Download Free Economic Compulsion And Christian Ethics Book in PDF and EPUB Free Download. You can read online Economic Compulsion And Christian Ethics and write the review.

Barrera addresses adverse effects of market operations on individuals from the viewpoint of Christian ethics.
The marketplace is a remarkable social institution that has greatly extended our reach so shoppers in the West can now buy fresh-cut flowers, vegetables, and tropical fruits grown halfway across the globe even in the depths of winter. However, these expanded choices have also come with considerable moral responsibilities as our economic decisions can have far-reaching effects by either ennobling or debasing human lives. In this book, Albino Barrera examines our own moral responsibilities for the distant harms of our market transactions from a Christian viewpoint, identifying how the market's division of labour makes us unwitting collaborators in others' wrongdoing and in collective ills. His important account covers a range of different subjects, including law, economics, philosophy, and theology, in order to identify the injurious ripple effects of our market activities.
Written in non-technical language accessible to non-specialist readers, this book is a theological synthesis of the findings of scripture scholars and ethicists on what the Bible teaches about economic life. It proposes a biblical theology of economic life that addresses three questions, namely: What do the individual books of Sacred Scripture say about proper economic conduct? How do these teachings fit within the larger theology and ethics of the books in which they are found? Are there recurring themes, underlying patterns, or issues running across these different sections of the Bible when read together as a single canon? The economic norms of the Old and New Testament exhibit both continuity and change. Despite their diverse social settings and theological visions, the books of the Bible nonetheless share recurring themes: care for the poor, generosity, wariness over the idolatry of wealth, the inseparability of genuine worship and upright moral conduct, and the acknowledgment of an underlying divine order in economic life. Contrary to most people’s first impression that the Bible offers merely random economic teachings without rhyme or reason, there is, in fact, a specific vision undergirding these scriptural norms. Moreover, far from being burdensome impositions of do’s and don’ts, this book finds that the Bible’s economic norms are, in fact, an invitation to participate in God’s providence. To this end, we have been granted a threefold benefaction—the gift of divine friendship, the gift of one another, and the gift of the earth. Thus, biblical economic ethics is best characterized as a chronicle of how God provides for humanity through people’s mutual solicitude and hard work. The economic ordinances, aphorisms, and admonitions of the Old and New Testament turn out to be an unmerited divine invitation to participate in God’s governance of the world. Our economic conduct provides us with a unique opportunity to shine forth in our creation in the image and likeness of God. Often extremely demanding, hard, and even fraught with temptations and distractions, economic life nevertheless is, at its core, an occasion for humans to grow in holiness, charity, and perfection.
Markets can often be harsh in compelling people to make unpalatable economic choices any reasonable person would not take under normal conditions. Thus, workers laid off in mid-career accept lower-paid jobs that are beneath their professional experience for want of better alternatives. Economic migrants leave their families and cross borders (legally or illegally) in search of a livelihood. These are examples of economic compulsion. These economic ripple effects have been virtually ignored in ethical discourse because they are generally accepted to be the very mechanisms that generate the market's much-touted allocative efficiency. Albino Barrera argues that Christian thought on economic security offers an effective framework within which to address the consequences of economic compulsion.
What does the history of Christian views of economic life mean for economic life in the twenty-first century? Here Daniel Finn reviews the insights provided by a large number of texts, from the Bible and the early church, to the Middle Ages and the Protestant Reformation, to treatments of the subject in the last century. Relying on both social science and theology, Finn then turns to the implications of this history for economic life today. Throughout, the book invites the reader to engage the sources and to develop an answer to the volume's basic question.
Self-interest, economic efficiency and private property rights are among the most basic assumptions of market economics. But can an economic theory built on these assumptions alone provide adequate insight into human nature, motivation and ultimate goals to guide our economic life? John Stapleford says no along with those economists who recognize the limits of their discipline. He insightfully shows us in detail how ethics are inextricably intertwined with economic life and analysis. Writing from a Christian ethical perspective, he interacts with seven standard introductory economics texts, exploring the moral challenges imbedded in various macro-, micro- and international economic theories and outlining a faithful response to them. Among the important ethical issues addressed are possibilities and perils of economic growth the role of government in the economy the growth of work and loss of leisure lending and borrowing poverty and distributive justice environmental stewardship business and social responsibility legalized gambling the pornography industry debt relief for less developed countries the economics of immigration population control Keyed to seven of the most widely used introductory economics texts--Gwartney, Stroup & Sobel; Mankiw; Mansfield & Behravesh; McConnell & Brue; Miller; Samuelson & Nordhaus; and Stiglitz--this book will be especially useful for introductory courses in economics.
Christian engagement with economics tends to baptize pre-existing sociopolitical perspectives, thereby assuming a predetermined metaphysical narrative. What happens when the story of the development of economics, told from an anthropological and sociological perspective, is juxtaposed with a biblical theology that focuses primarily on relationships? Wagenfuhr tests a theological method grounded in three kinds of relationships: Creatorcreature,estrangement, and Reconciler-reconciled, by comparing these with a fourth relationship: the economic. He argues that economic relationships, and the worlds they create throughout history, are the fruit of relationships estranged from God. Much theology has committed itself to a metaphysic rooted in the reality of economics and his told a metaphysical story that tends to legitimize current sociopolitical realities. Wagenfuhr argues that reconciliation with God is entirely subversive to economic relationships. No economic relationship or system is established or justified by God; but neither does he reject them. Instead, the love of God in Christ speaks the economic language of a people, with a critical edge, leading to loving subversion of any and all economic relationships.This book argues for a robust theology that offers the post-Christendom church a renewed sense of the total scale of God's mission of reconciliation.
Focuses on cultural and ethical implications of market economics in the modern world.