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Daniel O’Neill, MD, MA(TS)
Managing Editor,
Christian Journal for Global Health
More comprehensive than MDGs
More challenging to accomplish
Informed by Christian ethics
Shared goals point to transcendent moral law
“Transforming Our World”
Inclusive: “Leave no one behind.”
#3: “Well-being for all at all ages”
Beauty of interdependence
Faithful presence in areas of human need
Expanding influence
Both Gathered & Scattered
Resource mobilization
Global and universal goals
Fuel for the machine
Wind in the sails
Ascribe goal origins to divine revelation
Avoid the Tower of Babel approach
Acknowledge the Babylon reality
Secular Utopianism vs. Eschatological hope
Economic Development vs. Transformation
Pantheism vs. Theistic creation mandate
Fully inclusive?
Missing pieces: compassion, love, sacrifice, generosity, or faith
Shadows of the Reality
Built into the fabric of creation
Human action (2 verses)
◦ Isaac to Jacob
◦ Obed to Ruth
God’s ongoing work (16 verses)
Jesus sustains all things by His word (Heb 1:3)
◦ Carrying the paralytic
◦ Bearing fruit
“No one to intervene, so his own arm worked salvation for him.” (Isa 59:16)
Israel in the wilderness (Neh 9:21)
Life & day-night cycles (Ps 3:5)
Through illness (Ps 41:3)
Requires a willing spirit (Ps 51:12)
Casting cares are shouldered (Ps 55:22)
Hand and arm (care & healing) (Ps 89:21)
Laws sustain (justice) (Ps 119:175)
Live to praise
Live in hope (Ps 119:116)
Foreigner (Ps 146:9)
Widow & Orphan (vulnerable)
Even to old age (all generations) (Is 46:4)
The humble, not the wicked (Is 46:4)
“Well-instructed tongue” - words that sustain the weary (Is 50:4)
Dominion (Gen 2:15)
Stewardship of the gift
Darkness to light (Col 1:13)
Hunger & thirst for righteousness
To feel the need for God
Already (glimpse) and . . .
Not Yet (enduring hope)
Liberation
Possible or preferable to eradicate poverty?
Redistribution or opportunity to give?
Economic prosperity the ultimate end?
Universal health or universal gospel access?
Life for life’s sake or the good life?
Informing with facts or teaching everything?
Equality or inverted power struggles?
What is great gain? (1 Tim 6:6-8)
“Lasting change is possible if transformation happens at the worldview level –encompassing beliefs, values, ethics and principles.”
- Jaykumar Christian
“. . . integrate values, activities and principles that are inherently linked to sustainable development. . . to help usher in a change in attitudes, behaviours and values . . .”
UNESCO
“Hitherto, development actors have generally engaged mostly with the top two levels (policies and practices) and avoided engaging with the foundational level of “beliefs, values and ideas”, even if this is probably the most important level for sustainable change.”
“. . . Because of their fundamental faith commitments to respect human dignity, to serve the community, to protect creation, and to witness to the Divine.”
- Rev. Dr. Olav Fykse Tveit
Attribution of values for a seat at the table. Annotated bibliography on Religion and
Development (DanChurchAid)* Peace, peace or shalom? Utopia to Dystopia (cruel joke) or . . . Approximation to Consummation (enduring
hope) Salvation/Liberation from . . . to
*http://www.dmru.org/fileadmin/Filer/Dokumenter/Religion_og_udvikling/Annotated_bibiliography.pdf
City on a hill and the New Jerusalem
Wealth of the nations
Living Water and the River of Life
Creation care and the Tree of Life
Healing of the nations
New heavens and Earth
The “Inclusive society”
“And the word of the Lord came again to Zechariah: “This is what the Lord Almighty said: ‘Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor. Do not plot evil against each other.’
“But they refused to pay attention; stubbornly they turned their backs and covered their ears. They made their hearts as hard as flint and would not listen to the law or to the words that the Lord Almighty had sent by his Spirit through the earlier prophets.”
Zechariah 7:8-12