This study guide is meant for individual or group use. Please use it to stimulate reflection and discussion about what you learned by reading Global Development: Charting a New Course. The following outline covers four one-hour sessions. Groups should feel free to cover a wider range of topics in the report if they choose. The scripture passages provide additional guidance in relating themes covered in each session.
Session One: Global Development and You
“From everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required; and from one to whom much has been entrusted, even more will be demanded.”
— Luke 12:48, New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)
- By reading Global Development: Charting a New Course, you should see that reducing global poverty and hunger is in everyone’s interest. How would you use what you have learned to argue this to a skeptical audience?
- Achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) will reduce poverty, hunger and disease, lower premature death rates and increase educational achievements around the world. These are all fundamental components of human development, but what is the relationship between human development and global development?
In light of the questions you just discussed, reflect on James 2:14-17.
Other Sources:
UN Millennium Campaign
The Episcopal Church
Session Two: The Looming Challenge
“The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it; for he has founded it on the seas, and established it on the rivers.”
— Psalm 24, NRSV- Global Development: Charting a New Course argues that climate change could increase hunger and poverty rates around the world. Discuss the connections between hunger and poverty and climate change. How could investments in the agricultural sector of developing countries help to mitigate the effects of climate change?
- The full effects of climate change may not manifest for several years, but how do the choices we make today contribute directly to accelerating climate change? How would you argue the moral and practical reasons for American citizens, communities, and the nation as a whole to take steps now to curb their contibutions to climate change?
» In light of the questions you just discussed, reflect on I Corinthians 15:35-44.
Other Resources:
Conservation International
Evangelical Environmental Network
Session Three: Reforming U.S. Foreign Assistance
“For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’”
— Luke 14:28-30, NRSV
- U.S. foreign policy is characterized by three “Ds”: Defense, Diplomacy and Development. Chapter 4 argues the third of these, Development, should be elevated to a more prominent role in U.S. foreign policy. How would you argue that promoting global development makes the United States more secure and decreases the risks of instability around the world?
- It may or may not be a stereotype that Americans know little, or want to know little about the rest of the world, especially when it comes to what is happening in very poor countries. But assume that Americans do want be more engaged in issues that relate to the developing world, how would you explain the potential for growth and progress in poor countries and how U.S. development assistance can and already has realized some of that potential?
» In light of the questions you just discussed, reflect on Micah 4:2-5.
Other resources:
Bread for the World
Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network
Session Four: Development in the United States
“For he delivers the needy when they call, the poor and those who have no helper. He has pity on the weak and the needy, and saves the lives of the needy. From oppression and violence he redeems their life; and precious is their blood in his sight.”
— Psalm 72, NRSV
- The United States needs a set of interrelated goals to call its own,” argues Chapter 5. Like the MDGs, development goals for the United States should cover some of the same areas, like health, education and the environment. Come up with a set of specific goals similar in scope to the MDGs for the United States, but adapt them as necessary. For example, universal primary education (MDG 2) has already been achieved in the United States, so what then would be a more appropriate education goal? Among your set of goals, which would be easier or more difficult to achieve and why?
- Just about every other industrialized country has lower poverty rates and less income inequality than the United States. Why do you figure Americans tolerate these conditions? How does Chapter 5 help to explain it?
In light of the questions you just discussed, reflect on Amos 5: 6-15.
Other resources:
Christian Churches Together
Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity
