Fulfilling the Sacred Trust explores the implementation of international accountability for dependent territories under the United Nations during the early Cold War era. Although the Western nations that drafted the UN Charter saw the organization as a means of maintaining the international status quo they controlled, newly independent nations saw the UN as an instrument of decolonization and an agent of change disrupting global political norms. Mary Ann Heiss documents the unprecedented process through which these new nations came to wrest control of the United Nations from the World War II victors that founded it, allowing the UN to become a vehicle for global reform. Heiss examines the consequences of these early changes on the global political landscape in the midst of heightened international tensions playing out in Europe, the developing world, and the UN General Assembly. She puts this anti-colonial advocacy for accountability into perspective by making connections between the campaign for international accountability in the United Nations and other postwar international reform efforts such as the anti-apartheid movement, Pan-Africanism, the Non-Aligned Movement, and the drive for global human rights. Chronicling the combative history of this campaign, Fulfilling the Sacred Trust details the global impact of the larger UN reformist effort. Heiss demonstrates the unintended impact of decolonization on the United Nations and its agenda, as well as the shift in global influence from the developed to the developing world.

Dr. Lukas Bower believes in God, the Hippocratic Oath and doing the right thing.

Fulfilling the Sacred Trust explores the implementation of international accountability for dependent territories under the United Nations during the early Cold War era. Although the Western nations that drafted the UN Charter saw the organization as a means of maintaining the international status quo they controlled, newly independent nations saw the UN as an instrument of decolonization and an agent of change disrupting global political norms. Mary Ann Heiss documents the unprecedented process through which these new nations came to wrest control of the United Nations from the World War II victors that founded it, allowing the UN to become a vehicle for global reform. Heiss examines the consequences of these early changes on the global political landscape in the midst of heightened international tensions playing out in Europe, the developing world, and amidst the UN General Assembly. She puts this anti-colonial advocacy for accountability into perspective by making connections between the campaign for international accountability in the United Nations and other postwar international reform efforts such as the anti-apartheid movement, Pan-Africanism, the Non-Aligned Movement, and the drive for global human rights. Chronicling the combative history of this campaign, Fulfilling the Sacred Trust details the global impact of the larger UN reformist effort. Heiss demonstrates the unintended impact of decolonization of the United Nations and its agenda, as well as the shift in global influence from the developed to the developing world.

These diverse and sometimes controversial essays redefine the concept of 'stewardship' in its modern context by exploring the fine line between interacting and interfering with nature. Touching on topics that range from catching a brook trout to taming a wild kestrel, the writers explore their own relationships with nature to illustrate and resurrect the dignity and economy of simple living.

Without meaning to be irreverent, it is fair to say that in the Middle Ages, at the height of its political and economic power, the Roman Catholic Church functioned in part as a powerful and sophisticated corporation. The Church dealt in a "product" many consumers felt they had to have: the salvation of their immortal souls. The Pope served as its CEO, the College of Cardinals as its board of directors, bishoprics and monasteries as its franchises. And while the Church certainly had moral and social goals, this early antecedent to AT&T and General Motors had economic motives and methods as well, seeking to maximize profits by eliminating competitors and extending its markets. In Sacred Trust: The Medieval Church as an Economic Firm, five highly respected economists advance the controversial argument that the story of the Roman Catholic Church in the Middle Ages is in large part a story of supply and demand. Without denying the centrality--or sincerity--of religious motives, the authors employ the tools of modern economics to analyze how the Church's objectives went well beyond the realm of the spiritual. They explore the myriad sources of the Church's wealth, including tithes and land rents, donations and bequests, judicial services and monastic agricultural production. And they present an in-depth look at the ways in which Church principles on marriage, usury, and crusade were revised as necessary to meet--and in many ways to create--the needs of a vast body of consumers. Along the way, the book raises and answers many intriguing questions. The authors explore the reasons behind the great crusades against the Moslems, probing beyond motives of pure idealism to highlight the Church's concern with revenues from tourism and the sale of relics threatened by Moslem encroachment in the holy lands. They examine the Church's involvement in the marriage market, revealing how the clergy filled their coffers by extracting fees for blessing or dissolving marital unions, for hearing marital disputes, and even for granting permission for blood relatives to wed. And they shed light on the concept of purgatory, showing how this "product innovation" developed by the Church in the twelfth century--a form of "deferred payment"--opened the floodgates for a fresh market in post-mortem atonement through payments on behalf of the deceased. Finally, the authors show how the cumulative costs that the faithful were asked to bear eventually priced the Roman Catholic church out of the market, paving the way for Protestant reformers like Martin Luther. A ground-breaking look at the growth and decline of the medieval Church, Sacred Trust demonstrates how economic reasoning can be used to cast light on the behavior of any complex historical institution. It offers rare insight into one of the great historical powers of Western civilization, in a analysis that will intrigue anyone interested in life in the Middle Ages, in church history, or in the influence of economic motives on historical events.

The preamble of the original constitution of the Southern Baptist Convention describes the purpose of the SBC as “eliciting, combining, and directing the energies of the whole denomination in one sacred effort, for the propagation of the Gospel.” These words are not only historically significant; they convey the mission and purpose and distill the distinct facets of the SBC Cooperative Program. One Sacred Effort looks close at this unique and enduring ministry operation.