CARDBOARD CATHEDRALS VS. LIVING STONES

from VirtueOnline

CARDBOARD CATHEDRALS VS. LIVING STONES

By The Rt. Rev. Julian M. Dobbs
Special to Virtueonline
www.virtueonline.org
April 19, 2012

My family and I are living proof of the practical realities of globalization; the rapid integration of formerly widely diverse elements of material and social culture, economics, and most importantly, values and morality, in an ever 'shrinking' world. We are New Zealand-Americans. Who would have dreamed even a generation or so ago that only 238 years after Captain Cook's Endeavor limped into Poverty Bay and 400 years from the founding of Jamestown that the children and grandchildren of British Isles emigrants who followed these visionaries out to the ends of the earth would now be emigrating between these newly discovered lands of unlimited potential and promise. Yet, here we are...new Americans and proud native kiwis; Anglican Christians from solid 'British Isle stock' unintentionally helping to establish ontological proof for the human element in globalization.

And, we are part of the oft-overlooked but only eternally critical element of this contemporary phenomenon - it's impact on the Church and particularly the proclamation of the unchanging and unchangeable Truth of the Gospel in the face of the multipronged, unrelenting pressures inherent in global integration for belief systems to ignore, overlook or abolish distinctions, blur lines of demarcation and 'move border stones' in order to expedite the other perceived irenic 'benefits' of 'the global village.'

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