{"id":9536,"date":"2016-10-06T13:15:06","date_gmt":"2016-10-06T20:15:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dminlgp.com\/?p=9536"},"modified":"2016-10-06T13:15:06","modified_gmt":"2016-10-06T20:15:06","slug":"gaining-a-global-perspective-along-the-silk-roads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/gaining-a-global-perspective-along-the-silk-roads\/","title":{"rendered":"Gaining a Global Perspective Along The Silk Roads"},"content":{"rendered":"

In many ways, The Silk Roads<\/em> by Peter Frankopan is the quintessential book for this doctor of ministry leadership and global perspectives track. Frankopan\u2019s stories of leaders, networks, conquests, religion, economies, and of course, his conclusion that the Silk Roads are rising again, each epitomize what we learned last year and what we are currently studying this term. It is more than coincidence that we were \u201cadvancing\u201d in Oxford last week where Frankopan currently teaches.<\/p>\n

The Silk Roads<\/em> largest gift to me is the reorientation and reframing of world history eastward. As a high school history teacher I witness first hand every day how westerners westernize world history. This book made me fall in love with history again! Wearing my local church pastor hat, I appreciate the reminder of \u201cthe East\u201d because Jesus was middle eastern. Growing-up in various churches in southern California in the 1970s and \u201880s, I was taught about a God who was white and conservative and American. It\u2019s a big world and we serve a big God who chose a people for himself at a specific historical time in a specific geographical location. Just like Ken Bailey\u2019s Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes<\/em>, The Silk Roads<\/em> takes us to a place where history actually happened and gives us the ears to hear these stories in their proper context. There are two main interactions stand out to me in this book.<\/p>\n

The Interaction of People: Students and Teachers<\/em>
\nThe importance of conversations and leaders really hit me in the preface of this book. It is here that Frankopan tells us that his parents gave him a globe. This sparked an interest in the world inside of him that would not be quenched. Then as a teenager he had a teacher who taught him Arabic and Russian and would tutor him after school. People are important!<\/p>\n

Sometimes we don\u2019t know what is really being passed on when we have what seems to be a casual conversation. As I attempt to reengage in my \u201cnormal\u201d life after our advance in England I am setting aside purposeful time to process all the lectures and random conversations I had with people. I heard the most profound ideas over lunch in the dining hall at Christ Church. I got some great pastoral advice while walking the beautiful Oxford path to punting. Bus rides, tube rides, and my 90-second interview of Steven Chalke on our way to the tube, all have the potential of taking a profound place in shaping who I am as a pastor and teacher.<\/p>\n

These conversations made me think of all the conversations that must have happened on horseback during the crusades. The Silk Roads, for the author himself, and for all of world history, are spaces where crucial conversations happened and continue to happen today. Belief systems, knowledge, culture, and secrets are transmitted through the everyday conversations of life.<\/p>\n

The Interaction of Religion: State and Authority<\/em>
\nOne thing this book makes clear is how world history has been shaped by various religions. It is fascinating to me how religions spread along the Silk Road. I also love how Frankopan explains how the world\u2019s great religions enjoy power for a while and then another religion comes in vogue and that power shifts. Another aspect of the book is how different religions incorporated similar aspects into their ethos. For example, the use of the halo shows up not with just christianity, but with buddhism and other religions as well.<\/p>\n

Not only do many religions have similar characteristics, but leaders throughout the ages have used religion to legitimize their power. Various shahs, Asian emperors, and European monarchs look to their respective religions to show divine empowerment and legitimacy. One of my favorite moments on the advance was celebrating the Eucharist in Westminster Abbey. It was wonderful to take the tour the day before and learn so much about this sacred space. I definitely got a strong sense of the \u201ccloud of witnesses\u201d that have gone before me. However, one thing about this beautiful place really bothers me. It was built to, not worship Jesus, but to legitimize the power of the English monarch. King Edward was a devout man and was said to have actually healed people. Because he had this healing power, the people of England found it easy to accept him as their king. Consequently, future monarchs saw to it that an abbey was built to remind them of the healing power of King Edward. This abbey would be where all kings and queens would be coronated. By being coronated in Westminster Abbey, English royalty is communicating that they are chosen by God to lead, they possess some of the divine. Here in the U.S. we don\u2019t have royalty, but we do have a presidential election every four years. Just like the english monarch being crowned in Westminster and using religion, every American presidential candidate seeks the endorsement of American evangelicals. This is such an embarrassing practice to me. I feel my religion is being used. Just like leaders from time immemorial have been using religion, our current world leaders use religion for their state authority.<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/em>
\nFrankopan has written a fresh, if not huge, new history of the world. He states in the preface that there are pathways in the world that \u201cserve as the world\u2019s central nervous system, connecting peoples and places together, but lying underneath the skin, invisible to the naked eye\u201d (XVI). For Frankopan, exposing these invisible interactions and studying them prove that the secrets of the world are discovered within human interaction. As we become Doctors of the Church we do well to study Frankopan and learn from these relationships. It is as we discover new networks of interactive relationships along ancient and future Silk Roads that we journey a bit further down the path of leadership with a global perspective.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In many ways, The Silk Roads by Peter Frankopan is the quintessential book for this doctor of ministry leadership and global perspectives track. Frankopan\u2019s stories of leaders, networks, conquests, religion, economies, and of course, his conclusion that the Silk Roads are rising again, each epitomize what we learned last year and what we are currently […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":73,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[815,762],"class_list":["post-9536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dminlgp-6","tag-frankopan","cohort-lgp6"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/73"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9536"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9536\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}