Evangelicals, Pope Benedict, and the Financial Crisis
Paul Williams Monday, 29 November 2010
Protestant responses to the recent encyclical Caritas in Veritate suggest that after decades of subjection to various ideological agendas and meandering around the hermeneutical spiral, Christian theological reflection on economics may be entering a more fruitful stage. At least that is the conclusion of a recent conference, God and the Global Economy, hosted by Regent College's Marketplace Institute in collaboration with think-tank Cardus. Participants spanned five countries in three continents, included economists, theologians, biblical scholars, environmentalists, investors, and labor activists, and represented Catholics and Protestants of a wide variety of denominations (mainly of an evangelical or Reformed persuasion). Clearly such a group cannot speak for all evangelicals, let alone all Protestants. Nevertheless I trust the reader will find the defense of my opening statement, based on content from this conference, of interest. In this essay I will specifically focus attention on issues of finance and capital markets, one of four major themes of the conference. I begin though with a brief review of recent evangelical theological reflection on economics and its relationship to Catholic thought.
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