DLGP

Doctor of Leadership in Global Perspectives: Crafting Ministry in an Interconnected World

Category: Uncategorized

Miracles, Miracles, Miracles

By: on January 23, 2014

Miracles, Miracles, Miracles – Active Hope by Macy and Johnstone Macy and Johnstone in Active Hope remind us that “our views about what’s normal are shaped by what we see.”  When reading about other paths to joy and other ways to fulfillment, this phrase rings so true.  From a non-Christian premise, Active Hope proposes three…

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Living Positively on Mother Earth

By: on January 22, 2014

Chose a positive attitude, engage habits that contribute to your life goals, be good to Mother Earth in all your endeavors (and maybe even make her your chief priority in life), partner with others who are doing the same, and enlist as many as possible to join the journey!  (Oh, and by the way, do…

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I Will Not Fly Away

By: on January 22, 2014

The is a sense that we all feel frustrated with the world as it is and get angry enough to say, “Why does this happen?” or “Why doesn’t someone do something about this?” We live in this world and want to make it a good place to live and yet often do not feel at…

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Imagine All the People…

By: on January 19, 2014

  There is a fun game that we play when friends come over sometimes called “Imagine If…”  This game allows each player to link a real person (known to all the players around the board) to something that best describes that person.  For example: “Imagine if Bill were a type of music.  Would he be…

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Exclusive Humanism

By: on January 19, 2014

A Secular Age by Charles Taylor prescribed as the first reading for this semester is a fascinating read exploring the empirical understanding of the historical development and implications of western secularism both for the present and the future. Taylor introduces the term “exclusive humanism” at the beginning of his analysis of the present condition of…

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I Have A Theory…

By: on January 19, 2014

Modern Social Imaginaries             Standing on the premise that modern society has come about through countless struggles in order to first build, and then maintain the social framework that the world now understands as the modern western world, Charles Taylor, crafts a wonderful read, outlining the developments of our distinct modern western society, characterized by…

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The Option of Fullness

By: on January 18, 2014

Charles Taylor in his book A Secular Age won the Templeton Prize for his brilliant work explaining the story and evolution of secularism. In his book, he explains that secularism is much more complex than defining it as belief versus unbelief (Taylor 2007). He says that secularism is not simply the absence of religion, it…

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The Long March Continues…

By: on January 18, 2014

I was intrigued by the first sentence on the back cover of Modern Social Imaginaries, “Charles Taylor is internationally renowned for his contributions to political and moral theory, particularly to debates about identity formation, multiculturalism, secularism, and modernity.”  As I engaged in reading “Modern Social Imaginaries” I found myself being challenged and invited to understand…

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Space For God in The Modern

By: on January 18, 2014

In Charles Taylor’s Modern Social Imaginaries we are treated to wide ranging study of our modern mentality describing not only what it is but also how it came about.  Drawing on history, philosophy and social theory, Taylor discerns a dramatic shift in how people imagine their lives today from their imaginaries of the past.  The…

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Ponderings of an Imaginary

By: on January 18, 2014

(This week, I am in Uganda, and because of this, I am typing from my iPhone. I pray for your forgiveness of the numerous errors!) I have had a lot of time for introspective reflection. We were on three airplanes for a total of 22 hours, and it gave me an opportunity to let my…

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Modern Social Imaginaries

By: on January 18, 2014

Charles Taylor’s book on Modern Social Imaginaries offers great insights on the development of the ideas of social imaginaries in the Western modernity. Taylor makes clear in the introduction that his reflections in this book are solely on Western history and culture, which requires more time for me to understand his views and translate them…

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Society and Change – The Right Imaginary

By: on January 18, 2014

We are confronted with significant challenges in navigating through multiple fronts of change. Understanding challenges and overcoming confrontation is the substance of good leadership. But how can leadership address change that is global, a new world order? It is change that impacts all levels of leadership in every sphere of living. We have experienced discontinuous…

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Fallen

By: on January 17, 2014

When I saw the title of this book I got so excited: Modern Social Imaginaries[1]! I imagined in my little mind a gathering of great thinkers and innovators; people who imagine the amazing. And then I came to learn that the term modern was of course a reference to the time period of modernists (preceding…

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Modernity under the microscope

By: on January 17, 2014

Taylor begins by stating how the basic concept of moral order is to teach us how we ought to live together in society. [i] That is, “[t]he underlying idea of moral order stresses the rights and obligations we have as individuals in regard to each other”. [ii] With that understanding of moral order in hand,…

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Is Secularism Good or Bad?

By: on January 17, 2014

Hindus in India are currently celebrating a weeklong festival that occurs during mid January each year; one that bears social and religious significance and goes by different names depending on the region of the country.  These festival days are considered exceptionally auspicious, that people throng to popular pilgrim locations, ancient temples and ‘holy’ rivers for…

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Review of Taylor

By: on January 17, 2014

Taylor, in his book on modern social imaginary, explores the development and human understanding of morality in a political societal context. The author does not focus on the theory itself, but the imaginary that surrounds the theory. Taylor begins by explaining the Grotius’s theory on how a political society is formed. His theory is that…

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We Have All Been Here Before

By: on January 17, 2014

Certain narratives flow through our world defining and explaining where we have come, where we stand, and possibly where we are going. The television series Lost was a perfect postmodern tale.  A mixture of genres colliding into a huge question of existence, reality, and meaning, played through characters with the names of famous philosophers, scientists…

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There is nothing we can’t accomplish!

By: on January 17, 2014

A few weeks ago after a long day at work, I sat down to take in a episode of Build it Bigger on the Science Channel.  Now, before you make any judgments, let me just say I am a Science Channel junkie.  That particular evening  Build it Bigger was doing a special on the  Burj…

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The End of the Book and a Look Back

By: on January 17, 2014

Do you ever read the end of a book whilst you are reading the same book?  Reading Modern Social Imaginaries by Charles Taylor I did just that.  Recently those of us in this DMin (Doctor of Ministry) program were asked to reflect on how we would accomplish our mission and vision.  Rather than approach it…

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Supernatural

By: on January 17, 2014

Where is the place of the supernatural in today’s society? When Christians speak of the miraculous or supernatural sometimes they are rebuffed. People want proof in a scientific age. Still the images of something beyond what we see still “creep” up in Sci-Fi thrillers, obsessions with vampires, belief in the force and mythological stories. Many…

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