This Friday I am on my way to Katowice Poland to participate in the United Nations Habitat’s eleventh convening of the World Urban Forum. So I thought I’d offer a bit of an explanation of what I will be doing… and why.
I care deeply about justice and human flourishing for all, not just for people like me. In fact, part of how I imagine my life’s work is to grow in my love of God by loving my neighbors and their neighborhoods even as I grow in loving myself and my place. Twice in scripture we see the Incarnate One weep. We see Jesus weep over the death of Lazarus and we see Jesus weep over the city of Jerusalem… people and place. One of the ways we love people is by loving what affects and impacts their lives. Love is practical. People and place. Now stay with me, I might get a bit nerdy…
I have a growing conviction that ongoing climate change coupled with the rapid growth of the world’s cities necessitates more strategic, equitable, and sustainable urban planning. Such wise, holistic, and ethical planning can and will play a vital role in ensuring a healthy planet for all, healthy countries, and even healthy neighborhoods for our kids, grandkids, and beyond. This three-minute video introduces the basic strategy being proposed by the group hosting the event I’ll be attending:
When UN-Habitat began to head in this direction it deeply resonated with some of my core hopes and beliefs as a person seeking to live in the Jesus Way… it’s a global vision and local practice for human flourishing for all and everyone. I get weepy just thinking of it.
You may have heard of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals or SDGs. There are 17 interlinked global goals which some have dubbed a “blueprint toward a better and more sustainable future for all.” Here’s a link to two-minute video outlining the interconnected goals:
Personally, I found myself resonating with these 17 SDGs. In fact, I see these goals as one of the most comprehensive articulations of a practical framework for joining God in God’s mission of Shalom for all. Yet as I dug into the emerging implementation strategy for the goals I was surprised to discover the almost total absence of faiths, religions, or spiritualities in the UN’s proposal.
As you may know, roughly 80% of the world’s population identify with some kind of faith or religious belief. It seemed to me – and some colleagues – that the 17 SDGs might be more achievable if we could mobilize people, groups, or even nations to sustainable change through their deepest faith commitments while drawing on the strength of their meaning-making narratives which shape their lives, values, and practices.
Toward that end there is a growing group of us who are offering our energies, connections, and resources to UN-Habitat to bring faith into the conversation, rather than avoiding it.
Fast forward a few years and faith/religion/spirituality is now a vital part of the conversation, (very exciting to me).
This is why I’m going to Poland. I will be participating in strategic conversations with faith leaders from different religious traditions exploring wise pathways of working within our particular traditions to activate individuals, communities, and governments to holistic sustainable action through their imagination of the Divine, of human flourishing, of creation care, or stewarding, of loving neighbor, and through their readings of their sacred texts and narratives. We will also be exploring pathways for collaborating across our respective traditions to, do together, even more than any of us could do on our own.
We are a scrappy group of thought leaders, academics, and spiritual guides from different faith traditions and from all over the world. And while we would say it differently based on our respective traditions, we long for the day when God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven, (to paraphrase Jesus). The event I am participating in is called World Urban Forum 11, with most of my energies in a series of conversations we’ve called, “SDG Cities Faith Window.” Below is one more video link; this video doesn’t have the production values of the first couple, but if you fast forward the video to 15 minutes and 45 seconds you can hear a couple of my colleagues talk about some of the holistic faith conversations we’ll be engaging over the next week:
BTW – here is the latest summary of the SDGs into ten actionable areas for grassroots groups… if you look at this PDF imagine your role, and your faith community’s role within your neighborhood and beyond. I highly recommend taking this document – The City We Need Now – and build a bible study around it, or use it as the basis for having intentional conversations with your group. Also, this is expensive work and I am in need of some financial backing. I’d love to chat with you about this if you’re interested.
Peace, dwight
