It's very late and I am not sure that I read Peter Wharton's post with all
of the attention it deserves. However, IMO, Peter has provided one of the
best descriptions of how the Christian faith can be seen as a message of
total development.
Backing away, now, from a strictly Christian frame of reference, I am left
with a burning question that is probably the core of this thread, at least
at its beginning.
How can we introduce (and induce) a similar level of feeling into the
workplace? Into community organizations? Into social organizations?
It seems to me that a necessary ingredient in the ultimate success of any
group-based structure is a deep abiding faith in the future of that
structure. We have seen time and again that organizations which start out
based on a blueprint for how things SHOULD function, and which cling to
that blueprint blindly ahnd to the exclusion of all else, ultimately fail
because they are unable to adapt to changing environments and contexts.
To be able to adapt to changing conditions requires that the participants
or membership give up their image of themselves as individuals and as a
group and allow something else emerge. What allows this to happen is
faith in the founding principles of the group and trust that what develops
will still be in line with those principles.
A great many people who want to tell others what to do these days seem to
have the answer and it looks an awful lot like traditional Christian
language. In a diverse workforce and society, how can we achieve this
without specifically trying to impose Christianity upon everyone?
I guess the question I am trying to ask is, "how can we separate the basic
tenets of growth and development (such as are embodied in Christianity,
Judaism, Buddhism, Islam, etc.) from the political qualities that
characterize each of those particular schools? Further, how can we apply
those tenets in the social context and still allow (and encourage?) the
natural diversity that is so necessary for survival of any society or
group?
--Clyde Howell orgpsych@csra.net
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>