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Capitalism, the Crash, and ChristianityKeeping this in mind helps us recognize that while our various projects (economic and otherwise) of making the world look the way we want it to may be doomed, we need not succumb to the gloomy conclusion that there’s nothing for us to do and no way for us to move forward. We can train our desires because God has not abandoned us to the whirl. The Christian promise is that God has not and will not leave us bereft of Godself. So we train our desires in the faith that God has given up on neither the world nor our significance in it. |
Responses
Training Desire in Proverbs
...for I would dare wager that although the insights of Augustine and other theologians may help crystallize important problems for us—as Professor Douglas’s essay so ably demonstrates—most of the communal ethical and theological reflection that goes on in our churches and other communities of faith around contemporary issues regularly turns quickly to Bible Study.
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A Response to Capitalism, the Crash and Christianity
...To that extent, the economic stimulus plan might undermine the “invitation” to rethink spending priorities as an act of Christian discipleship. But perhaps there has been enough of a jolt that we might be persuaded to take up Christian conversation with one another about what kind of consuming is consistent with both our resources and our discipleship.
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The Economic Crisis and the Church
...But, in fact, when the bottom falls out from underneath us, we often find ourselves wondering what it was exactly we were standing on and indeed what was and is the foundation of our better selves. So, the timeliness of Douglas’s essay is precisely that he calls us to reconsider – yet again, no doubt – the true aim of our lives. This question is always timely, or at least it should be.
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A Grateful Reply
...If Christians believe that one God is sovereign over and works through all human systems, the threats of market contamination by politics seem misdirected: there never were or could be hermetic seals around the marketplace—whether to isolate it from politics or from the church.
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