Should you ever force someone else to believe the truth? Is that even possible? Many people have tried it over the years. Many people, sincerely trusting that their own religious beliefs represent truth, have used force to try to get other people to accept those beliefs, attempting to spread a belief system by persecution rather than persuasion. Of course, force-based proselytising is usually accompanied by mixed motives such as a struggle for power or wealth.

In John chapter 16, Jesus warned his followers that they would be persecuted: “People will throw you out of synagogues. The time is coming when those who kill you will think that they are doing a favour to God. They will do these things because they have not known the Father or me.” The listeners might have anticipated persecution at the hands of synagogue rulers, but they might not have anticipated that many people claiming to be followers of Jesus would become persecutors.

True Christianity is not about political power. There may be times when people need to be asked to leave a church because they are harming the church community, perhaps by teaching things incompatible with the church’s beliefs or practices, but this must always be done in a spirit of love and in the hope of future restoration and reconciliation. The use of force in attempting to change a person’s beliefs is a flagrant contravention of the teachings of Jesus.

Why is it that some countries today are very rich while others are very poor, whereas in 1800 all countries were comparatively poor? The explanation of what happened, according to Gregory Clark in A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World, is that the wealthy countries managed to increase productivity per capita through innovations. However, this does not explain why the productivity increases started when they did, or why some countries have benefitted greatly while others have not.

Clark’s explanation for why the productivity increases started in England is the seemingly bizarre one that at the applicable time England’s upper classes had higher birth rates than the lower classes, and the upper class skills such as literacy and a disciplined approach to work were thereby transmitted down through the society. His explanation for the current divergence between rich and poor countries is that workers in poorer countries are less productive.

The book is essentially a detailed examination of the history of the Industrial Revolution in England, with references to the current great divergence between rich and poor countries little more than an afterthought. The questions posed are very interesting, but I found the answers largely unconvincing. If workers in poor countries are less productive, why do they suddenly become more productive when they migrate to richer countries?

A recent article in The Age describes Australia’s new approach to foreign aid. Some countries are reducing their expenditure on foreign aid as a reaction to the global financial crisis, and risk aversion in financial markets have meant that there is less capital available for lending to poorer countries. However, Australia is gradually increasing its commitment to foreign aid, with a target of 0.5% of GDP by 2015-16.

The article reports that a significant percentage of Australian foreign aid is shifting from governance to education, healthcare and food, with the aid of raising living standards in the recipient countries. Although the main emphasis of Australia’s aid program will always be local, the amount of aid allocated to the world’s poorest continent, Africa, is increasing. The approach is commendably generous, but it may be based on an overly-optimistic hope of what aid can achieve.

There is no doubt that foreign aid is effective at stopping people from starving at times of crisis, such as during wars or famines. However, government-supplied aid has been far less effective at producing sustained economic development. As has been discussed extensively on this blog, the available research indicates that sustained economic development depends on properly functioning markets, and foreign aid tends to distort markets rather than assisting them.

Historically, 40% of post-conflict situations have reverted to conflict within a decade, accounting for half of all civil wars, according to Paul Collier in a talk given at a TED conference last month. The conventional approach to post-conflict situations has rested on three principles: a political settlement should be built first; peacekeepers should be employed only for a short period of time; and an election should be held to produce a legitimate and accountable government.

Unfortunately what an election produces is a winner and an unreconciled loser. Instead of putting politics first, that should be placed last; resolving the political situation becomes easier after some time, if building on a foundation of security and economic development. The focus needs to be on a few critical priorities: creation of jobs, especially for young men; improvements in basic services, especially health; and clean government.

In a post-conflict economy, the most effective way of creating jobs is to expand the construction sector, so the government needs to focus its policy on breaking any bottlenecks which might impede construction. The goals for the first post-conflict decade are to provide security by making sure that young men have jobs, and to reconstruct the country’s infrastructure. The emphasis on clean government will enable a shift from a politics of plunder to a politics of hope.

Earlier this year, management guru Gary Hamel described in his Wall Street Journal blog twelve ways in which experience of life on the Internet gained by the Facebook Generation is changing workplace expectations. These include:

1. All ideas compete on an equal footing. It does not matter who came up with an idea, or how much political power the promoter of an idea has; the survival of an idea depends on merit.

4. Leaders serve rather than preside. The only way to get followers on the Internet is to win them through credible arguments and selfless behaviour.

7. Resources get attracted, not allocated. People choose to allocate their time and effort to ideas and projects which interest them; there is no central planning authority distributing resources.

11. Intrinsic rewards matter most. People’s behaviour is not exclusively focussed on maximising their income. They devote their time and energy to making contributions to things which matter to them, in order to receive recognition and a sense of accomplishment.

Follow the link above to Gary’s blog to see the other eight items. From my own observations I am inclined to agree that workplace expectations are indeed changing. I am seeing a greater number of ideas originating from younger people who do not hold traditional positions of power, and I think this is having a substantial beneficial effect. (via Catalystspace)

The Battle of Solferino was fought in Italy 150 years ago last Wednesday, between the Austrian army and the French and Sardinian armies. The battle was a long and gruelling one, lasting over nine hours, on a 15-kilometre front. The fighting was carried on in a particularly bloodthirsty manner, with tens of thousands of soldiers suffering horrific injuries through bayonetting and bludgeoning, with fighting only ending after a violent rainstorm.

The carnage was witnessed by Jean-Henri Dunant, a Swiss businessman, who, seeing that no-one was taking care of the wounded, organised local women to look after those who were suffering, regardless of which side they were on. He subsequently recorded his experiences in a book entitled A Memory of Solferino. The book, in which he put forward proposals for preventing a repetition of the suffering that he had witnessed, became extremely influential and inspired the formation of the International Committee of the Red Cross in 1863, some four years after the battle. Dunant’s ideas were discussed at an international meeting in Geneva later that year, and in 1864 twelve countries signed the first Geneva Convention.

The Geneva Conventions set international standards for humanitarian laws concerning the treatment of wounded soldiers, civilians, shipwrecked people and prisoners of war. As a result of a business failure, Dunant became bankrupt and lost his leadership position within the Red Cross, but his outstanding contribution to humanitarian efforts was recognised in 1901 when he was one of the two recipients of the first Nobel Peace Prize.

How does a person become a Christian? Some people would say that you become a Christian by making a decision to follow the teachings of Jesus. Others would say that you become a Christian by praying the “sinner’s prayer”, repenting of your sins and asking Jesus into your heart. Others would say that you become a Christian by baptism. Still others would say that you become a Christian by being born into a Christian family or Christian country.

But what did Jesus say? In John chapter 15 he made the extraordinary statement: “You didn’t choose me, but I chose you, and appointed you to go and produce fruit, and your fruit should last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask from him in my name.” Whilst in one sense we can choose whether to be followers of Jesus or not, in another sense we become followers of Jesus when he chooses us.

Many followers of Jesus ask themselves the questions at one stage or another in their lives: “Why was I chosen to be so blessed by God? Why did God allow me to become a believer, when many other people around me are not believers?” There is no easy answer for such questions, but if the Most High God has chosen you and appointed you to produce fruit, who are you to refuse?

If you found yourself out of your depth trying to teach students from a poor socio-economic background with little apparent interest in learning, how would you go about fixing the problem? That is essentially the problem that Mike Feinberg and Dave Levin, two fresh graduates participating in the Teach for America program faced, as described in Jay Mathews’s book Work Hard Be Nice: How Two Inspired Teachers Created the Most Promising Schools in America.

The book tells the story of the problems and obstacles faced by Feinberg and Levin in the US public school system which led to the creation of the Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) chain of charter schools. The schools are built around five principles: high expectations, choice and commitment, more time, power to lead, and focus on results. Most KIPP schools run from 7.30am to 5pm on weekdays and 8.30am to 1.30pm on alternate Saturdays, so that teachers have a lot more teaching time than in normal schools.

KIPP schools use highly engaging teaching methods designed to bring out the best in each student, and they achieve outstanding academic results. The book is well worth reading for any parent or teacher interested in educational techniques, or any communicator interested in holding the attention of an audience, but prospective readers should be aware that the story is told in a warts-and-all manner including occasional coarse language.

In Tuesday’s post I referred to a BBC News article reporting the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation’s claim that there are now one billion people in the world who suffer from hunger, the highest number ever. How does the FAO know this information? There is no register of hungry people, and no way of counting them, so the FAO must have made a number of generalisations and assumptions, such as the income level at which a person can be assumed to be hungry, and the effect of reductions in global lending activities on people at the bottom of the wealth heap.

But how accurate are these assumptions? For an organisation such as the FAO, likelihood of attracting funding presumably increases in proportion to the grimness of the picture it paints. Given that most empirical studies show a very limited relationship between increased aid and poverty reduction, can we reliably assume that decreased availability of foreign aid and capital will result in increased levels of poverty? Poverty is caused by systemic failures, not by the absence of aid.

The same BBC News article contained a claim by the UK Department for International Development that it has pledged more than £900 million “to lift millions out of hunger”. This seems to be more aspirational than actual, because an independent effectiveness report in 2003 showed that the DFID’s performance assessment systems provided an inadequate basis for assessing DFID’s effectiveness, and a Public Accounts Committee report last year showed that the DFID was still not adequately measuring the effectiveness of its funding programs.

What will the Church look like in the year 2034? That is the question posed a couple of days ago by Collide Magazine. According to John Saddington, the Church will look very similar to how it looks today. The practice and use of web technologies will be more refined, and the Church will have a more ubiquitous technological presence.

According to C Wess Daniels, there will be fewer full-time CEO pastors and more “co-cultivators of kingdom imaginations” meeting together in “mobile ecclesial groups” which have a strong emphasis on communal creativity.

According to John Dyer, people who attend church for cultural reasons will be winnowed away, and those who remain will not need to be entertained on Sunday mornings. Vibrant churches will be notably different from the world around them, and sometimes even appreciated by that world.

According to Cynthia Ware, the Internet will shape the operation of all social institutions including the church. Online ministry portals will allow individual needs and their solutions to be matched by crowdsourcing. Faith communities will unite through online interactive clusters of like-minded believers.