Now, along comes the remarkable sociologist Rodney Stark, acclaimed historian of religion and science, and author of numerous books that, among other things, aim to demonstrate that the above storyline is nonsense. Were there problems, religious conflict, and sickness in medieval times? Sure, but to say that the “Dark Ages” were dark is a historical lie, says Stark.

He pulls no punches and minces no words as he labors to restore the truth to a story that has been wrongly revised to promote an atheistic view. Here’s what he writes about those who invented the Enlightenment concept: “I show it to have been conceived initially as a propaganda ploy by militant atheists and humanists who attempted to claim credit for the rise of science,” he wrote in his book For the Glory of God: How Monotheism Led to Reformations, Science, Witch-Hunts, and the End of Slavery (Princeton University Press, 2003, p. 123).

Stark is open and honest about problems within Christian history, but he thoroughly documents how the so-called “Dark Ages” boomed with technological invention, the establishment of the first universities, the rise of true science, and the beginnings of major economic advances. All this, he says, would not have happened had it not been for the dominance of the Christian world view in Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire.

One of Stark’s boldest books, about the history of business and capitalism, is titled The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success (Random House, 2005). In this book, Stark shows us how capitalism (not just simple commerce) blossomed from a Christian perspective and the work of devout Christians beginning about the ninth century.

The word “capitalism” today has many different connotations. It is often equated with greed, avarice, ecological destruction, and corruption. But Stark shows that early Christian-based capitalism aimed to improve life for people through the ethical use of capital. It did not always succeed, but the overarching ethos was that wealth should produce long-term and ongoing benefits to society with a hired workforce, and relatively little state control. It was more than simple day-to-day commercial transactions and it was inspired by the Christian ethic of love for one’s neighbor. It did not aim to limit the growth of wealth, but rather reinvest wealth to bring about additional social benefits. At the same time, it sought to limit corruption and greed, and to promote the value of work and frugality (long before Puritans and the Protestant Reformation).

Surprisingly, the rise of this type of capitalism started with the monastics. We normally think of monks as people who disengage from the material world to meditate and chant. The monastics did their fair share of that, but Stark shows this to be an incomplete portrait.

After Constantine, asceticism in the church diminished. As agricultural techniques advanced, the monastic estates were no longer limited to subsistence farming. Soon they had surplus products that they could sell for a profit. The monastics began to reinvest these profits to increase productive capacity.

“As their incomes began to mount, this led many monasteries to become banks, lending to the nobility,” writes Stark. (p. 58). This growth gradually established the economic foundation for the emergence of new towns and cities. As the cities popped up, trade between the cities increased, which in turn gave rise to specialized management strategies and the shift from bartering to a cash economy. Such was the life of many medieval monks! They were in fact profitable business leaders who gave birth to a flourishing European economy.

“In this way, the medieval monasteries came to resemble remarkably modern firms—well administered and quick to adopt the latest technological advances,” writes Stark (p. 61).

At the core, says Stark, the dramatic progress achieved during the medieval age happened because of what Christians believed about God and the origins of the world. “Because (in the Christian perspective) God is a rational being and the universe is his personal creation, it necessarily has a rational, lawful, stable structure, awaiting increased human comprehension,” he writes. “This was the key to many intellectual undertakings, among them the rise of science” (p. 12).

For Christians, this emphasis on a reasonable world created by a reasonable God meant it was possible for people to make real strides forward in every area of life—knowledge of the natural world, moral understanding, economic activity, and the general quality of life. Reason was not seen as a substitute for God, but an integral component of faith.

This emphasis on reason within the context of a moral ethic of love for one’s neighbor, says Stark, was the groundwork for the rise of religious capitalism in medieval times.

Unfortunately, many contemporary Christian views about money have lost touch with the historical roots of capitalism portrayed by Stark, not to mention the essence of what the Scriptures teach about capital and wealth.

The December 2009 cover story in The Atlantic Monthly is titled “Did Christianity Cause the Crash?” Hanna Rosin’s article in fact deals not with Christianity as a whole, but with how one prominent and unfortunate theological strain known as “prosperity theology” bonded with America’s widespread hyper-consumerism to feed the recent economic crisis. It is a well-written and fair appraisal of how far some preachers and churches have strayed from solid, historical biblical thinking about money and wealth. I’m glad the magazine published the article.

However, it is important to read and remember what Rodney Stark researched and wrote about Christianity’s positive influence on Western economies. The capitalism that “crashed” in the past couple of years is largely an Enlightenment capitalism that needs to regain the moral framework the early monks sought to establish in the ninth century.

Glenn McMahan is InsideWork’s man in Brazil. Glenn is the author, with David Russ and Jim Petersen, of More Than Me: The 4 Essentials of Relational Wholeness.

A devout catholic, Dr. Arns was motivated to do something to combat Brazil’s then high levels of infant mortality by the New Testament story of Jesus multiplying the bread and fish. Brazilians had at the time a tendency to rely heavily on the government to deal with social problems, but very little happened. Dr. Arns had been working for a state health program in Curitiba for many years. But while meditating on how Jesus told his disciples to feed the hungry themselves, she decided it was wrong to sit around and depend only on the government. She believed that a community effort, as portrayed in the New Testament, could be more effective.

Her older brother, who was at the time the archbishop of São Paulo, had encouraged her to start a program to reduce infant mortality and had promised church support. With a small budget, and working out of her own home, she set off to the small town of Florestópolis in the northern part of Paraná state. At the time Florestópolis had a very high rate of infant mortality and poverty. There she rounded up 76 volunteers, most of them public school teachers, and taught them the basics of infant nutrition and infant care.

Dr. Arns knew that most infant deaths could be avoided if mothers could learn simple infant nutrition, sanitation and health methods. The vast majority of children who died, succumbed to dehydration from diarrhea. So she taught them how to make an inexpensive solution with salt and sugar that replaced a sick child’s essential minerals and electrolytes. She also saw that mothers were putting their children to sleep face down, which often led to asphyxiation, so she taught them to put the kids on their backs. She invented a simple scale that could be used to weigh babies at home, and taught poor mothers how to buy and prepare the most nutritional foods with their limited incomes. She and the volunteers also helped pregnant women learn to take care of themselves during the gestation period, thus increasing the health of babies at birth.

The program, which is now called Pastoral da Criança, was so successful in Florestópolis that it started spreading to towns all over Brazil. The key to the program’s success was in Dr. Arns’ ability to train and multiply volunteers. Most of her work spread through Catholic Church community networks. The techniques were so simple and cheap, yet so effective, that Dr. Arns’ volunteers could not only teach the mothers (house to house) but also train volunteers to do more of the same. There are now more than 262,000 volunteers who oversee the health of 1.9 million children and pregnant women in almost 4,100 Brazilian cities.

Without a doubt, Dr. Arns radically transformed many incorrect notions of infant nutrition and healthcare in the nation. The result: The Infant Mortality Rate in these towns has dropped from 127 deaths per 1000 live births to 11, a decrease of 91 percent (The Infant Mortality Rate in Singapore is about two; in Europe, Canada and UK, three-five; in US about six).

The results in Brazil are so positive that over the years the Brazilian federal government has made the program part and parcel of its overall health programs. Last year the government provided about $19 million to Dr. Arns’ program.

Pastoral da Criança is now operating in 17 nations. In 2004, Dr. Arns also established the Pastoral do Idoso, a program designed to care for the elderly poor using the same volunteer and community networking principals as her program for children.

Glenn McMahan is InsideWork’s man in Brazil. Glenn is the author, with David Russ and Jim Petersen, of More Than Me: The 4 Essentials of Relational Wholeness.

If you want to help in Haiti and don’t know how, let us know and we’ll send a list of contacts we trust.

As a result, Brazilian businesses now face a serious lack of leadership that will prevent many companies from expanding at a time when the Brazilian economy is poised for post-recession growth.

The first, conducted by Empreenda and HSM, surveyed 1,065 high-level executives in Brazil and found that 63 percent of these executives believed their principle problem for the upcoming five years would be the lack of qualified top-level leadership. In addition, 57 percent said that the biggest struggle would be figuring out how to develop new leaders.

The second study, conducted by the consulting and human resources firm Kienbaum, surveyed 1,200 Brazilian executives. According to this study, 85 percent of the executives said they lacked people with the necessary qualifications to be promoted to leadership roles within the company. Moreover, 70 percent of the executives surveyed said they had difficulty finding competent successors who could assume executive positions. As a result of the demand for leaders, many businesses have been forced to promote unqualified people to executive positions.

There is clearly a serious leadership crisis among Brazilian businesses.
One way some Brazilian businesses cope with the shortfall is by hiring foreign executives to fill the gap. I spoke recently with a European who has been working in Brazil for more than five years as an executive for a Brazilian company. He said, with a smile on his face, that the local demand for qualified leaders has driven executive salaries up at least three fold in the past two years.

“I’m here for a simple reason. There aren’t enough qualified Brazilians,” he said.

One of the reasons for this shortfall, according to César Souza, president of Empreenda, is that many companies in Brazil have broken up into smaller entities in recent years. This decentralization increased the demand for leaders who could run the smaller operations.

But many others believe the problem is deeper, that it stems from an over-emphasis on short-term gains at the expense of a long-term vision. Investing in people and future leadership does not provide immediate returns. And in a business culture that demands immediate returns on everything, fewer businesses and stockholders have the patience to develop a long-term vision or the willingness to wait for distant and uncertain returns.

“Businesses need to understand that they are not just spending money on leadership development; they are investing,” said Souza in and article published by the leading Brazilian newspaper O Estado de São Paulo. “It’s an investment with results that only come in the long-term.”

Another factor might be the lack of world-class MBA programs in Brazil. Although there are some good educational opportunities here, the globalization of business has raised the bar for what it takes to run a company that can compete with other businesses outside Brazil. Being a world contender now takes highly skilled, visionary leadership. The competition is no longer just local and this heightens the need for Brazil to invest in high-level business education. That, too, will require leaders—business, education and political—with a long-term vision and will.

Both studies point to a silver lining in Brazil’s situation. At least the executives surveyed in these two studies now agree that leadership development should be their primary concern. In years past, that hasn’t been the case. Brazilians are beginning to see the need to invest in people, and that is the first step toward change.

Source: Renata Gama, “For 63 percent of top executives, businesses lack leaders.” O Estado de São Paulo, December 24, 2009, B12.

Glenn McMahan is InsideWork’s man in Brazil. Glenn is the author, with David Russ and Jim Petersen, of More Than Me: The 4 Essentials of Relational Wholeness.

In Lula’s speech to the International Olympic Committee, on October 2 of this year, he spoke passionately about the vibrant and diverse Brazilian culture, the strong economy, and the fact that Brazil is the only nation among the ten largest economies in the world to never host the Olympics.

“Rio is ready. Those who give us this chance will not be sorry,” he said, adding that the event would stimulate further economic and cultural advances in Brazil.

There is one group of people, however, who are already sorry. The Olympics will literally flatten their homes and businesses. It so happens that the construction plans for the Olympic sports and media complexes in Rio will force four thousand low-income residents to move out of their neighborhood, unraveling a relatively peaceful community.

The neighborhood, called Vila Autódromo, has been there since the 1970s. Unlike many other poorer neighborhoods in Rio, this one is not dominated by drug traffickers and militias; it is a place where kids play soccer safely on dirt fields, where residents have small businesses, and where there is a sense of local identity. It’s certainly not idyllic, but real people have real roots in this part of town.

If the government came to your suburban sub-division and told you to leave your home, pull your kids out of school, move away from your friends, and tear down your small business, would you let them do it?

Under the construction plans, the 354 residential lots where one thousand families live will be replaced by a building complex for sports journalists. The Olympics will last about three weeks in August, not counting the Paralympics also scheduled to be held in Rio. So, a short-term event will wipe out a 30-year-old community in a city that’s famous for not having an abundant supply of viable places to live for low-income citizens.

The municipal government has, of course, promised to compensate the residents financially, or provide them with another place to live; this is required by Brazilian law. However, Brazil’s history of giving fair compensation to low-income people is not stellar. And it’s almost certain that financial compensation will be far below the market value of the area once the Olympics move in; these residents could sell their property for far more if the government didn’t force them out. Moreover, the actual relocation or compensation process often doesn’t work as it should. The justice system here, which is notoriously lethargic, can leave people without due process for decades.

Even if the compensation package works perfectly, the break-up of the community will fragment families and friends, and force people to close the businesses they’ve worked for years to build.

Few people doubt that Brazil as a whole will benefit from its chance at hosting the Olympics, but it needs to happen in a way that doesn’t overstep basic principles like “love your neighbor as yourself.” There will always be competing interests, but the goal should be to seek win-win situations so that everyone benefits. Surely there must be some urban planner out there who can figure out a better way. My guess is the government is not too interested in protecting the interests of the people in this community.

Because Vila Autódromo will be occupied by a building complex designed for journalists, perhaps a movement to save the community could be started by the members of the media. It’s real simple: We could all just refuse to cover the event if the press complex is built in Vila Autódromo. Maybe everyone else could at least write a letter to the IOC.

It seems to me that if Brazil is really concerned about its image, taking care of the people in Vila Autódromo would be great for PR.

Glenn McMahan is InsideWork’s man in Brazil. Glenn is the author, with David Russ and Jim Petersen, of More Than Me: The 4 Essentials of Relational Wholeness.

Thanksgiving Day is a reminder to ask myself the question, “Am I thankful or am I a grumbling pansy?”

I confess that my natural tendency is to grumble and whine. Recently, I’ve caught myself complaining about the potholed roads in my Brazilian city . . . as I drove in my nice car past a poor man pulling a heavy cart full of recyclable paper and plastic.  I complained about the heat . . . as I sat in the comfort of my air-conditioned office. I complained about the falling value of the dollar . . . as I ate a great meal prepared by my wife.

I feel like a jerk when I catch myself thinking this way. It’s not just embarrassing; it’s a moral offense. Why is it so hard to be sincerely thankful?

Singer/songwriter Bruce Cockburn (it’s pronounced, Co-burn) wrote:

Little round planet in a big universe

Sometimes it looks blessed, sometimes it looks cursed

Depends on what you look at, obviously,

But even more it depends on the way that you see

— Child of the Wind, in Nothing But a Burning Light

Bruce has it figured out, I think. Thankfulness depends on two things: First, you have to look beyond the murder rates and corruption scandals and focus on all the beauty and abundance that God provides us every day. Thankfulness depends on what you look at, where you focus your attention. One scientist, whose books I like to read, wrote an entire chapter on what has to happen in the universe so that you can have bread on your plate. It takes a cosmic orchestra playing with absolute perfection. Here’s a short-list of what’s involved: the stars, which produce the basic chemical elements; our Sun, which emits exactly the right spectrum of light for photosynthesis and is at the perfect distance from the Earth; the Moon; a perfectly tilted Earth; a perfectly balanced atmosphere; finely tuned soil and water; the complex perfection of cells. No wonder Jesus broke the bread and gave thanks to the Father.

Bruce Cockburn also recognizes that to be thankful we need to change the way that we see. This idea is central in the Bible. Repeatedly, the writers of scripture tell us not to be thankful for just the good things in life, but to look at the turbulent waters and give thanks in the midst of the storms, too. Here’s one straightforward example:

Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
— 1 Thessalonians. 5:16-18

Now, what’s cool is that Jesus provided us with a real and true reason to “change the way that you see” in order to give thanks in all circumstances. He defeated the ultimate enemy, which is death, and therefore he has total victory over all the smaller enemies in our daily lives. This is the Truth, the Real Reality. It’s not wishful thinking. For this reason, Paul, writing in Romans, could truthfully and confidently say things that manifested his ability to see the world and all its problems in a new way.

I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.
— Romans 8:18

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
— Romans 8:28

If God is for us, who can be against us?”
— Romans 8:31

No, in all these things (hardship, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger, sword) we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
— Romans 8:37

When we’re in the middle of severe hardship, it’s not easy to have Paul’s perspectives. But to not see this way means that we are not seeing through the lens of Truth. We are not seeing our true condition in the context of God’s eternal and unconditional love.

Thankfulness should be our constant state of being. We can grow into this thankful way of life by

1. paying attention to all of God’s amazing gifts to us, and
2. changing the way we see the hardships by trusting and living fully in the Truth of God’s love.

I, for one, am spending some time this week in confession, asking God to forgive me for all the times I’ve grumbled and complained, and asking him to help me see all circumstances the way he sees them.

Glenn McMahan is InsideWork’s man in Brazil. Glenn is the author, with David Russ and Jim Petersen, of More Than Me: The 4 Essentials of Relational Wholeness.

I’m not talking about only the poor people in Brazil who often live in outright misery. The worn-out people I know are middle and upper-class professionals. One self-employed lawyer I know, an honest guy who is good husband and father, has won numerous cases for his clients but he hasn’t been paid for months because of bureaucratic logjams. The situation has become so bad that he might have to sell his house, all because an anonymous public employee won’t sign a document. Last week my friend said, “Glenn, I’m tired.”

There are days when I feel tired, too. This is a confession, because I don’t have any real reasons to feel tired. I have a great wife and marriage. My sons are thriving. We squeak by financially every month, but we’re far from being broke. My work is not overly stressful. With the exception of bad knees and ringing in my ears, I am in good health. Still, there are days when I feel tired. And I feel guilty about that.

Most people in the US, even in the middle of a major economic downturn, enjoy unprecedented wealth and a quality of life that the rest of the world envies. But the statistics show that a lot of people are also tired in their souls. Richard Winter, a former staff member with L’Abri in England, says in his book The Roots of Sorrow that one out every seven people will at some time experience depression.

That doesn’t count the number of people who aren’t actually depressed but feel burned out.

This problem, it seems, is as old as the history of humankind. Old King Saul, depressed and forlorn, wanted David to play music for him so he would feel better. Adam was no doubt the first guy to experience fatigue, a latent sense of futility that came with his choice to pursue self-sufficiency and autonomy from God. The Psalms are full of sorrows. If you’re not careful to read it in the broader context of the Bible, the whole book of Ecclesiastes will make you sad.

Some of the great old writers in Christian history seemed to have a better perspective about tiredness than us modern folk. Perhaps it’s because we feel more entitled to happiness. Whatever the case, this week I was reading a poem by the seventeenth-century metaphysical poet George Herbert (1593-1633). In his very short life he seems to have done a lot of thinking about tiredness. In his poem The Pulley, Herbert describes, from God’s perspective, the meaning of tiredness. Reading it strengthened my soul.

In the poem, God holds a glass full of blessings. He pours it out on humankind, his treasure. In the cup was strength, beauty, wisdom, honor, pleasure. Then, “When almost all was out, God made a stay, perceiving that alone of all his treasure, rest in the bottom lay.” God, says Herbert, decides not to give us the fullness of rest. Why not, we wonder?

“For if I should,” said he,

“Bestow this jewel also on my creature,

He would adore my gifts instead of me,

And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature:

So both should losers be.

“Yet let him keep the rest (the other blessings),

But keep them with repining restlessness;

Let him be rich and weary, that at least,

If goodness lead him not, yet weariness

May toss him to my breast.”

This great writer, who lived in harsher times than ours, reminded me that the dryness in our souls has a magnificent purpose. It is proof that we were made for something more, something beyond work and wealth. The tiredness we feel is the beckoning of God.

“Let him be rich and weary,” writes Herbert, that weariness may toss us to God’s breast.

Glenn McMahan is InsideWork’s man in Brazil. Glenn is the author, with David Russ and Jim Petersen, of More Than Me: The 4 Essentials of Relational Wholeness.

As the story unfolds, Cronauer gains widespread popularity among the American soldiers, but his unconventional and controversial style upsets the stoic military system within which he works. Threatened by his popularity and by what they consider to be Cronauer’s “irreverence,” two of his superiors do everything they can to remove him from the airwaves.

One of the sub-plots is about respect. An Army officer opposed to Cronauer in the film, Lt. Steven Hauk, has a slightly higher rank than his other colleagues at the radio station. But he has zero respect. As a result, his verbally forceful orders are received with wisecracks and put-downs. People make fun of him behind his back. No one salutes him. Lt. Hauk tries to use his rank to control people and circumstances, but he ends up looking like a fool.

The film does a brilliant job of showing the difference between authentic respect and positional respect. According to the rules and regulations of the military, Lt. Hauk was in a position of respect. But he didn’t have the character he needed to win the authentic respect of his peers. Cronauer, on the other hand, gained true respect, not only because he was so good at his job, but also because he fought for the truth and cared for people.

Authentic respect is entirely dependent on one’s character. We can look to Jesus as a good model. He actively and consistently demonstrated four foundational character traits that build authentic respect between people.

1. Integrity: a strong commitment to truth, honesty, and justice.
2. Love: to actively serve others and seek to benefit others even when it requires personal sacrifice.
3. Humility: to have an accurate self-perception in light of our smallness and brokenness before God, and to elevate the needs and well-being of others above our own.
4. Forgiveness: to set an offender free from the demand to repay what’s been unfairly taken from us, a deliberate choice to set another person free from judgment and condemnation.

Living this way didn’t make Jesus universally popular. A lot of people abandoned him and eventually a mob demanded his crucifixion. But he had the authentic respect of those who knew him.

If a person has these character traits and proves it by living accordingly, one of the natural results will be  authentic respect from others. There are no short cuts.

Take some time to consider the following questions and share you thoughts with us.

1. Think about the people around you who are in positions of authority (boss, teacher, parent). Have they won the authentic respect of others? If so, what qualities do you see that have enabled them to gain this authentic respect?
2. Do you know someone like Lt. Hauk who is in a powerful position but who is not authentically respected? What is the right way to interact with this person? Should he or she be treated with the same contempt that Lt. Hauk’s peers demonstrated?
3. What are the metrics of authentic response? How do you know if the respect others accord you is authentic or merely positional?
4. Can you identify business leaders whose positional respect is in equilibrium with authentic respect? If so, what are they like? What would it be like to work with such a person?

Glenn McMahan is InsideWork’s man in Brazil. Glenn is the author, with David Russ and Jim Petersen, of More Than Me: The 4 Essentials of Relational Wholeness.