The first sentence in my book Deconstructing Progressive Christianity is:
This is a book about beliefs.
Beliefs shape and determine, to an extent, behaviors.
Therefore, understand beliefs in order to see the rationale, conscious or unconscious, of behaviors.
Worldviews and noetic frameworks shape behaviors.
Praxis emerges from ideologies.
This way of thinking is core to understanding the behaviors of Chinese leader Xi Jinping. So says Kevin Rudd in his brilliant book On Xi Jinping: How Xi's Marxist Nationalism is Shaping China and the World. Change belief systems and you change behaviors. Rudd writes:
"A central assumption of this book is that ideological worldviews still matter for the CCP—not just as theoretical abstractions for the delectation of party intellectuals, but as a practical guide for officials in shaping or reflecting changes in policy direction in the real world." (P. 26)
