At the 2016 CCIH Annual Conference, Dr. Dan O'Neill examines the theology behind sustainability, the Christian call to development, and how that relates to the Global Goals.

1. Daniel O’Neill, MD, MA(TS)
Managing Editor,
Christian Journal for Global Health

3.  More comprehensive than MDGs
 More challenging to accomplish
 Informed by Christian ethics
 Shared goals point to transcendent moral law
 “Transforming Our World”
 Inclusive: “Leave no one behind.”
 #3: “Well-being for all at all ages”
 Beauty of interdependence

4.  Faithful presence in areas of human need
 Expanding influence
 Both Gathered & Scattered
 Resource mobilization
 Global and universal goals
 Fuel for the machine
 Wind in the sails

5.  Ascribe goal origins to divine revelation
 Avoid the Tower of Babel approach
 Acknowledge the Babylon reality
 Secular Utopianism vs. Eschatological hope
 Economic Development vs. Transformation
 Pantheism vs. Theistic creation mandate
 Fully inclusive?
 Missing pieces: compassion, love, sacrifice,
generosity, or faith
 Shadows of the Reality

6.  Built into the fabric of creation
 Human action (2 verses)
◦ Isaac to Jacob
◦ Obed to Ruth
 God’s ongoing work (16 verses)
 Jesus sustains all things by His word (Heb 1:3)
◦ Carrying the paralytic
◦ Bearing fruit

7.  “No one to intervene, so his own arm worked
salvation for him.” (Isa 59:16)
 Israel in the wilderness (Neh 9:21)
 Life & day-night cycles (Ps 3:5)
 Through illness (Ps 41:3)
 Requires a willing spirit (Ps 51:12)
 Casting cares are shouldered (Ps 55:22)
 Hand and arm (care & healing) (Ps 89:21)

8.  Laws sustain (justice) (Ps 119:175)
 Live to praise
 Live in hope (Ps 119:116)
 Foreigner (Ps 146:9)
 Widow & Orphan (vulnerable)
 Even to old age (all generations) (Is 46:4)
 The humble, not the wicked (Is 46:4)
 “Well-instructed tongue” - words that sustain
the weary (Is 50:4)

9.  Dominion (Gen 2:15)
 Stewardship of the gift
 Darkness to light (Col 1:13)
 Hunger & thirst for righteousness
 To feel the need for God
 Already (glimpse) and . . .
 Not Yet (enduring hope)
 Liberation

10.  Possible or preferable to eradicate poverty?
 Redistribution or opportunity to give?
 Economic prosperity the ultimate end?
 Universal health or universal gospel access?
 Life for life’s sake or the good life?
 Informing with facts or teaching everything?
 Equality or inverted power struggles?
 What is great gain? (1 Tim 6:6-8)

11.  “Lasting change is possible if transformation
happens at the worldview level –
encompassing beliefs, values, ethics and
principles.”
- Jaykumar Christian
 “. . . integrate values, activities and principles
that are inherently linked to sustainable
development. . . to help usher in a change in
attitudes, behaviours and values . . .”
UNESCO

12.  “Hitherto, development actors have generally
engaged mostly with the top two levels
(policies and practices) and avoided engaging
with the foundational level of “beliefs, values
and ideas”, even if this is probably the most
important level for sustainable change.”
 “. . . Because of their fundamental faith
commitments to respect human dignity, to
serve the community, to protect creation, and
to witness to the Divine.”
- Rev. Dr. Olav Fykse Tveit

13.  Attribution of values for a seat at the table.
 Annotated bibliography on Religion and
Development (DanChurchAid)*
 Peace, peace or shalom?
 Utopia to Dystopia (cruel joke) or . . .
 Approximation to Consummation (enduring
hope)
 Salvation/Liberation from . . . to
*http://www.dmru.org/fileadmin/Filer/Dokumenter/Religion_og_u
dvikling/Annotated_bibiliography.pdf

14.  City on a hill and the New Jerusalem
 Wealth of the nations
 Living Water and the River of Life
 Creation care and the Tree of Life
 Healing of the nations
 New heavens and Earth
 The “Inclusive society”

15. “And the word of the Lord came again to
Zechariah: “This is what the Lord Almighty said:
‘Administer true justice; show mercy and
compassion to one another. Do not oppress the
widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the
poor. Do not plot evil against each other.’
“But they refused to pay attention; stubbornly they
turned their backs and covered their ears. They
made their hearts as hard as flint and would not
listen to the law or to the words that the Lord
Almighty had sent by his Spirit through the
earlier prophets.”
Zechariah 7:8-12