of managing scarce resources. But this is a discussion for another time, so let’s get back to the more idealistic world of Genesis.

Reflections from Genesis

According to the Biblical worldview, one can think of there being four stages in the history of the universe – creation, fall, redemption and consummation. The first few chapters of Genesis cover the first three of these stages.

If we’re honest, the account of creation in Genesis can sometimes read a bit like a fairy story. The debate about how God created the universe and the extent to which the Genesis story can be taken literally is an important one. However, I don’t want to dwell on this here but rather draw out some of the fundamental principles that will help inform our worldview and hence the way we should live our lives.

Why Metanoia?

As this is my first post on our new blog, I would like to share a few thoughts about why I decided to be part of Metanoia and what I hope to achieve from participating in the discussions on this blog. For a long time now, I have been interested in exploring what God has to say about economics. It is often said that economics is the “dismal science”, a study of the perennial quest to satisfy mankind’s unlimited wants under the constraints of the earth’s scarce resources. However, somewhere inside of me is the hope and belief that “God’s economy” is an achievable place of peace, love and joy.

To discover God’s economy, I am starting with the Bible – Old and New Testaments. Within the next year or so, I am aiming to read the entire Bible, marking with a coloured pencil every reference that, in my view, pertains to the world of economics. So far, I have covered the first five books of the Old Testament plus Job.