Synopses & Reviews
Calculated Futures examines the ethical and theological underpinnings of the free-market economy, investigating not only the morality of corporations and exchange rates, but also how the politics of economics shape people as moral agents. It does this less by insisting on the unfavorable effects of capitalism, and more by drawing on theological virtues, Christian doctrines, and liturgical practices to discover what they might show us about economic exchanges. Calculated Futures seeks a way forward by engaging economics as a social scientific discipline without subordinating theology to it.
Review
Leading voices in the new discussion of theology and economy advance the conversation beyond outworn dichotomies and intellectual deadlocks with grace and charity. Tracing the contours of a robustly theological economy, Long and Fox find resources of hope beyond the depredations of the current economic order in the gift of the riches of Christian doctrine and practice.
--Daniel M. Bell, Jr., Associate Professor of Theological Ethics, Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary
Synopsis
Charts a path between neo-conservatism and the Christian left to craft a theology of economics.
About the Author
D. Stephen Long (Ph.D. Duke) is Professor of Systematic Theology at Marquette University and is the author of The Goodness of God: Theology, Church, and the Social Order (2001). Nancy Ruth Fox (Ph.D. University of Pennsylvania) is Associate Dean, College of Arts and Sciences and Associate Professor of Economics at Saint Joseph's University. Tripp York (Ph.D. Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary) is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Elon University.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Part I: The Logic of the Market: An Investigation of First Principles
1. Prophets and Profits: Economics and Theology in Conflict?
2. The Facts about Values
3. What Makes Theology "Political?": Come Let Us Reason Together
4. The Theology of Economics: Adam Smith as 'church' Father
Part II: The Corporation and Everyday Economic Life:
A Traditioned Theological Inquiry
5. Corporations and the Ends We Serve
6. Usury: Avarice as a Capital Vice
7. A Catholic Church and a Global Market: The Tale of Two Corporations
8. Offering Our Gifts: The Politics of Remembrance