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I've recently started a Doctorate of Ministry in Global Missional Leadership through George Fox University.
The first text I am grappling with is Jame's Hunter's book, 'To Change the World.'
Very simply, Hunter questions some of the traditional and more evangelical thinking that changing culture results from changing one heart and mind at a time. Is this really possible, given that there are powerful people in influential institutions within our culture that are really responsible for setting the direction of our culture?
Can you and I really effect widespread biblical change in our culture if we do not have the power wielded by our major institutions? Many of the characters in the Bible were leaders placed in strategic positions of influence.
Having asked these questions, it would appear from a study of the Gospels in the New Testament, that Jesus didn't seek human power, as much as question its rhetoric and hypocrisy. In some ways, he frustrated the institutions of the day by not seeking to become one of them. Look at the result. Started a small movement with 12 disciples that grew beyond the breadth and width of any one institution - religious or not!
What do you think?
Interesting questions to grapple with. I am watching this in a very much smaller form in Miss Sunshine's Yr8 classroom. So far the problematic students are winning the battle, but I sense a change beginning to swell.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if part of the reason that it takes us longer to see big changes from small beginnings is that we humans do not have the same authority and power that Jesus had/has.
If Jesus had coddled to the institutional agenda in the power seats of his day, his world change would have been a military coup of Ceasar in Jerusalem. He apparently had a different kind of worldchange in mind and was patient to start it small and let it roll out over generations until the consumation of a Kingdom come. I am struck by how little Hunter discussed the power dynamics of the Kingdom of God displayed in Jesus vs. the cultural power systems of our day. I know I'm preaching to the choir here ;)
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