key to sustainability: theological reflections on global goals - dan o'neill

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