Confronting Our Freedom is about reframing the common practices rising from traditional thinking about management and leadership. Most management theory and practice are about the need for clear constraints to succeed in the world where we work, but this now conventional thinking about managing calls for adaptation when working remotely has become common. This book is an invitation to freedom. Structuring our world for freedom is the path to collective accountability. It is ultimately a friendly look into how we might reimagine our participation in the working world, analyzing the strategy, execution, and management of philosophers, leaders, and educators.
Peter Koestenbaum and Peter Block offer you a new perspective forviewing the workplace through the lens of philosophy so that youmay have a better understanding of how to reclaim your freedom andaccountability and encourage the same in others. They provide aradical new approach to your work-a-day life that will bring truemeaning and power to your work. Freedom and Accountability at Work offers you the information youneed to: * Gain strength and meaning by transforming your thinking on howyou view anxiety, doubt, death, and guilt * Find new ways to bring spiritual and ethical values into yourworkplace * Engage in profound change that will help you overcome cynicismthat comes from superficial change * Replace your loss of organizational loyalty and safety with asense of freedom and accountability "Both Koestenbaum and Block are such passionate men who bringtogether what we all seek in our work life-meaning, insight, andhumanness. Bless them for this book." --Joyce DeShano, board chair, Ascension Health
Do You Know What Your Kids Are Thinking? You Might Be Surprised Many of us assume that this generation of young Americans is much like any othe—but the fact is they’re not. Not even close. Numerous polls show the same result on issue after issue. Frightening percentages of our kids believe that Socialism is better than the free market Christianity is judgmental, and just plain mean America is the villain of world history Family does not mean marriage Human greed is destroying the Earth And, of course, we all need the government to take care of us Columnist and author Marybeth Hicks reveals, with shocking confessions from the activists themselves, how liberals and socialists, atheists and radical environmentalists, have waged a continuous and largely successful campaign of propaganda in our schools and popular culture in an attempt to create a permanent Leftist majority that will usher in a very different America, with a new generation that expects to be dependent on the federal government. But along with the shocking revelations, Hicks shows how we can break the Left’s hypnotic spell. If we don’t, she warns, we’ll soon wake up in a nation we won’t recognize as our own.
Our seduction into beliefs in competition, scarcity, and acquisition are producing too many casualties. We need to depart a kingdom that creates isolation, polarized debate, an exhausted planet, and violence that comes with the will to empire. The abbreviation of this empire is called a consumer culture. We think the free market ideology that surrounds us is true and inevitable and represents progress. We are called to better adapt, be more agile, more lean, more schooled, more, more, more. Give it up. There is no such thing as customer satisfaction. We need a new narrative, a shift in our thinking and speaking. An Other Kingdom takes us out of a culture of addictive consumption into a place where life is ours to create together. This satisfying way depends upon a neighborly covenant—an agreement that we together, will better raise our children, be healthy, be connected, be safe, and provide a livelihood. The neighborly covenant has a different language than market-hype. It speaks instead in a sacred tongue. Authors Peter Block, Walter Brueggemann, and John McKnight invite you on a journey of departure from our consumer market culture, with its constellations of empire and control. Discover an alternative set of beliefs that have the capacity to evoke a culture where poverty, violence, and shrinking well-being are not inevitable—a culture in which the social order produces enough for all. They ask you to consider this other kingdom. To participate in this modern exodus towards a modern community. To awaken its beginnings are all around us. An Other Kingdom outlines this journey to construct a future outside the systems world of solutions.
Academic freedom is increasingly being threatened by a stifling culture of conformity in higher education that is restricting individual academics, the freedom of academic thought and the progress of knowledge – the very foundations upon which academia and universities are built. Once, scholars demanded academic freedom to critique existing knowledge and to pursue new truths. Today, while fondness for the rhetoric of academic freedom remains, it is increasingly criticised as an outdated and elitist concept by students and lecturers alike and called into question by a number of political and intellectual trends such as feminism, critical theory and identity politics. This provocative and compelling book traces the demise of academic freedom within the context of changing ideas about the purpose of the university and the nature of knowledge. The book argues that a challenge to this culture of conformity and censorship and a defence of academic free speech are needed for critique to be possible and for the intellectual project of evaluating existing knowledge and proposing new knowledge to be meaningful. This book is that challenge and a passionate call to arms for the power of academic thought today.
God does not suggest, he commands that we do justice. Social justice is not optional for the Christian. All injustice affects others, so talking about justice that isn't social is like talking about water that isn't wet or a square with no right angles. But the Bible's call to seek justice is not a call to superficial, kneejerk activism. We are not merely commanded to execute justice, but to "truly execute justice." The God who commands us to seek justice is the same God who commands us to "test everything" and "hold fast to what is good." Drawing from a diverse range of theologians, sociologists, artists, and activists, Confronting Injustice without Compromising Truth, by Thaddeus Williams, makes the case that we must be discerning if we are to "truly execute justice" as Scripture commands. Not everything called "social justice" today is compatible with a biblical vision of a better world. The Bible offers hopeful and distinctive answers to deep questions of worship, community, salvation, and knowledge that ought to mark a uniquely Christian pursuit of justice. Topics addressed include: Racism Sexuality Socialism Culture War Abortion Tribalism Critical Theory Identity Politics Confronting Injustice without Compromising Truth also brings in unique voices to talk about their experiences with these various social justice issues, including: Michelle-Lee Barnwall Suresh Budhaprithi Eddie Byun Freddie Cardoza Becket Cook Bella Danusiar Monique Duson Ojo Okeye Edwin Ramirez Samuel Sey Neil Shenvi Walt Sobchak In Confronting Injustice without Compromising Truth, Thaddeus Williams transcends our religious and political tribalism and challenges readers to discover what the Bible and the example of Jesus have to teach us about justice. He presents a compelling vision of justice for all God's image-bearers that offers hopeful answers to life's biggest questions.
After the September 11, 2001 attacks the United States went to war. With thousands of Americans killed, billions of dollars in damage, and aggressive military and security measures in response, we are still living with the war a decade later. A change of presidential administration has not dulled controversy over the most fundamental objectives, strategies and tactics of the war, or whether it is even a war. This book clears the air over the meaning of 9/11, and sets the stage for a reasoned, clear, and considered discussion of the future with a collection of essays commemorating the 10th anniversary of the attacks. The contributors include supporters and critics of the war on terrorism, policymakers and commentators, insiders and outsiders, and some of the leading voices inside and outside government.
Millennials might endure negative labels from older generations--lazy, broken, entitled, lost--but the most damaging labels are the ones we use on ourselves. Words are powerful. Even when they aren't true, they can begin to shape our perceptions of ourselves and the decisions we make. Yet the only labels that really matter to this, the largest and most diverse generation yet, are the ones with which God originally designated us. What does he call our generation? Sons and daughters. We are called to change the world and make a huge impact for the kingdom, but we can't do that if we allow ourselves to believe the limiting labels we hear every day. Instead, Arden Bevere calls you to - know what it means to be a son or daughter of God - see how God uses the seemingly negative things in our lives for good - take control of our thoughts and words and replace them with God's thoughts and words - find freedom from addiction, fear, doubts, regrets, and more Your life is not an accident, a disappointment, or an inconvenience to God. It's time to redefine, embrace, and walk in your true identity as his beloved child who will do great things in his name. Let Arden Bevere, a positive voice in this generation, show you the way.
Most of our communities are fragmented and at odds within themselves. Businesses, social services, education, and health care each live within their own worlds. The same is true of individual citizens, who long for connection but end up marginalized, their gifts overlooked, their potential contributions lost. What keeps this from changing is that we are trapped in an old and tired conversation about who we are. If this narrative does not shift, we will never truly create a common future and work toward it together. What Peter Block provides in this inspiring new book is an exploration of the exact way community can emerge from fragmentation. How is community built? How does the transformation occur? What fundamental shifts are involved? What can individuals and formal leaders do to create a place they want to inhabit? We know what healthy communities look like—there are many success stories out there. The challenge is how to create one in our own place. Block helps us see how we can change the existing context of community from one of deficiencies, interests, and entitlement to one of possibility, generosity, and gifts. Questions are more important than answers in this effort, which means leadership is not a matter of style or vision but is about getting the right people together in the right way: convening is a more critical skill than commanding. As he explores the nature of community and the dynamics of transformation, Block outlines six kinds of conversation that will create communal accountability and commitment and describes how we can design physical spaces and structures that will themselves foster a sense of belonging. In Community, Peter Block explores a way of thinking about our places that creates an opening for authentic communities to exist and details what each of us can do to make that happen.
The Haitian Revolution, the product of the first successful slave revolt, was truly world-historic in its impact. When Haiti declared independence in 1804, the leading powers—France, Great Britain, and Spain—suffered an ignominious defeat and the New World was remade. The island revolution also had a profound impact on Haiti’s mainland neighbor, the United States. Inspiring the enslaved and partisans of emancipation while striking terror throughout the Southern slaveocracy, it propelled the fledgling nation one step closer to civil war. Gerald Horne’s path breaking new work explores the complex and often fraught relationship between the United States and the island of Hispaniola. Giving particular attention to the responses of African Americans, Horne surveys the reaction in the United States to the revolutionary process in the nation that became Haiti, the splitting of the island in 1844, which led to the formation of the Dominican Republic, and the failed attempt by the United States to annex both in the 1870s. Drawing upon a rich collection of archival and other primary source materials, Horne deftly weaves together a disparate array of voices—world leaders and diplomats, slaveholders, white abolitionists, and the freedom fighters he terms Black Jacobins. Horne at once illuminates the tangled conflicts of the colonial powers, the commercial interests and imperial ambitions of U.S. elites, and the brutality and tenacity of the American slaveholding class, while never losing sight of the freedom struggles of Africans both on the island and on the mainland, which sought the fulfillment of the emancipatory promise of 18th century republicanism.
