Worldview underlying the "Reflections" segment of my website:

These economic development reflections, are my contribution to a larger discourse. Of course, I write form a specific (Protestant Christian) framework, and trust that others will be able to translate what is said into their own idiom. My underlying perspective is:

• that when God created the world, he designed it in such a way that it would work with excellence in all areas, including that of "economic development".
• that we have chosen to go our own way, and in all areas, particularly that of economic development, we have run into difficulties.
• that God chose to get his ideas across to mankind by taking one person, Abraham, bringing him to the front of the class (so to speak) and working with him and his descendents, by sharing his ideas with them for 2000 years.
• whatever else Jesus did, when he arrived at the 2000 year point in this journey, he saw it as his mission to increase the flow of this information out to the other "members of the class" (read: cultures of the world).
• Jesus changed the approach from bringing people into Judaism, to taking the essence of Judaism out into the cultures of the world, in order to flavour those cultures with the insights this group had learned from God over the 2000 year period.
• his followers, originally trained in their home culture of Judaism, spread out over the world during the next 2000 years, and have indeed flavoured the many cultures of the world.
• as one of the beneficiaries of the spread of these ideas, I have come to realize that we are relative latecomers, and that it is incumbent upon us, who have been so blessed by the "lite", "exportable" version of these ideas, to go back to the source and listen carefully for the parts that we have missed/not been able to hear.
• I believe that the primary sources for this "revisit", are:
  • the record of the original information (the Bible)
  • the record of the first efforts of Jesus followers to make the cross-cultural jump, in this case, into the Greco-Roman-European-North American cultural stream (the "New Testament").
  • the other early and ongoing material found within the continuing Jewish community, who are now 4000 years into that life-growth process.
  • the past and continuing material found within any other cultural group around the world who have embarked upon this exciting journey of reflecting on their home cultures in the light of God's ideas about the conduct of life in the world.
• to me this process of reflection, and journey of application, generates an open-ended critique of everything we do in the area of "economic development" and addresses our need for a larger framework for the term "globalization".