on globalization

"The point is not to seek to change the world for its own sake. The point is to be accountable to the Creator of the world by being responsible with the knowledge, time, gifts, abilities, and resources that we've been given so that we may better love our global neighbours as ourselves. If everyone engages in self-reflection and honestly seeks to do this, the world will be changed as a mere side effect of this greater aim."
-me

Lately I've been thinking a lot about globalization and what my dutiful christian response should be to it.....I've been taking a 5 week course by David Lyon, a friend from Next Church and a professor of Sociology at Queen's, entitled "Thinking About Things." It attempts to think Christianly about some tools of Western technology - the car, computer, cell phone, digital camera, etc, and how they affect our relationships with others and with the world.....it has been very enlightening, and I really believe it is a God-sent, because I have been praying for a long time for someone to come along who is well educated about the issues surrounding globalization (transnational corporations, sweatshops, coca-colonization, and the problem of 2/3rds global poverty, and all the injustices surrounding these things), and is also a deeply committed and wise biblical christian. I am looking forward to talking more to David about these issues, and he already has given me some christian literature on them, which i am excited to put at the end of my long list of "must-read" books....i think i might have to pump them up a few notches. :) At any cost, taking this course has strengthen my desire and given me passionate confirmation that I am to go to seminary, and I believe that Regent college in Vancouver is the way to go...David has taught out there, and I've heard great things about it.....I want to take a Masters of Christian Studies with a concentration in either Applied Theology, Interdisciplinary Studies, or Cross-Cultural education....we'll see...

Lord, grant me wisdom and courage as I seek to learn, grow and be responsible with things you have entrusted to me.

more thoughts on this to come...

-J