Unfortunately the report is insensitive to the epistemological and theological challenges of enunciating any new development model to spiritual leaders. It is they who recognize the challenge to understanding and a shift in awareness. The challenge is not how to build on a momentary product of this process but how to allow this process to imbue and interrelate new understandings of development. Most of the challenges to integrating strategic approaches derive from what amounts to misplaced concreteness. It is the easy assumption that subtle understandings of approaches to complexity can be rendered in simple text without evoking disclaimers and alternative formulations.
Many religions recognize the paradoxical quality of the understanding required.
It is at this level that the epistemological challenges of fundamental science accord with those of religion. It is extremely unfortunate that those concerned with the challenges of development assume arrogantly that they are not faced with equivalent challenges. As in many quests and rites of passage, the gate through which humanity must seemingly pass, if it is to avoid disaster, poses a major challenge to understanding. Defining the gate in any conventional terms is tantamount to barring passage. It is the very process of defining which creates what is experienced as a closed door.