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Mission Stewardship in the 21st century cannot be considered without understanding what has transpired in the history of missions and what models were used to facilitate missions. If we are to project where we want to head to in terms of a healthier interdependency economically, we must study where we were, where we are and in the light of that understanding, where we want to go to?

After about 1200 years of a period referred to as "The Dark Era of Church," missions re-emerged into a period of colonialism, called "The Period of Modern Mission". The church has since processed itself through at least three major political and economical eras and is on the threshold of the fourth. Colonialism gave birth to "nationalization" that gave birth to "globalization". In some parts of the world the fourth era has emerged. Samuel Huntington labeled this era as "Tribal Resurgence".

Each of these eras influenced the mindset of the church and its missions. Furthermore this impacted the way the church generated and utilized its resources. As a result, we must study mission economics in the context of theses eras.

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Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee:

Thank you for inviting me to testify today. My testimony focuses on the ways in which estate tax reform or repeal would affect charitable giving. This written testimony briefly summarizes two articles I have co-authored on the topic. These articles are attached as appendices to the testimony.

The main point of my testimony is simple: Repealing the estate tax or cutting the top rate in the estate tax would have a significantly negative effect on charitable giving. This conclusion is the product of several important facts.

First, the estate tax encourages charitable giving at death by providing a deduction for charitable bequests. Less obviously, it also encourages giving during life. Charitable contributions made during life gain a double tax advantage: They reduce income taxes and they remove the assets from the estate and so avoid estate taxes as well. Aggregate giving from living individuals far exceeds aggregate charitable bequests. As a result, even if the estate tax is only a relatively minor determinant of charitable giving while alive, the impact of repeal on giving while alive could be a large component of the overall impact.

Second, a variety of different kinds of research implies that estate tax repeal would reduce charitable bequests by between 22 and 37 percent, or between $3.6 billion and $6 billion per year. Previous studies are consistent with this finding, and also imply that repeal would reduce giving during life by a similar magnitude in dollar terms. To put this in perspective, a reduction in annual charitable donations in life and at death of $10 billion due to estate tax repeal represents a 5 percent decline in overall charitable giving and implies that, each year, the nonprofit sector would lose resources equivalent to the total grants currently made by the largest 110 foundations in the United States.

For the full testimony

Review by Dr. Paul Kim, Managing Director of Parakletos @ Ventures

This book offers a new platform for people who care about the future of the developing world. Ken Eldred spells out why business is the solution for many of the developing world's ailments. Not just business, but Godly and truly Christian business, which will help transform those cultural attitudes and values that represent both barriers to economic growth and chains to poverty.

Time-proven concepts like honesty, integrity, and fair dealings are vital to business success in a free market economy. There are cultures and attitudes-both in the developing world and in the West-that are real hindrances to economic success. The author makes the case for those business people with deeply-held values and "renewed minds" taking the initiative in changing those cultural beliefs-at the individual, company, and industry level. Eldred presents examples where Christian business people inspired by their personal faith are doing just that, even in some of the most underdeveloped parts of the world. He also reviews the history of business people pursuing spiritual and economic transformation around the globe.

I am a venture capitalist who's always looking for ways business can help change lives. Yes, as the author presents quite convincingly, business itself has redeeming value when it deals honestly and provides useful goods and services for one's fellow man. However, the concept of "Kingdom business" presented in this book goes a step further by considering the spiritual transformation that business people with a personal faith can promote. Eldred describes three different "Kingdom business" approaches ranging from developing microenterprises to establishing larger ventures, each most suitable for a different stage in an economy's development. After traveling and working with ministers and business people in more than 50 countries, I believe this book is a Godsend for those trying to make a difference. Very compelling and inspiring!

For more information visit http://www.godisatwork.org/

This article appears courtesy of Peacemaker Ministries.

I still remember my sadness on hearing that an old friend and someone I believed was a sincere Christian, was leaving his wife of many years. I was shocked and disappointed. I wondered: How could this man, committed to both his spouse and his Lord, fall in love with another woman?

An essay by the late Sheldon Vanauken helps answer the question and reminds us that such temptations are all too common. Vanauken, best known as the author of the powerful love story titled A Severe Mercy, also published a collection of essays called Under the Mercy, which explores these feelings.

In one essay called "The Loves," Vanauken describes how a Christian friend named John shocked him by announcing that he was leaving his wife to marry another woman. John explained his sudden change of heart by saying, "It seemed so good, so right. That's when we knew we had to get the divorces. We belonged together."

Vanauken then describes a conversation with a friend named Diana, who left her husband for another man. Diana defended herself with virtually the same words: "It was just so good and right with Roger that I knew it would be wrong to go on with Paul."

As Vanauken explains, both John and Diana were "invoking a higher law: the feeling of goodness and rightness. A feeling so powerful that it swept away... whatever guilt they would otherwise have felt" for what they were doing to their families.

When Christian couples marry, they often say, "till death do us part." But what many unconsciously mean is, "till failing love do us part."

In reality, many people love their spouse, not as a person but as someone who evokes certain feelings. Their wedding vow was not so much to the person as to that feeling.

So when such people fall in love with someone else, they transfer that vow to the other person. And why not? says Vanauken, "If vows are nothing but feelings?"

Vanauken dubs these thrilling emotions "The Sanction of Eros." When John and Diana spoke of the goodness of their love, they were appealing to something higher than judgment, higher even than their own desires. But as Vanauken points out, "the sacred approval they felt could not possibly have come from [God,] whose disapproval of divorce is explicit in Scripture. It is Eros, the pagan god of lovers, who confers this sanction upon the worshippers at his altar."

"The pronouncement of Eros that this love is so good and so right that all betrayals are justified is simply a lie," Vanauken writes. But worst of all, few people are prepared "for the amazing sanction of Eros." Those caught in its thrall are convinced that their love is different, even sacred. They do not dream, the writer says, "that every other lover has the same assurance."

And that's why pastors have to work hard to warn engaged couples about this deadly appeal. At some point, Eros will almost certainly beckon with an exciting new love and the feelings of rightness, and even sacredness, may be overwhelming.

Couples need to know that it is only when Christ is at the heart of their marriage that they will be able to resist this ancient pagan call.

Peacemaker Ministries

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