Faith & Economics
NUMBER 78, Fall 2021

Review of
A Sacred Journey: Faithful Presence in the Secular Academy
Paul Nicholas Wilson

Reviewed by
Andrew Hansen
Anselm House

Full Text PDF

Faith & Economics
NUMBER 78, Fall 2021

Review of
Pricing Lives: Guideposts for a Safer Society
by W. Kip Viscusi

Reviewed by
Matthew P. Forsstrom
Wheaton College

Full Text PDF

Faith & Economics
NUMBER 78, Fall 2021

Review of
Political Economy as Natural Theology: Smith, Malthus, and Their Followers
by Paul Oslington

Reviewed by
Christina McRorie
Creighton University

Full Text PDF

Faith & Economics
NUMBER 78, Fall 2021

Review of
Capital and Ideology
by Thomas Piketty

Reviewed by
Jamin Hübner
University of the People
LCC International University

PDF Full Text

Faith & Economics
NUMBER 78, Fall 2021

Review of
Causal Inference: The Mixtape
By Scott Cunningham

Reviewed by Sarah Hamersma
Syracuse University

Full Text PDF

Faith & Economics
NUMBER 78, Fall 2021

The Lost Sheep, God’s Body and Housing – Renewing Hearts and Minds into Renewed Communities

Virginia Beard
Hope College

Abstract: Home is part of what it means to be human. Current land use regulations and social attitudes often prohibit access to spaces of home. Aspects of zoning and land use regulations perpetuate the power of certain ideas over others, by defining what makes a good community. These ideas have consequences. Beliefs and ensuing policies divide, exclude, and suppress the full expression of God’s body by limiting the supply of housing, determining the type of housing that is acceptable, and establishing who is able to access communities through housing. They account for laws that prop up overly-expensive housing. This exclusion of the economic least-of-these in communities around the country not only harms these individuals and families, but also the entire body of Christ. Christians must work to create space at the table of our communities for everyone who would join us. This opening up creates a flourishing body and affirms the dignity of each individual. There are many other factors that affect community access that we cannot control. However, through renewed hearts and minds we can design laws that enable people to have a home.

Full Text PDF

Faith & Economics
NUMBER 78, Fall 2021

Economic and Environmental Religion: The Work of Robert H. Nelson

Paul Oslington
Alphacrucis College

Abstract: This article contextualizes and assesses Robert H. Nelson’s writing on economics and religion, following his sudden death at a conference in Finland in 2018. Despite his Scandinavian Lutheran background, he always operated as an outsider – never identifying with any religious institution. He viewed religion as expressing our ultimate concerns. This led him first to read economics as religion, and to a series of books and articles about this. He saw environmentalism as the major contemporary competitor to economics and he wrote another series of books and articles on the religious nature of environmentalism. In the process, Nelson asked important questions about the nature of religion, economics, and environmentalism. As a non-specialist in these fields, his command of the details was sometimes shaky, but he had an excellent sense of the big-picture relationships. His most significant contribution is perhaps his analysis of environmental religion and some of the policy publications arising from this. He was particularly proud of a book finished towards the end of his life on philosophical arguments for God.

Full Text PDF