Christian Economic Research Articles

Literatur und Ökonomie: ein mediävistischer Kommentar zu zwei Handbüchern

Abstract This medievalist review article arises from the publication in 2019 of two conceptually and materially very different handbooks on the topic of ›literature and economy‹: the ›Routledge Companion to Literature and Economics‹ and the de Gruyter ›Handbuch. Literatur & Ökonomie‹, the eighth volume of the series ›Handbücher zur kulturwissenschaftlichen Philologie‹. Focal points of my critical discussion are: 1. the Marxist foundations of ideology critique in Econo-literary Criticism, 2. the long history of the debate on the relation of text and context in literary studies, 3. the controversy surrounding the application of Joseph Vogl’s ›poetics of knowledge‹ to the economic domain, and 4. the ideological positioning of economic themes in pre-modern literature between the poles of ›Commercial economy‹ and ›Christian economics‹.

Study of Philanthropic Behaviour in Divine Economics Framework

Unfortunately, religious behaviour has been viewed by economists in terms of “Islamic economics,” “Christian economics”, etc. [Iannaccone (1986)]. Hence there has been a dichotomy prevailing between religious economic frameworks and the conventional rational choice theory.1 Whereas the conventional economists tried a variety of models to estimate the relationship between wages and time allocated to market labour supply but found that results mostly do not speak of the real world situation [Deaton (1980)]. The underlying reason was supposed to be faith and values which have strong effect on labour supply decisions [Pencavel (1986)]. The philanthropic behaviour relates to labour supply decisions directly through time allocated to voluntary services or indirectly through time allocated for earning and then donations out of these. It is observed that the variables of economic importance especially those relating to household resource allocation or labour supply decisions seem to be present in religious affiliation of individuals, their values and their perceptions about life before and after death as believed by the followers of divine religions which account for about two thirds of the world population.

Idolatry and Time: Capitalism and Money in Twenty‐First‐Century Christian Economic Theology

ABSTRACTChristian economic theology is distinguished from Christian social ethics by its methodological reflection on the emergence, formation, and proper boundaries of the economic sphere, as well as transcendental reflection on the conditions of possibility of economic science. In practice, this often amounts to anxiety about the authority of Christianity in the economic sphere, as well as about the extent to which Christianity can be held responsible for the system of impersonal economic domination known as capitalism. This review essay draws upon three recent works on or about Christian economic theology, and argues that this genre's anxiety about Christian authority manifests in the ways that it draws temporal boundaries between ancient, medieval, and modern economies. Ultimately, its ambivalence about economy itself is traceable to Aristotle's understanding of money as containing two natures, one defined by quality (use value) and the other by quantity (exchange value). Christianity here becomes a cipher for quality.

Jews, Economic Metaphors, and the Healthy Body Politic: The Jewish Role in Christian Economic Narratives and the Birth of Modern Economics

Jews, Economic Metaphors, and the Healthy Body Politic: The Jewish Role in Christian Economic Narratives and the Birth of Modern Economics

‘The Relation of the Sexes’: towards a Christian view of sex and citizenship in interwar Britain

ABSTRACT This article reconsiders existing narratives surrounding Christianity, sexual modernity, and gender relations in twentieth-century Britain by examining the efforts of the 1924 Conference on Christian Politics, Economics and Citizenship (C.O.P.E.C.) to rethink pressing issues of gender and sexuality from an interdenominational perspective. It explores C.O.P.E.C.’s influence as an optimistic ecumenical assembly and widely publicised forum in which interwar commentators defined a particular version of Christian feminism, interrogated and reshaped ideas about sex and sexuality, and stimulated wider public discussion of these issues.

Household Networks and Early Christian Economics: A Fresh Study of 1 Timothy 5.3–16

1 Tim 5.3–16 defines which women may be registered for financial support at church expense. It is integrated around four ‘household rules’, but is not concerned to regulate an ‘order’ or ‘office’ of widows. Rather, it clarifies that the church should not supplant households in financial matters, and should be responsible only for destitute widows who have no other network support. Since χήρα can mean ‘woman without a man’, the instructions in 5.11–15 are best interpreted as directed against young women who have chosen celibacy. By contrast, the author conceives of the church as a network of Christian households connected by mutual economic support.

Christian economics at the origin

AbstractThe New Testament contained copious information on how Jesus and the Apostles managed their households and personal finances. Christian economics originated in references made by Jesus, Paul, and Peter to oikonomia. Peter in Jerusalem introduced the incipient practice of Christian oikonomia through dispensing welfare, and Christians in Rome unfolded oikonomia when they acquired the catacombs. The funding and owning of built structures transformed Christianity from a private collective to a corporate institution. Constantine the Great marked this transition when he designated the recipient of a substantial endowment as the Corpus Christianorum. A trajectory that began in New Testament oikonomia concluded when Christianity had become an institutional actor in the economic sphere.

기독교 경제윤리의 눈으로 ‘소득주도 성장’ 정책 읽기

기독교 경제윤리의 눈으로 ‘소득주도 성장’ 정책 읽기

Christian Environmental Ethics and Economic Stasis

AbstractThe growth paradigm assumes that economic growth is objectively good because it leads to increased prosperity and utility maximization. Christian ethics oppose this worldview because it rejects the idea that economic prosperity is objectively good. Instead, Christian ethics are theocentric, assuming that God and the relationship with the divine is objectively good. Material prosperity is seen to interfere with this relationship. Still, there are at least two views of the human-divine relationship that have implications for environmental ethics. The first and most popular view argues that the human-divine relationship is mediated by the human-in-community relationship. Alternatively, individualistic theism posits that the human-divine relationship is individually available without community-centeredness. This individualistic view has been criticized as leading to an insufficient ethic of environmental care, however, here we argue that a radical dualism consistent with the Christian Gospels can lead to an ethos of environmental benevolence.

Hope as the Prudent Art of Potentialities: Its Significance for a Christian Economics of Human Flourishing

Hope is a complex and multifaceted syndrome, an emotion as well as a virtue. It requires attention in a Christian economic paradigm oriented at justice and human flourishing. This article makes a case for this type of interdisciplinary research. Our focus lies on hope with a high (aspirational) agency and prudence. In recent economics, with increasing appreciation for relationships, well-being, and the common good, there is an openness to motivational concepts such as hope. Positive psychology has also given attention to hope as a form of well-being and resilience. We stress the importance of embedding hope in a Christian worldview in the tradition of Abraham Kuyper’s Pro Rege and the work of Nicholas Wolterstorff. Christian thinking fosters the relationship between hope, faith, moral orientation, and worship as imagining a different future. Hope as a prudent art of potentiality is a transformational power, creating a society where humans can flourish and fight off anxiety and despair.

Ramalan Timur Kuran Tentang Masa Depan Ekonomi Islam: Sebuah Respons

Many fundamentalist religious movements have economic agenda. The movements emerge to reconstruct the economic system in accordance with the provisions of their respective religions. Therefore, we often hear Christian economics, Buddhist Socialism, Hindu economics, or Islamic economics. The main agenda of economic fundamentalist movements look different from conventional economics (Capitalism and Socialism). Every economic agenda that they propose has different philosophical characteristics and heritage and unique discourse. In this paper, author tries to elaborate Timur Kuran’s ideas, a pioneer of the school of critical alternatives in the tradition of Islamic economic thought, on future of Islamic economics Islam which is considered a manifestation of the economic doctrine of the fundamentalist Islamic group. Why is the future of Islamic economics addressed pessimistic by Kuran and what offer is given by Kuran to give response to Islamism’s Islamic economics are some questions that will be answered in the following discussion. In this study, the writer also will respond Kuran’s predictions about the future of the Islamic economics. The analytical method used in this study is taxonomic analysis, which is not only a general analysis, but also a specific domain that is very useful to describe the phenomenon or problem that is to be the target of the research. In this analysis, the domains are selected to be studied in depth is the focus of study that needs to be tracked each other's internal structures in more detail and depth. Overall, this technique uses "approach of non-contrasts between elements". This technique begins by focusing on specific domains, then dividing the domain into sub- domains as well the more specific and detailed parts. The results of research shows that the economic reforms in the name of Islam today is a myth, and could not survive in the long term. Islam will lose power and sonorous sound of the economic policy. Islam will be abandoned, and humans will switch to the source of moral ideals and the other spiritual. Keywords: Radical Islamic Group, The future of Islamism’s, Islamic economic doctrine

Ramalan Timur Kuran Tentang Masa Depan Ekonomi Islam: Sebuah Respons

Many fundamentalist religious movements have economic agenda. The movements emerge to reconstruct the economic system in accordance with the provisions of their respective religions. Therefore, we often hear Christian economics, Buddhist Socialism, Hindu economics, or Islamic economics. The main agenda of economic fundamentalist movements look different from conventional economics (Capitalism and Socialism). Every economic agenda that they propose has different philosophical characteristics and heritage and unique discourse. In this paper, author tries to elaborate Timur Kuran’s ideas, a pioneer of the school of critical alternatives in the tradition of Islamic economic thought, on future of Islamic economics Islam which is considered a manifestation of the economic doctrine of the fundamentalist Islamic group. Why is the future of Islamic economics addressed pessimistic by Kuran and what offer is given by Kuran to give response to Islamism’s Islamic economics are some questions that will be answered in the following discussion. In this study, the writer also will respond Kuran’s predictions about the future of the Islamic economics. The analytical method used in this study is taxonomic analysis, which is not only a general analysis, but also a specific domain that is very useful to describe the phenomenon or problem that is to be the target of the research. In this analysis, the domains are selected to be studied in depth is the focus of study that needs to be tracked each other's internal structures in more detail and depth. Overall, this technique uses "approach of non-contrasts between elements". This technique begins by focusing on specific domains, then dividing the domain into sub- domains as well the more specific and detailed parts. The results of research shows that the economic reforms in the name of Islam today is a myth, and could not survive in the long term. Islam will lose power and sonorous sound of the economic policy. Islam will be abandoned, and humans will switch to the source of moral ideals and the other spiritual

Neither Social Revolution Nor Utopian Ideal: A Fresh Look at Luke's Community of Goods Practice for Christian Economic Reflection in Acts 4:32–35

Neither Social Revolution Nor Utopian Ideal: A Fresh Look at Luke's Community of Goods Practice for Christian Economic Reflection in Acts 4:32–35

The Promise of Interdisciplinary Engagement: Christian Ethics and Economics as a Test Case

The Promise of Interdisciplinary Engagement: Christian Ethics and Economics as a Test Case

Capital, Culture and Contradictions: Contemporary Christian Economic Ethics

This article analyses contemporary Christian economic ethics within the context of global financial capitalism. Arguing that contemporary Christian economic thought is inseparable from Christian attitudes towards capitalism, this article suggests there are four main approaches to the topic today: pro-capitalist attitudes; advocacy of the moral regulation of capitalism; advocacy of the moral reform of capitalism; and diverse anti-capitalist approaches. Comparing and contrasting these approaches, the article notes that certain contradictions exist in aspects of contemporary Christian economic ethics, particularly around attempts to curtail the influence of capitalism on culture.

Religion and the disjunction of the facts and values in economics

The article an attempt to divulge the origins of the methodological and, in part, theoretical principles of the economics. In highlighting the methodological assumptions of the issue, economic studies expose the notion of distinction between utility and meaning: by disproportionately emphasizing the utility dimension, the plane of meaning is hidden or even eliminated, inevitably incorporating the religious component as well.Methodological origins of the utility/meaning distinction are encountered in the prevailing concept of economic basis and means, where particular consideration is given to the comprehension of a rational, economic individual, as well as to the distinction between positive and normative economies. This demonstrates how the internal contradiction of a rational individual’s comprehension and the distinction of positive/normative economy give rise to fact-value distinction that is particularly deeply rooted in the very foundation of mainstream economic theory.The study shows how the utility/meaning and, accordingly, the fact/value distinctions which have occupied the methodological field of economy are manifested as expressions of the active/passive, technical and meditative existence concealed within an individual’s economic being. Within this context there is also an endeavor to substantiate the specific circumstance of so-called Christian economics, when Christian philosophical and theological insights are used in an attempt to furnish solutions to particularly concrete economic problems.

Christian Economic Thought in The Netherlands

The objective of this paper is to provide an insight into the ethics in the works of Christian economists in The Netherlands. The paper starts with a brief review of some key texts by Dutch Christian economists representing faith-based organizations. The next section presents a summary of (Dutch) Christian ethics, distinguishing four approaches: motivation, values, institutions, and instrumentalism. The following section will discuss some recent scholarly texts by Dutch Christian economists. It will be shown that three of the four ethical approaches are represented in these writings. In a comparison of the texts, the faith-based civil society economic thought seems to remain closer to the Christian ethics tradition. The last section will explain this gap by showing how, in faith-based civil society, morality is largely understood as being part and parcel of the economy, whereas in the academic economic literature, morality is largely regarded as belonging to the private sphere.

Outlines (and Challenges) in Theorizing and Testing Islamic Economics (a Case Study in Economic Teaching)

An immense intellectual shift is taking place in scientific study of religion. The changes have become so dramatic that has been called paradigm shift (Warner 1993). Two basic academic fields in this regard are Christian and Islamic economics. Since 1999 the literature of religion and economics has been extended (Dadgar and Ezati, 2003). To investigate the efficiency of teaching and learning Islamic economics it is necessary to extract sufficient, theoretical bodies in its different dimensions. An elementary step in this regard is passing through some questions (or challenges) which are yet, outlines of theorizing in this discipline. This paper is responsible to posit these outlines and explain them briefly. It contains an introduction, three main sections and concluding remarks.

Economics, Ethics and Religion: Jewish, Christian and Muslim Economic Thought

Economics, Ethics and Religion: Jewish, Christian and Muslim Economic Thought

Economics, Ethics and Religion : Jewish , Christian and Muslim Economic Thought

Economics, Ethics and Religion : Jewish , Christian and Muslim Economic Thought