Transformed Imaginaries: Networked Integral Mission

James Padilla-Deborst

doi:10.20944/preprints202501.0955.v1

Submitted:

12 January 2025

Posted:

13 January 2025

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Abstract

The church talks a great deal about transformation but often seems unsure about what precisely its end goal should look like. In imagining a new order, God’s kingdom come, it is sometimes rather vague about how it might get there. Our unequal world is still crying out for good news, for the church to fulfill its calling. Imagination is key to our ability as a church to hear and understand scripture and live out the gospel – but how do we examine and interrogate it? This article proposes that a sociotechnical imaginary can be a useful paradigm in our efforts to understand imagination and embody its imaginings. It will also set out a situated understanding of transformation as a method of integral mission with radically different implications for the privileged and the oppressed and offer a possible vision of a gospel-imagined end state towards which we might direct our course.

Keywords:

Missiology

;

theological imagination

;

socio-technical imaginary

;

integral mission

;

marginality

Subject:

Social Sciences - Religion

Introduction: Clouded Vision?

Many Christians will attest to the fact that the church cannot even begin to agree on which gospel we preach, which transformation we seek. This is certainly what we have come to realize at INFEMIT, the International Fellowship for Mission as Transformation¹, as we seek to advance holistic, contextual mission theology.

Which Kingdom should come? Putin’s Russian Orthodox empire? Trump’s Christian Nationalist dictatorship? Calvin’s Geneva?² Spain’s cross and sword? Or will the Kingdom include all, as Bartolomé de las Casas desired ³? Should we live quietly as pacifist Mennonites or join Thomas Müntzer’s “murderous, thieving hordes of peasants”⁴? Will we be martyred with Oscar Romero’s base communities in El Salvador⁵? Or enriched by Cash Luna’s prosperity gospel in Guatemala⁶? Should we dedicate ourselves to Lausanne managerial multiplication⁷? Or simply await the rapture?

Often, the world is much clearer regarding what it imagines, what it longs for, what it would transform. Its ‘gospel’ of growth is powerful⁸. When INFEMIT was starting to assemble in the 1980s, market neo-imperialism was becoming ascendent in prescribing growth as the answer⁹, while state communism was struggling on as a fading counter-imaginary. In earlier secular imaginaries of that day, our nation-states would be transformed by revolutionaries, state bureaucrats, foreign capitalists or international development technicians. Or, as one gospel imaginary of the day had it¹⁰, homogenous units of unsaved peoples would assent to a disembodied personal salvation, multiply across the world, and float up to heaven singing about Jesus.¹¹

But despite Che Guevara’s best efforts¹², the revolución valió verga, as a Salvadoran guerrilla comandante told me one day at my favorite bar. (State communism wasn’t so grand, to put it more delicately.) And it is hard to do Scandinavian socialism without recourse to the spoils of empire. Not even economist John Maynard Keynes and the International Monetary Fund¹³ could help the “rest to catch up with the West”¹⁴, not while they were paying back the World Bank’s usurious loans, and the World Trade Organization was organizing the world trade game. And while the western missionaries and their acolytes may have converted the majority in a few nations to their personal prosperity gospel¹⁵, the Kingdom still has not come.

In its attempt to bring gospel answers to a post- (or perma-) colonial context desperate for good news, INFEMIT came up with transformation¹⁶ and integral mission¹⁷ as its imaginary. These were decent responses, but perhaps our imagination did not go far enough. As a group that pioneered contextual theology, we not only did not see the forest for the trees, but we lost the broader eco-system for our forests. Our emphasis on context left us to focus on community and nation, while overlooking the fact that imperial structures laid our neighborhoods low, polluted our lands and withered our theologies.¹⁸

We took up the transformation of our communities and nations while still working within a world-system¹⁹ that binds and blinds our imaginaries. While we valiantly struggled to transform, the world-system continued to innovate on colonization, especially the colonization of our imaginaries.²⁰ We may play the ‘beautiful game’ on our dusty streets with barely a ball, but our best players leave, to play far away in beautiful stadiums, FIFA tournaments and on the big screens of our crowded bars. At the very least we failed to see how differently transformation plays out for the penitent thief and the pious billionaire²¹.

For too many of us, transformation through integral mission became synonymous with transformational development.²² Yet, no matter how long you have been walking with the poor²³ in the bottom of a spent and exhausted South African gold mine, it is extremely difficult for those same ‘poor’ to pull off self-sustainable, transformational development in emptied mine pits puddling full of the strange new rains. Unless, that is, the rich young rulers of the North and the tax-collecting Zacchaeuses of the South return some of the gold. Unless the land is redeemed. Unless debts are forgiven, and reparations paid.

I suspect we became satisfied when our best and brightest got jobs with NGOs such as World Vision and Compassion and did integral mission on our behalf²⁴, when our academics got tenure at prestigious universities, when our children bought new cars, and our grandkids learned English at private schools. Our nephews and nieces sent us pictures from the US and the UK, and we beamed with pride. Our leaders told us to read theologians such as Padilla and Escobar, Bediako and Maggay, but those same leaders lacked the boldness of their forebears in daring to ask and attempt to answer the tough questions of our day. Without knowing it, we began to live an American dream rather than a gospel imaginary. We got credit cards and loans for our own cars, even if they were Korean and not Chevrolets. We ate hamburgers and apple pie. We read the old books, patted ourselves on the back and flew off to international conferences. I’m the first to admit that the humble daily embodiment of misión integral out of the spotlight, of washing dishes at my community home, Casa Adobe in Costa Rica²⁵, is far from exciting.

These imaginaries are powerful and seductive. It is easy to forget the imaginaries written by the author of our Lord’s prayer, a common daily guide for how to pray and how to live²⁶ out that prayer as real, embodied communities in local neighborhoods. We will return to the Lord’s Prayer and consider other elements of a gospel imaginary later, but I want first to frame this exploration using what I consider a useful paradigm: the sociotechnical imaginary.

The Sociotechnical Imaginary

Sheila Jasanoff and Sang-Hyun Kim introduced the concept of sociotechnical imaginaries to explore how societies envision and shape futures through science and technology²⁷. But it is a useful framework for this discussion too. It combines imaginative, futuristic, if you will, Kingdom, elements with the very concrete and technical, while simultaneously highlighting the social and communal aspect of any kind of imaginary, in other words the people at its heart.

In the sociotechnical imaginary, the imaginary is the vision of the architect; it is a vision for the project. It requires a process to be achieved, but without a clear vision no one knows where to start or where to head. The technical is more like the building: the beams, the columns, the walls, the floors, whether it's got indoor plumbing or electricity. What will our construction materials be: adobe, brick, or block? Will the house have a jacuzzi and a trash compactor, or will we all be sleeping in one room in front of the TV? Where are we getting the money for this build? The state? The bank? Habitat for Humanity? Mom and Dad? Or our own blood, sweat and tears?

The social is who builds this building and how. Do we hire a renowned builder, a master craftsman, specialist plumbers and electricians to make our dream home? Are we pumping out a hundred McMansions in an affluent suburb of Sydney or thousands of small tract houses in a working-class barrio in Bolivia? Are we piecing together cardboard and rusty discarded zinc roofing on someone else’s land? Or are we raising a home together with family, friends and community in our ancestral lands?

Of course, when we step out into the world, we aren't like a newlywed couple from a Hollywood movie, with a beautiful pristine lot and all the cash to build our dream house. We aren't building even just houses, but entire neighborhoods. And in most cases, the houses and the neighborhoods are already long established. While we long for clean slates and simple utopias, whether we find ourselves in the barrio or the boardroom, we always face complex current conditions and complicated histories.

Jasanoff and Kim explain how they see the promise of the sociotechnical imaginaries paradigm thus:

what makes the careful study of imaginaries rewarding is that one is forced to look at the stylized moves through which collective mindfulness is trained, moves that may (…) endow social actors with some forms of prescient vision, even with the capacity to move mountains, while rendering them oblivious to alternate forms of organization, order, and justice. An inquiry into sociotechnical imaginaries allows at its best a deep meditation on the basis of a technological society’s particular forms of sightedness and blindness, and the trade-offs that inevitably accompany attempts to build a shared normative order²⁸.

How then might we set our imaginations free and “move mountains’?

A Gospel Sociotechnical Imaginary?

I would like next to try and unravel that complex history, all the varied socioeconomic conditions of our unequal world, by applying the sociotechnical imaginary lens to the Lord’s Prayer²⁹. In rereading this prayer, we ask: Whose vision is it? What are we building? And who are the builders and how will it be built?

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come,

Who is the architect? The answer is simple, but we sometimes need reminding of it: it is God the Father’s vision we are attempting to live out. And what is the architect building? The Kingdom (or Kin-dom) of God, including within it every neighborhood and nation, with every emperor on bended knee. And when will it come? Rest assured, it will arrive and we long for it now.

your will be done,

on earth as it is in heaven.

Again, whose will are we talking about? Our heavenly Father’s will, not the state’s, nor the market’s, not the NGO’s nor the revolutionary’s. And where will it be done? On earth, and in the “new heavens and a new earth”³⁰.

Give us today our daily bread.

Which rituals, techniques and memories shall we use to live our lives and build this vision? This is not a Big Mac, collected in a drive-thru in our Big Truck. This is rice and beans, arepas or tortillas, remembering Jesus’ body broken and his blood spilled for us. And how much do we need? Just enough, nothing more.

And forgive us our debts,

as we also have

forgiven our debtors.

Our debts are our sins and trespasses. Will we forgive our debtors, redeem the enslaved,

restore ancestral lands, release the captives?

And lead us not into temptation,

but deliver us from the evil one.

Can we be free from the world’s alluring shiny imaginaries, from idolizing, enslaving visions?

Finally, who is praying this prayer, building this vision, that Christ taught us? It is us, not an individual me. It is a community of missionary disciples³¹, made up of woman and man, wealthy and poor, slave and free, native and foreign-born, clean and unclean, barren and fertile. It is the church, the bride of Christ.³²

The Bible is clear that God’s plan was for the local church to be that “agent of transformation”³³, capable of effecting world system change. As Stephen Bevans puts it:

“the church is God’s pilgrim people, called and gathered together by the Spirit in all its diversity, in faith in the risen Christ, in order to embody, demonstrate and proclaim the reign of God, which it believes was inaugurated in and through Jesus, whose mission it shares and continues both within the church and within the world³⁴.

Do we dare to be that church? The local church, networked and global³⁵, pursuing not growth and development, but being content with enough and ensuring everyone has enough.³⁶ Will we seek not only the process of transformation but the end state of shalom? Will we embrace peace and justice as we seek change? Will we take up the cross, recognizing that often helping does hurt³⁷?

Can we rebuild faith in that kind of local church again³⁸, as we look forward to our granddaughters’ churches, not backward to our grandfather’s church? Or will we sit and wait for the North to finance our NGOs, for the high priests of the economic system to bring down foreign capital investment? Will we huddle in timid churches singing the same songs, paralyzed by fear of the new questions our young people ask?

Could we imagine rising up in our doubt and despair, in our weariness and our weakness, in our dependence on none other than our risen Lord, and respond to the voice of one calling:

“In the wilderness prepare the way for the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level the rugged places a plain. And the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all people will see it together. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.³⁹”

Conclusions

As we have seen, we have attempted to transform our communities and nations while blinded to the fact our imaginations are bound by our world-system. In other words, the North has been our norte, not the southern Cross. This is why, as we all set our compasses to the magnetic North, we see caravans of Americano Dreamers trudging through the Darién Gap⁴⁰, and being bussed straight through the land of Caña Dulce⁴¹. This is why we get flotillas of Africans, Arabs and Asians risking their lives to wash up on western shores. All the while, we ship our translated theologies south to save us from ourselves⁴².

We need instead to set our course for levelment, for Ubuntu⁴³, Sumak Kawsay⁴⁴ or Shalom, we will need to use our own stars like our aboriginal Australian kin. We need a bold world-transformative Christianity⁴⁵ seeking shalom, and the reconciliation of all things. We need a networked, global, local church. Our task is not tumbling towers with fundamentalist fury, or pulling down the columns like a blinded Samson.⁴⁶ It is certainly not to “make low” the mountains with strip mines, to fill our cathedrals with gold or fill our smartphones with Africa’s cobalt⁴⁷. No longer must we “raise up” the valleys with trash dumps loaded with our Styrofoam coffee cups.

When we dare to live according to a gospel imaginary, we will make straight the path for our Servant King and the least of us who follow him.⁴⁸ Together, our peoples, our ecclesia, will cross a Jordan that is not choked with pollution and plastic. Then, an angel will show us “the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb, down the middle of the great street of the city”⁴⁹. There, all our nations, all our assemblies, with all our many contextual visions of a leveled, righted world⁵⁰, will finally end our long pilgrimages of transformation. There, we will sing in harmony our many songs, we will feast on our rich cuisines. Our children will play with lions and lambs, snakes and sloths, and we will rise up strong like eagles and celebrate God’s good creation.⁵¹

Notes

1	For more on INFEMIT, see: https://infemit.org
2	Ioan-Gheorghe Rotaru, Sabatarienii în contextul vieţii transilvane: (sec. XVI-XX) (The Sabbatarians in the context of Transylvanian life: (16th-20th centuries)), vol. I., Cluj-Napoca, Risoprint, 2014, pp.32-34.
3	De las Casas, a Dominican friar and former conquistador, was an outspoken critic of Spanish colonial government in the Americas of the 16^th century.
4	This was Martin Luther’s phrase, in a piece condemning the German Peasants’ War of 1524–25, which Müntzer, a radical reforming preacher, supported.
5	Many of the Christian Base Communities, pursuing God and social reform in El Salvador, were annihilated by the right-wing dictatorship also suspected of assassinating its outspoken critic Romero, Archbishop of San Salvador, in 1980.
6	Cash Luna is a preacher of the prosperity gospel, with a megachurch and private neighborhood for parishioners.
7	The Lausanne Movement (https://lausanne.org) often proposes highly managerial strategies to accelerate church growth and evangelization.
8	Spending on advertising in the US is predicted to rise to USD 360 billion in 2024, according to some analysts. See, for example: https://www.forbes.com/sites/bethannkaminkow/2024/04/21/as-ad-spend-rises-marketing-budgets-switch-to-commerce/ (Retrieved October 11, 2024)
9	See Fukuyama, Francis, “The End of History”, The National Interest (Summer 1989), pp.3-18.
10	To caricature some mission strategies, such as that of Ralph Winter.
11	Ioan-Gheorghe Rotaru, “Trăieşte şi tu după modelul lui Iisus Hristos !” (Live in the model of Jesus Christ), Argeşul ortodox (The Orthodox Argeş), XI, 2012, nr.562, p.5; See also: Ioan-Gheorghe Rotaru, “The Reason for having a Devotional Life in a Secularized World”, în Pastorație și Misiune în Diaspora. Lucrările Simpozionului Internațional de Știință, Teologie și Artă (International Symposium on Science, Theology and Arts - ISSTA 2021), Himcinschi, Mihai; Onișor, Remus (eds.), ediția a XX-a, vol. I, Alba Iulia, Editura Reîntregirea, 2021, pp.135-152;
12	Guevara was a revolutionary leader who fought for Marxist revolution in Latin America and Africa.
13	Keynes advocated for increased government expenditure and lower taxes to stimulate demand and the global economy. He is considered the intellectual founding father of the IMF (www.imf.org) and the World Bank (www.worldbank.org), and a key figure in the development of the World Trade Organization (www.wto.org).
14	A phrase often used in development paradigms.
15	Guatemala, for example, may have achieved a Protestant majority but more than half of its population lives in poverty: https://www.christiandaily.com/news/christian-leaders-raise-voices-as-half-of-guatemala-in-poverty.html.
16	Tizon, Al., Transformation after Lausanne: Radical Evangelical Mission in Global-Local Perspective, Augsburg Fortress Publishers, 2008.
17	Padilla, René, Mission Between the Times: Essays on the Kingdom, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Michigan, Grand Rapids, 1985.
18	For examples of critical assessment of context, see Măcelaru, Marcel, „Naming the Issue in Contemporary Contexts – Part 4: Eastern Europe”, in M. Greene and I. Shaw (eds), Whole-Life Mission for the Whole Church, ICETE Series, Carlisle, Langham Global Library, 2021, pp. 80-84; Măcelaru, Marcel, “Witnessing Christ in Eastern Europe: An Assessment of Context”, in W. Ma (ed.), Proclaiming Christ in the Power of the Holy Spirit. In the Face of Major Challenges, Tulsa, ORU Press, 2020, pp. 375-386; Măcelaru, Marcel, “The Context of Theological Education in Eastern Europe: Past, Present, Future”, in M. Măcelaru, C. Constantineanu and R. Ganea (eds), Re-Imagining Theological Education, Cluj-Napoca, Risoprint / Bucharest, Plērōma, 2016, pp. 35-54.
19	Wallerstein, Immanuel, World-systems Analysis: An Introduction, Duke University Press, 2004.
20	For an example of the colonization of the imaginary see Beneamin Mocan, ”Not by Mitght, Nor by Power: Spirit-filled Imaginary for Peace Building in Romania”, in Transformation 39.4 (2022), pp. 263-270.
21	Despite increasing numbers of Christian billionaires involved in politics in the US, we are yet to see much advocacy for a biblical jubilee or reset laid out in Leviticus 25. We typically expect penance from the thief but readily accept personal piety from those who accumulate barn upon barn yet never practice Jubilee.
22	On the encounter between Christianity and the development imaginary, see Măcelaru, Marcel, “Theology Encounters Globalization”, European Journal of Science and Theology 10.1 (2014), pp. 67-78.
23	Myers, Bryant, L., Walking with the Poor: Principles and Practices of Transformational Development, New York, Orbis Books, 2011.
24	In my region, the church seems to have farmed out a great deal of gospel work to the NGO sector.
25	For more about Casa Adobe, see: https://casaadobe.org/index.php/en/association#our-journey
26	Ioan-Gheorghe Rotaru, “Plea for Human Dignity”, Scientia Moralitas. Human Dignity - A Contemporary Perspectives, The Scientia Moralitas Research Institute, Beltsville, MD, United States of America, 2016, 1, pp. 29-43; See also: Ioan-Gheorghe Rotaru, “Natura și scopul Legii Morale a celor sfinte Zece Porunci” ("The Nature and Purpose of the Moral Law of the Holy Ten Commandments"), Păstorul ortodox, Curtea de Argeş, Editura Arhiepiscopiei Argeşului şi Muscelului, 2015, pp. 318-322.
27	Jasanoff, Sheila and Sang-Hyun, Kim (Eds.), Dreamscapes of Modernity: Sociotechnical Imaginaries and the Fabrication of Power, University of Chicago, 2015. See also: Smith, J.K., How (Not) to Be Secular: Reading Charles Taylor, Eerdmans, 2014.
28	Jasanoff and Kim (2015).
29	Matthew 6:9-13. For the connection between the Bible and mission, see Măcelaru, Marcel, „The Bible, Christian Existence and Mission”, in C. Constantineanu, M. Măcelaru, A.-M. Kool and M. Himcinschi (eds), Mission in Central and Eastern Europe. Realities, Perspectives, Trends, Regnum Edinburgh Centenary Series 34, Oxford, Regnum, 2016, pp. 67-83.
30	As prophesied in Isaiah 65:17 and Revelation 21:1.
31	Pope Francis talked of the church as a “community of disciples” in his address to CELAM (the Latin American Episcopal Council) in 2022: https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2022-07/pope-francis-letter-celam-inauguration-plenary-assembly.html#:~:text=With%20this%20in%20mind%2C%20the,of%20his%20Holy%20Spirit%2C%20so..
32	Ioan-Gheorghe Rotaru, “Biserica lui Dumnezeu, sursa unui Râu al Vieţii şi al Vindecării” ("The Church of God, Source of a River of Life and Healing"), Argeşul orthodox, 2012, XI, nr.564.
33	Padilla, C. René and Yamamori, Tetsunao (eds.), The Local Church, Agent of Transformation: An Ecclesiology for Integral Mission, Buenos Aires, Ediciones Kairos, 2004; Ioan-Gheorghe Rotaru, “Trăieşte şi tu după modelul lui Iisus Hristos !”, Argeşul orthodox, XI, 2012, nr.562, p.5.
34	Bevans, Stephen, Community Of Missionary Disciples: The Continuing Creation of the Church, American Society of Missiology Series, Orbis Books, 2024.
35	Ioan-Gheorghe Rotaru, “Globalization and its effect on religion”, in Jurnalul Libertății de Conștiință (Journal for Freedom of Conscience), Mihnea Costoiu, Liviu-Bogdan Ciucă, Nelu Burcea (eds.), Les Arcs, France, Iarsic, vol.1, nr. 1, 2014, pp.532-541.
36	Such a vision of human flourishing and common good is well expressed by Marcel Măcelaru in several of his writings. See Măcelaru, Marcel, “Bunăstarea umană și binele comun”, in C. Constantineanu, M. Măcelaru and I. Riviș-Tipei (eds), Pentru binele comun: Realități și perspective ale colaborării dintre ONG-uri, comunități creștine și autoritățile locale, Arad, Editura Universității “Aurel Vlaicu”, 2019, pp. 31-40; Măcelaru, Marcel, “Truth, Justice, Uprightness: Human Flourishing in Prophetic Perspective”, in R. Petkovšek and B. Žalec (eds), Truth and Compassion: Lessons from the Past and Premonitions of the Future, Theologie Ost–West: Europäische Perspektiven 20, Berlin, LIT Verlag, 2017, pp. 49-56; Măcelaru, Marcel, “Bunăstarea umană – o perspectivă biblică”, în C. Constantineanu, M. Handaric, I. Riviș-Tipei and M. Demean-Dumulesc (eds), Poporul lui Dumnezeu și societatea, Arad, Editura Universității “Aurel Vlaicu”, 2016, pp. 13-19; Măcelaru, Marcel, “Entering the Sabbath of Life: Theological Musings on Gerassapience”, Theologica Wratislaviensia 10 (2015), pp. 109-115; Măcelaru, Marcel, “Human Flourishing – A Theological Perspective”, in G. Rață and P. Runcan (eds), Happiness Through Education, Puterea de a fi altfel 1, Bucharest, Editura Didactică și Pedagogică, 2014, pp. 233-236.
37	Corbett, Stephen C and Fikkert, Brian, When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poo and Yourself, Chicago, IL, Moody Publishers, 2012.
38	Ioan-Gheorghe Rotaru, “Misiunea Bisericii în societate” ("Mission of the Church in Society"), Timotheus – Incursiuni Teologice Tematice 4 (2), 2017, pp. 57-76.
39	Isaiah 40:3-5.
40	A 60-mile stretch of rainforest straddling the border between Colombia and Panama, now a major route for people trafficking.
41	A reference to a Costa Rican folk song ‘Sugar cane’ which envisions “Then I’ll have my little house,/ my cornfield, and good oxen./ Then I’ll be like those kings/ who don’t envy any little thing.”
42	The Gospel Coalition uses the term “theological famine relief” to describe how it sends Christian literature overseas.
43	Ubuntu is a Bantu African philosophy which emphasizes our interconnectedness with others and the world around them, sometimes summarized as: “I am because we are.”
44	Sumak Kawsay “embraces the ancestral, communitarian knowledge and lifestyle of Quechua people” (Wikipedia, retrieved October 11, 2024) in Ecuador and Bolivia, sometimes translated as “the plentiful life”.
45	Wolterstorff, Nicholas, Until Justice and Peace Embrace, Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 1983.
46	Judges 16: 25-30.
47	Amnesty International has reported “grievous human rights abuses” linked to the mining of cobalt and copper: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/09/drc-cobalt-and-copper-mining-for-batteries-leading-to-human-rights-abuses/ Retrieved October 10, 2024.
48	For a similar transformative imaginary and its consequences, based on Psalm 72, see Măcelaru, Marcel, “‘Until the moon is no more’: Psalm 72 as Political Imaginary”, in K.E. Southwood and H. Morse (eds), Psalms and the Use of the Critical Imagination: Essays in Honour of Professor Susan Gillingham, LHBOTS 710, London, T&T Clark, 2022, pp. 118-137.
49	Revelation 22: 1-2.
50	Ioan-Gheorghe Rotaru, “Aspects of Biblical Philosophy on the Development of World Civilizations”, Scientia Moralitas. International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research 8 (2023), nr.1, pp. 62-79; See also: Ioan-Gheorghe Rotaru, Om-Demnitate-Libertate (Man-Dignity-Freedom), Cluj-Napoca, Editura Risoprint, 2019, pp. 201-215.
51	The isaianic vision of transformation world applies to theological and ecclesial realities, as well. On this, see Măcelaru, Marcel, “‘A little child shall lead them’: On Re-Imagining the Seminary”, in M. Măcelaru, C. Constantineanu and R. Ganea (eds), Re-Imagining Theological Education, Cluj-Napoca, Risoprint / Bucharest, Plērōma, 2016, pp. 131-146.

References

BEVANS, Stephen, Community Of Missionary Disciples: The Continuing Creation of the Church, American Society of Missiology Series, Orbis Books, 2024.
CORBETT, Stephen C and FIKKERT, Brian, When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poo and Yourself, Chicago, IL, Moody Publishers, 2012.
FUKUYAMA, Francis, “The End of History”, The National Interest (Summer 1989), pp. 3-18.
JASANOFF, Sheila and Sang-Hyun, Kim (Eds.), Dreamscapes of Modernity: Sociotechnical Imaginaries and the Fabrication of Power, University of Chicago, 2015.
MĂCELARU, Marcel, “‘A little child shall lead them’: On Re-Imagining the Seminary”, in M. Măcelaru, C. Constantineanu and R. Ganea (eds), Re-Imagining Theological Education, Cluj-Napoca, Risoprint / Bucharest, Plērōma, 2016, pp. 131-146.
MĂCELARU, Marcel, “Bunăstarea umană – o perspectivă biblică”, in C. Constantineanu, M. Handaric, I. Riviș-Tipei and M. Demean-Dumulesc (eds), Poporul lui Dumnezeu și societatea, Arad, Editura Universității “Aurel Vlaicu”, 2016, pp. 13-19.
MĂCELARU, Marcel, “Bunăstarea umană și binele comun”, in C. Constantineanu, M. Măcelaru and I. Riviș-Tipei (eds), Pentru binele comun: Realități și perspective ale colaborării dintre ONG-uri, comunități creștine și autoritățile locale, Arad, Editura Universității “Aurel Vlaicu”, 2019, pp. 31-40.
MĂCELARU, Marcel, “Entering the Sabbath of Life: Theological Musings on Gerassapience”, Theologica Wratislaviensia 10 (2015), pp. 109-115.
MĂCELARU, Marcel, “Human Flourishing – A Theological Perspective”, in G. Rață and P. Runcan (eds), Happiness Through Education, Puterea de a fi altfel 1, Bucharest, Editura Didactică și Pedagogică, 2014, pp. 233-236.
MĂCELARU, Marcel, “Naming the Issue in Contemporary Contexts – Part 4: Eastern Europe”, in M. Greene and I. Shaw (eds), Whole-Life Mission for the Whole Church, ICETE Series, Carlisle, Langham Global Library, 2021, pp. 80-84.
MĂCELARU, Marcel, “The Bible, Christian Existence and Mission”, in C. Constantineanu, M. Măcelaru, A.-M. Kool and M. Himcinschi (eds), Mission in Central and Eastern Europe: Realities, Perspectives, Trends, Regnum Edinburgh Centenary Series 34, Oxford, Regnum, 2016, pp. 67-83.
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Amnesty International has reported “grievous human rights abuses” linked to the mining of cobalt and copper: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/09/drc-cobalt-and-copper-mining-for-batteries-leading-to-human-rights-abuses/ Retrieved October 10, 2024.
Casa Adobe: https://casaadobe.org/index.php/en/association#our-journey.
Guatemala, population lives in poverty: https://www.christiandaily.com/news/christian-leaders-raise-voices-as-half-of-guatemala-in-poverty.html.
IMF (www.imf.org) and the World Bank (www.worldbank.org), and a key figure in the development of the World Trade Organization (www.wto.org).
INFEMIT: https://infemit.org.
Pope Francis talked of the church as a “community of disciples” in his address to CELAM (the Latin American Episcopal Council) in 2022: https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2022-07/pope-francis-letter-celam-inauguration-plenary-assembly.html#:~:text=With%20this%20in%20mind%2C%20the,of%20his%20Holy%20Spirit%2C%20so.
Spending on advertising in the US is predicted to rise to USD 360 billion in 2024, according to some analysts. See, for example: https://www.forbes.com/sites/bethannkaminkow/2024/04/21/as-ad-spend-rises-marketing-budgets-switch-to-commerce/ (Retrieved October 11, 2024).
The Lausanne Movement: (https://lausanne.org).

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