Synopses & Reviews
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.
About the Author
Peter Block (Cincinnati, OH; www.peterblock.com; www.designedlearning.com)
is a leading consultant and bestselling author whose work is about
empowerment, stewardship, chosen accountability, and the reconciliation
of community. He is a partner in Designed Learning, a training company
that offers workshops designed by Peter to build the skills outlined in
his books. He received a Masters Degree in Industrial Administration
from Yale in 1963. He has received national awards for outstanding
contributions in the field of training and development, including the
American Society for Training and Development Award for Distinguished
Contributions; the Association for Quality and Participation President’s
Award; and Training Magazine HRD Hall of Fame.
Walter Brueggemann (Cincinnati, OH; www.walterbrueggemann.com) is
one of the most influential Old Testament scholars of the last several
decades, known throughout the world for his method of combining literary
and sociological modes when reading The Bible. He has written more than
58 books, hundreds of articles, and several commentaries on books of
the Bible, has contributed to the Living the Questions DVD series, and
participated in Bill Moyers’ PBS television series on Genesis.
John McKnight (Evanston, IL) is emeritus professor of
education and social policy and co-director of the Asset-Based Community
Development Institute at Northwestern University. He is the coauthor of
Building Communities from the Inside Out and the author of The Careless Society.