The Economy of Desire (The Church and Postmodern Culture)

Author: Daniel M. Jr. Bell
Publisher: Baker Books
ISBN: 1441240411
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 224

Book Description
In this addition to the award-winning Church and Postmodern Culture series, respected theologian Daniel Bell compares and contrasts capitalism and Christianity, showing how Christianity provides resources for faithfully navigating the postmodern global economy. Bell approaches capitalism and Christianity as alternative visions of humanity, God, and the good life. Considering faith and economics in terms of how desire is shaped, he casts the conflict as one between different disciplines of desire. He engages the work of two important postmodern philosophers, Deleuze and Foucault, to illuminate the nature of the postmodern world that the church currently inhabits. Bell then considers how the global economy deforms desire in a manner that distorts human relations with God and one another. In contrast, he presents Christianity and the tradition of the works of mercy as a way beyond capitalism and socialism, beyond philanthropy and welfare. Christianity heals desire, renewing human relations and enabling communion with God.

The Economy of Desire

Author: Daniel M. Bell Jr.
Publisher: Baker Academic
ISBN: 9780801035739
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 0

The Economy of Desire

Author: Daniel M. Bell
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781441258380
Category : Capitalism
Languages : en
Pages : 225

Book Description
This book compares and contrasts capitalism and Christianity, showing how Christianity provides resources for faithfully navigating the global economy.

Being Consumed

Author: William T. Cavanaugh
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
ISBN: 1467438294
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 116

Book Description
Should Christians be for or against the free market? For or against globalization? How are we to live in a world of scarcity? William Cavanaugh uses Christian resources to incisively address basic economic matters -- the free market, consumer culture, globalization, and scarcity -- arguing that we should not just accept these as givens but should instead change the terms of the debate. Among other things, Cavanaugh discusses how God, in the Eucharist, forms us to consume and be consumed rightly. Examining pathologies of desire in contemporary "free market" economies, Being Consumed puts forth a positive and inspiring vision of how the body of Christ can engage in economic alternatives. At every turn, Cavanaugh illustrates his theological analysis with concrete examples of Christian economic practices.

Ethics

Author: Miguel A. De La Torre
Publisher: Fortress Press
ISBN: 1451426224
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 274

Book Description
This survey text for religious ethics and theological ethics courses explores how ethical concepts defined as liberationist, which initially was a Latin American Catholic phenomenon, is presently manifest around the globe and within the United States across different racial, ethnic, and gender groups. Authored by several contributors, this book elucidates how the powerless and disenfranchised within marginalized communities employ their religious beliefs to articulate a liberationist/liberative religious ethical perspective. Students will thus comprehend the diversity existing within the liberative ethical discourse and know which scholars and texts to read and will encounter practical ways to further social justice.

Counting the Cost

Author: Art Lindsley
Publisher: ACU Press
ISBN: 0891125930
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 576

Book Description
If Christians want to accelerate the world’s transition out of abject poverty, they need to examine the role of capitalism. Counting the Cost helps readers begin with the truth of Scripture. It then relies on the economic realities that come from our Godgiven design as the foundation for enabling readers to think critically about capitalism. We live in an unprecedented time in human history. The number of people living in abject poverty is decreasing at an unprecedented rate. Capitalism has played a major role in lifting people out of such poverty, yet many raise legitimate concerns. Does capitalism hurt the poor? Promote materialism? Harm the environment? Allow the rich to get richer at the expense of everyone else? Is capitalism really the best system for organizing societies and the economies that keep them running? This edited volume of articles by noted economists and theologians takes an honest and empathetic look at capitalism and its critiques from a biblical perspective.

Economy and Christianity in the Postmodern Era

Author: Richard A. Stanford
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781257037506
Category : Capitalism
Languages : en
Pages : 222

Book Description
"Is God a capitalist? Rather, isn't God a socialist? The Judeo-Christian Bible provides no guidance in the selection of an economic system. There is no reason to believe that God prefers earthlings to alien life forms, Americans to Europeans, Republicans to Democrats, or capitalism to socialism. Besides, both capitalism and socialism have too many flaws to be the handiwork of the Creator"--Back cover.

Divinations

Author: Daniel M. Bell Jr.
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1498295398
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 210

Book Description
As modernity gives way to postmodernity, we are witnessing the emergence of a post-political age. Concepts and realities that anchored modern politics--like nation-states, community, freedom, and law--find themselves under duress from a pluriform terror. Simultaneously, we are witnessing a turn to religion by continental philosophers who seek resources for re-visioning a politics of resistance to this terror. This work engages postmodern philosophers such as Agamben, Badiou, Derrida, Deleuze, Hardt, Negri, and Zizek, seeking to divine both the promise and peril of this pagan plundering of Christianity on the way to articulating a Christian theopolitical vision that holds out the hope of resisting the terror that looms over us.

Desire, Market, Religion

Author: Jung Mo Sung
Publisher: SCM Press
ISBN: 0334048699
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 172

Book Description
Jung Mo Sung has pioneered a theological analysis of economics in his previous publications, developing a penetrating ethico-religious critique of the international capitalist systems, whose institutions he likens to altars. Where ancient idolatry had visible altars, the modern altar of the ‘global market god’, is invisible, but still demands human sacrifices in the name of ‘objective’ desires. Here Sung recovers theology’s relevance for a world where the most dangerous idols – those that sacrifice millions of people upon the altar of wealth – have for too long been ignored by theology. Desire, Market, Religion, Sung investigates themes such as the struggle against social exclusion, the relationship between economics and religion in the 21 century, where global brands and global economies reigns supreme, and theology’s role in the struggle against social exclusion and the giving of hope for plenty, when the reality is scarcity.

Christianity and the New Spirit of Capitalism

Author: Kathryn Tanner
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300219032
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 254

Book Description
One of the world's most celebrated theologians argues for a Protestant anti-work ethic In his classic The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Max Weber famously showed how Christian beliefs and practices could shape persons in line with capitalism. In this significant reimagining of Weber's work, Kathryn Tanner provocatively reverses this thesis, arguing that Christianity can offer a direct challenge to the largely uncontested growth of capitalism. Exploring the cultural forms typical of the current finance-dominated system of capitalism, Tanner shows how they can be countered by Christian beliefs and practices with a comparable person-shaping capacity. Addressing head-on the issues of economic inequality, structural under- and unemployment, and capitalism's unstable boom/bust cycles, she draws deeply on the theological resources within Christianity to imagine anew a world of human flourishing. This book promises to be one of the most important theological books in recent years.