What makes Switzerland so competitive? Competitive? Say that again!!

About 2 years ago, I was upset when I saw an article titled:

Why is Switzerland the most competitive economy in the world? 

It made me remember things I had forgotten......

In the mid-eighties, as we groaned under the terrorism of military misrule, whenever I saw kids carrying their desks and chairs to school, for some reason all I could think of was: SWITZERLAND!

It was involuntary!

Up till then I had no inkling that my subconscious held a grudge against that lovely Mickey Mouse kingdom of plenty!

All I knew was that It was clear to me that the reason those beautiful children, (our federal reps and senators and bank managers today) carried their chairs and desks to school, because Switzerland encouraged public officials in Nigeria to salt away stolen monies in their vaults. 

Switzerland's legacy continues as those kids who suffered, have no knowledge or remembrance of a warm loving kind Nigeria, and thus have no compunction in sustaining corruption.

......It is a rat race
You can almost hear them say and I have on several occasions heard several different people say without a care: "What did Nigeria do for me? My father was honest and he suffered! He even made chairs and tables for me to carry to school!! And gave me chalk and even had to bribe the teachers to come to class! This is my opportunity...."

Studying Switzerland as a economic model as the original article does is strange! How about studying the success of Charles Taylor Inc. or Mobutu & sons Ltd., and distilling its essence as 'best practice' for the rest of the business world? 

Why not? Like Mobutu & sons Ltd., A sizable chunk of Switzerland's wealth was built at the expense of Africans. 

Don Kenobi
(The African at the back 

with his hand on his chin 

watching you all!)

Tithing: "We should give EVERYTHING not just 10%......"

Finally my studies on tithing are complete. My conclusion is:

"We should give EVERYTHING not 10%. The tithe mandate disrupts the journey of believers to a complete giving of their selves to the cause of Christ"

According to human logic, those who find it hard to give 10% will not give 100%. If we are called to be saints, our first responsibility is to be like the saints before us!

Imagine if the early Christians in all of Asia Minor and Rome and Africa tithed 10% of their income. Perhaps St. Peter would have received a Private Yacht from the faithful. Perhaps the gospel would have spread faster.... but what kind of gospel would have been passed down to us?

Now the prosperity gospel derives in large path from the "prosperity" of the pastors who preach it. They point to their own prosperity as a tip of the iceberg of what God could do for you if you persisted in giving (mandatorily) to the church.........Imagine now that this was gospel was preached by St. Peter and the early disciples, who showed off their private yachts and those of their senior 'pastors' and imagine they built really large buildings with all the trappings of the wealth they possessed as a result of the faithful giving of their flock....

Imagine all that and try to imagine again what kind of Gospel we would have today, and what kind we would pass on if the Lord tarries to the centuries after us.

Link below speaks eloquently to the issues I have struggled with. I love this passage:

The tithe has been used as a method of collecting tribute, but this does not justify its use as a principle for Christian giving. Christian giving is much more than tithing. It is a different kind of thinking about the resources God has given us.

In 2 Corinthians 8 and 9 we find some acceptable principles for Christian giving: full generosity, submission to the Lord, willingness, love, joyfulness, proportionality, and sharing. All of this stems from God’s love that we have experienced through Christ, who “(gave) up all his riches and became poor, so that you could become rich” (2 Corinthians 8: 9).

Click: http://anglicanplanet.net/edible-thoughts/2012/2/23/should-anglicans-teach-tithing.html

The superb irony is, it was written by a female deacon (Deaconess). It puts me in an amusing situation.... the apostles did not allow female church leaders. Am I then to disagree with her thoughts on this matter on the basis of her gender? Or am I to cop out and say: "Since the men have refused to listen, God decided to speak to women!"

I choose neither - I'll just say (as Father Barron - auxiliary Bishop of Los Angeles loves to say - "If you think you understand everything about God, then it isn't God" - there is always a part of God which will remain a mystery to us.

I rest.

dk

(unedited)