10 years ago: The death of Peter Drucker

On November 11, 2005, Austrian-born American management guru Peter Drucker died, eight days before his 96th birthday. Mr. Drucker, known as the "father of modern management," was known for the concept of "management by objectives," popularized in his book The Practice of Management (1954). Mr. Drucker promoted the idea of society as a three-legged stool, with the legs being the state, the private sector, and the non-profit sector--of which the most important is the state. Mr. Drucker, although not a Christian, has had a tremendous influence upon evangelical Christianity in the late 20th-early 21st century; Rick Warren, author of The Purpose Driven Life and pastor of Saddleback Church in southern California, has publicly acknowledged his debt to Peter Drucker. Much of modern evangelicalism today is based not on the Bible, but on Peter Drucker's theory of Total Quality Management.

For an example of a church that has implemented Peter Drucker's principles, see my post:

The Rock Church in San Diego (Carrie Prejean's church): First Church of Christ, Druckerist

There are excellent articles regarding Peter Drucker'e influence on evangelicalism. For example, go to Kjos Ministries and search "Drucker." Roger Oakland's book Faith Undone (2009) also contains useful information on Mr. Drucker.

I particularly recommend the following:

Peter Drucker: Early Futurist

Peter Drucker & Confucianism

Peter Drucker's Influence

Bob Buford's tributes to Peter Drucker

Peter Drucker's Mega-Church Legacy

Peter Drucker's Existential Purpose

Peter Drucker's Theology of Works

PSEUDO-MISSION: Rick Warren's 3-legged Church

Global Health Leadership & Management

Dumping Mr. Edsel

What is Your LifeTime Value?

The Tyranny of 3-Legged Branding

NEW EVANGELICALISM: The New World Order

Bob Buford, Peter Drucker, and the Emerging Church

The Three Legged Stool Plan

Seeker Friendly to Contemplative Spirituality

University of Toledo Chair of Catholic Studies promotes religious syncretism

Another backlog item, as reported by TK Barger of the Toledo Blade, November 10, 2012:

Peter Feldmeier, a professor who holds the Margaret and Thomas Murray and James J. Bacik Chair in Catholic Studies at the University of Toledo, gave the speech of his position on Thursday: the Murray/Bacik Lecture in Catholic Studies.

For “West Meets East: A Spiritual Transformation,” Mr. Feldmeier spoke about how using some aspects of different religious traditions can contribute to a better imagining of Christianity.

Mr. Feldmeier, who is a Christian, has taken part in Buddhist retreats and other encounters with Asian faiths and has studied world religions. In his talk, he read aphorisms of the Buddha as collected in the Theravadan Buddhist text, the Dhammapada, and suggested how Christian Scripture can be read with the same approach to focus on the here and now rather than the hereafter. He brought up Zen koans and compared the purpose of contemplating those perplexing questions to a way of thinking about Christian texts. And he looked at the different approaches of Daoism and Christianity.

“Could Buddhism help us understand Jesus’ parables and his teachings better?” he asked. “I think it really can.”

Mr. Feldmeier joked that for next year’s lecture he could repeat a legendary teaching about Nirvana. He could, like the Buddha, simply hold up a flower for an hour. Mr. Feldmeier turned to his colleagues in the university’s Center for Religious Understanding and said it would be profound, but saw that he’d have to do more preparation to please them than just bring a flower.

For the use of Zen to illumine a person’s Christianity, Mr. Feldmeier spoke about the koans that ask paradoxical questions, and said that the aim is not to find the right answer but, in a way, to understand the concept of the question.

“We might begin by realizing that idiosyncratic language is already embedded in our own tradition. The great theme in Jesus’ preaching was the kingdom of God,” Mr. Feldmeier said. “He regularly provoked our imagination about it, but never told us what it is.”

“The particular wisdom of the Zen tradition,” Mr. Feldmeier said, “is that it trains us to stray from trying to figure out the paradox and urges us rather to enter it for its transformational possibilities.”

For Daoism, Mr. Feldmeier spoke about some concepts from that tradition’s texts the Dao De Jin and the Zhuangzi. Rather than viewing the universe “as divinely governed by unchanging natural and moral laws” that come from God in the Western view, Mr. Feldmeier said, the Daoist writings present a world “where there is no permanent reality … There is just the ceaseless flow of life. Even physical things are more like events that are intrinsically related to other events.”

With this reorientation of thinking and being, Mr. Feldmeier said, dao, or way-making, is “a kind of eternal emergence.” He called attention to the yin and yang, to life as art, to a fluid way rather than Christian-imagined absolute natural law. “Think of how a nonimposing, nonconstricting posture could help one in pastoral ministry,” Mr. Feldmeier said. Rather than seeking solutions and conclusions, a person can “stop seeking a personal agenda and … be present as the suffering person needs one to be present.”

“These are just snapshots,” Mr. Feldmeier said in concluding his talk, “of possibilities of engaging other religions traditions in ways that expand our own proposed world.”

70 years ago: Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King invokes God and speaks in favour of a new world order

And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.
And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.
And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. Revelation 21:1-4

On September 4, 1941, Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King spoke at Mansion House in London as the guest of Lord Mayor Sir George Wilkinson and the Corporation of London. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was also in attendance. Mr. King said, in part:

We are fighting to defend democratic and Christian ideals. We believe that everything which free men value and cherish on this side of the grave is in peril in this war. The right of men, rich and poor, to be treated as men; the right of men to make the laws by which they shall be governed; the right of men to work where they will, at what they will; the right of womankind to the serenity and sanctity of the home; the right of children to play in safety under peaceful heavens; the right of old men and women to the tranquillity of their sunset; the right to speak the truth in our hearts; the right to worship, in our own way, the God in whom we believe. (Cheers.)...

...We, in Canada, were greatly heartened when, three years ago, the President, after referring to the Dominion of Canada as a part of the sisterhood of the British Empire, declared that the people of the United States would not stand idly by if domination of Canadian soil were threatened by any other Empire. I reciprocated at once by recognizing Canada's responsibility to do what lay within her power to prevent attacks through our territory upon the United States. These declarations were the starting point of our agreement for joint defence.

To-day, fortunately, we are witnessing the birth of still wider arrangements for joint defence between the British Empire and the United States. Your declaration, Prime Minister, that in the Far East, Britain would stand at the side of the United States, is a sure sign of the deepening interdependence of the free world...

...Much is being said about a new world order to take the place of the old world order when the war is at an end. If that new order is not already on its way before the war is over, we may look for it in vain. A new world order cannot be worked out at some given moment and reduced to writing at a conference table. It is not a matter of parchments and of seals. That was one of the mistaken beliefs at the end of the last War. A new world order to be worthy of the name is something that is born, not made. It is something that lives and breathes; something that needs to be developed in the minds and the hearts of men; something that touches the human soul. It expresses itself in good will and in mutual aid. It is the application, in all human relationships, of the principle of helpfulness and of service. It is based not on fear, on greed, and on hate, but on mutual trust and the noblest qualities of the human heart and mind. It seeks neither to divide nor to destroy. Its aim is brotherhood, its method cooperation.

While the old order is destroying itself, this new relationship of men and nations has already begun its slow but sure evolution. It found expression when Britain determined to put an end to aggression in Europe; when other nations of the British Commonwealth took their place at the side of Britain, and when the United States resolved to lend its powerful aid to the nations which are fighting for freedom. It has found its latest expression in the Atlantic Charter. All these factors are combining to create one great brotherhood of freedom-loving peoples. It must now be wholly clear that if a new world order based upon freedom is to assume some definite shape, this can only be effected through the leadership of the British Commonwealth of Nations and the United States of America working in wholehearted cooperation toward this great end. (Cheers.) On such a foundation of unity of purpose and effort, all free peoples may well hope to build an enduring new world order.

A new heaven and a new earth--are not these, in very truth, what we seek to-day? A heaven to which men and women and little children no longer will look in fear, but where they may gaze again in silent worship and in thankfulness for the benediction of the sun and the rain; an earth no longer scarred by warfare and torn by greed, but where the lowly and the humble of all races may work in ways of pleasantness and walk in paths of peace.

And the sea no longer will be the scene of conflict, nor harbour any menace; it, too, will gladden the hearts of men as it unites, in friendly intercourse, the nations of the world.

Then...shall all men's good
Be each man's rule, and universal Peace
Lie like a shaft of light across the land.
And like a lane of beams athwart the sea,
Thro' all the circle of the golden year."

This new heaven, this new earth, is the vision which, at this time of war, unites, inspires, and guides Britain, Canada, and other nations of the British Commonwealth, the United States, and our Allies in all parts of the world. No lesser vision will suffice to gain the victory. No lesser service to humanity will hold the faith and win the gratitude of mankind. (Loud cheers.) The Times, September 5, 1941, pp. 5-6.

The poem from which Mr. King quoted is The Golden Year by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

It may seem shocking to readers in 2011 that a Prime Minister of Canada (especially one from the Liberal Party) would publicly state that Canada was fighting a war for "democratic and Christian ideals," but such a comment was considered to be stating an obvious truth; and the "Christian ideals" that Mr. King had in mind had nothing to do with current Liberal/Trudeaupian "ideals" such as abortion on demand, sodomite "rights," or official multiculturalism. If any Canadian politician now were to positively invoke Christianity, his political and media opponents would be calling for his removal from office. Mr. King's invocation of "Christian ideals" stands in stark contrast to the behaviour of another Liberal Prime Minister, Jean Chretien (whose name, ironically, means "Christian"), 60 years later, when his office ordered that the name of Jesus Christ was not to be mentioned at the 9/11 memorial service--although no such restrictions were imposed on clergy from other faiths. And in contrast to the United States, which held a day of prayer, Trudeaupia (formerly Canada) just observed a day of mourning, with a completely atheistic public ceremony.

The reader will note that when Mr. King quoted the passage on the new heaven and the new Earth, it was in the context of a kingdom brought about by human effort. Mr. King's invocation of such a kingdom is similar to that of the Emerging Church and other "deeds, not creeds" religious liberals today. Revelation 21:2 clearly states that the new heaven and new Earth come down from God out of heaven, nor from man on Earth.

"Second verse, same as the first:" More Social Gospel at a Christian and Missionary Alliance assembly

Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven.
Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.
But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth:
That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly. Matthew 6:1-4

Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.
Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?
And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity. Matthew 7:21-23

Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God?
Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent. John 6:28-29

One of the most insidious trends in evangelicalism in recent years has been the increasing emphasis on Christianity being defined in terms of actions rather than doctrine. In 1980 the World Council of Churches, already hopelessly apostate, defined the Kingdom of God as a social and political kingdom brought in by human effort. Fundamentalist and evangelical churches, if they were paying attention, rejected this view of the Kingdom of God, but three decades later, the evangelical churches are in about the same position that the mainline churches were earlier, and the idea that man will bring in the Kingdom of God is rapidly increasing in popularity in so-called evangelical churches.

Two years ago I posted about the assembly of the Canadian Pacific District of the Christian and Missionary Alliance in Langley, British Columbia, where Erwin McManus was the guest speaker and the social gospel and postmodernism was promoted. I don’t care to repeat what I said in my previous post (because it’s easier to provide a link), but it’s as relevant today as it was then. Two years later, it’s time for the next assembly of the C&MA’s Canadian Pacific District, and nothing has changed except for the guest speaker.

From the site of the Christian & Missionary Alliance Canadian Pacific District:

SENT
"Empowering and Multiplying Missional Communities"
The biennial District Conference and AGM is coming up on May 17-19, 2011!
Registration is starting for your church to send delegates!

The conference will be held in the Lower Mainland at the Langley Events Centre and at Mountainview Alliance Church.

Cost: $175/delegate
This price includes lunch and dinner on Wednesday, all sessions with our speaker and materials, as well as lunch following the AGM.

Our Guest Speaker: Hugh Halter

This year, Hugh Halter, co-author of The Tangible Kingdom will be speaking to us. His newest book "AND" speaks about what it looks like to be the Church gathered and the Church scattered. Along with being a speaker and author, Hugh is a pastor in Denver to a community called Adullam. We are looking forward to having him join us during our District Conference!

As for Hugh Halter, I don't know who he is, but I do know this...I found the following on the home page of Adullam Communities:

Adullam communities are about the transformation of individual lives, local neighborhoods, and ultimately the world. What do we mean by transformation? We believe God exists as the primary protagonist in the unfolding story of creation. Transformation is simply what describes the journey of changing our roles in the story, going from antagonists-driven mostly by personal gain- toward joining a collaborative mission of redemption as God’s fellow protagonists. In doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly together in community we believe that what’s been broken in our lives, our communities…our world, has a chance at redemption.

While we are unashamedly a community of Jesus followers we believe that transformation isn’t about going to church. Actually, in most of our experiences simply "doing church" has often been a major distraction for people, both saint and sojourner, who want to relate to God and live out the Kingdom life. When Jesus spoke of the Kingdom we believe it was an invitation to not only dream of a better world to come, but an invitation to start leaning into and living out of that new world in the here and now.

The Emergingese jargon in this passage may prompt the reader to search for an online translator, but I’ll try to render it in English in one sentence: The Kingdom of God is brought in by human effort. Check out Mr. Halter’s blog, and you’ll find scarcely a mention of the cross of Jesus Christ, and I didn’t see any mention there of His return. The true gospel is a message about what God has done, i.e., sending His only begotten Son to die on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins. As the passage in John 6 cited above says, the work of God is just to believe on the One whom He has sent. The "social gospel," which is not really a gospel at all (see Galatians 1:6-7), emphasizes what man does and must do rather than what God has done for us. Go here for more on The Tangible Kingdom and the movement behind it.

As for the idea that man can usher in the Kingdom of God, I can’t top the words of Malcolm Muggeridge:

To proclaim a kingdom of heaven on earth, on the other hand, is both deceptive and intrinsically absurd. The maintenance of such a notion requires mental gymnastics so extreme and so strenuous that they usually produce dementia.

--from Backward, Christian soldiers!, an essay from Mr. Muggeridge's book Tread Softly, for You Tread on My Jokes, 1966

Social Gospel and postmodern heresy at a Christian and Missionary Alliance assembly

More Books and Things has a post about Erwin McManus being invited to address the biennial assembly of the Canadian Pacific District of the Christian and Missionary Alliance in Langley, British Columbia on May 19-21, 2009. My views on Mr. McManus’s book The Barbarian Way have already been posted. As a Christian and as a member of a C&MA church in the neighbouring province of Alberta, I was not only disturbed by the invitation to Mr. McManus, but also by what I saw when I clicked on links at the assembly website. Some examples are found below.

"Missional" and "transformation" are currently popular buzzwords in the emerging and dominionist camps. "Missional" is a particularly popular word with postmodernists. Like postmodernism itself, which denies that words have objective meanings, "missional" seems to mean (a la Humpty Dumpty in Alice in Wonderland) whatever its users want it to mean. As far as I can tell, "missional" is largely used as a code word for those of like mind to be able to identify one another. "Transformation" and its derivatives aren’t used in the sense of Romans 12:2 (...be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind...), but in the sense of transforming society and the world. These are 21st Century terms for the old 20th Century social gospel heresy of man bringing in the Kingdom of God on earth. For those who want to research these terms and topics further, I particularly recommend Lighthouse Trails Research Project; Herescope; and Kjos Ministries.

Sustainable… Missional…Church… Movement…
The 2009 District Conference
"Living Out - Bringing God's Kingdom into our Communities"

We believe in encouraging an environment that empowers the family of churches in the Canadian Pacific District to be a missional movement where God given dreams, visions and passions can be unleashed with life-transforming power.

About | Mission
Evangelism Life Zone

BIOMES : Environmental Transformational Plan

A 'biome' is a life zone, or a region, where special kinds of plants and animals live in a special climate. A biome is made up of unique environmental factors that sustain a particular type of organic life. The language of ecology can be used to express spiritual realities. For our context, biomes are spiritual life zones.

Our objective was to identify strategic life zones and creatively influence the environmental factors surrounding those life zones to stimulate missional transformation.

Just imagine an evangelistic environment where . . .
1. Believers in local churches are missionary to their core, engaging with their community to discover what people need and how they can meet those needs.
2. The local church is seen by the unchurched as a vital part of the health and hope of a community.
3. Each local church identifies its parish and uncovers opportunities to minister kindness and compassion to the marginalized and least reached.

"How about that!," as Mel Allen would say--"Biomes," "spiritual life zones," and "missional transformation" all thrown together. It reads like the bafflegab that the New Age Movement has been serving up for the last 25-30 years. "Biome" is a word I haven’t heard before, but I won’t be surprised to see it catch on in evangelical circles. Note too, that the word is lifted from its proper context of the physical environment and applied to the spiritual environment.

Take the word "church" out of the three points above and substitute "community social service organization" or some such phrase, and the meaning would be the same. The presence and direction of God isn’t necessary for these things to take place; man can accomplish this just by employing the proper paradigm, strategy, and research. It might be pointed out that the church in the book of Acts didn’t bother doing this kind of research. In Acts 11:27-30 we read that a prophet named Agabus came from Jerusalem to Antioch and predicted through the Holy Spirit that a severe famine would spread throughout the entire Roman world. The disciples there provided help for their fellow Christians in Judea, sending their gift by the hands of Barnabas and Paul. There’s no evidence that they let their community know of the coming famine, or provided for their "felt needs." This was when the church was under the leadership of the Apostles, men commissioned directly by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.

Ministries | Global Ministries
Global Connecting for World Transformations

Our main purpose is to resource and network Churches, Missions Teams, and Missions Commitees and help in the building of a roadmap for the reinvention of church-based missions.

Ah yes, "reinvention." Why is it that in the new "paradigm shift" everything must change right now? It sounds like the old Hegelian dialectic at work: thesis + antithesis = synthesis. It helps the process along to bring in a lot of changes at once--you may be successful at neutralizing potential opposition by keeping people off balance in this way.

Ministries | Church Effectiveness | Church Conflict Assessment & Resolution

It is not enough to just work through a present conflict but we must help our churches develop a clear pathway to exercise biblical peace-making as part of their spiritual DNA.

An interesting and informative article on the term "spiritual DNA" and its connection with the New Apostolic Reformation has recently been posted at Deception Bytes.

Ambrose University College and "Transformation"

And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. Romans 12:2

Romans 12:2 refers to the sanctification of the individual believer in Jesus Christ; believers are to adjust their thinking to that of God, which will in turn affect their conduct, leading them to become more like Christ. This has nothing to do with the way the word "transform" and its derivatives are being used in evangelicalism today. When I heard such words in the 1980s, they usually came from New Agers who were talking about the way they wanted to see society and the world changed. I’ve noticed an increasing use of such terminology in evangelicalism in recent years.

According to Lynn and Sarah Leslie in their article What is Transformation?:

When evangelicals hear the phrase "church transformation" they may think of the paradigm shift in liturgy, worship styles, music, mega-churches, etc. In reality, "transformation" is substantial and deep, intent on re-forging the very foundations of Protestantism, western civilization, and ultimately the governance of the entire earth. While lip service is being paid to the traditional definitions you read about above, in reality the word "transformation" now indicates a societal, cultural and global revolution.

For an example of this, look at the Ambrose University College Report to Donors 2007-2008. The title is "Transforming Students to Transform the World." On page 2 we read:

At Ambrose University College, we strive to give our students an educational experience that is truly transformational. It is our expectation that upon graduation they will in turn find places of service and leadership through which to transform our churches and society. A transforming vision is a trust given to us by our stakeholders. This report is our accountability to those who entrust us with the finances to accomplish this great task.

(emphasis added)

Sections of the report are titled: Transforming through Scholarship; Transforming Cross-Culturally; Transforming the Church; Transforming the Community; A Place for Transformation (emphasis added). I counted 16 mentions of "transform" and its derivatives of the report. In addition to the Leslie article cited above, the reader is invited to go to Lighthouse Trails Research Project and search the site using the terms "transform" or "transformation."