Category Archives: Articles

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

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.

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

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.

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Liberation Theology and Development Economics: Unlikely Allies?

Faith & Economics
NUMBER 78, Fall 2021

Liberation Theology and Development Economics: Unlikely Allies?

Annette Davis and Christina McRorie
Creighton University

Abstract: This article proposes that developments in the fields of liberation theology and development economics have made this the right time for a dialogue between the two fields, despite their historic estrangement. Our argument unfolds in three parts. The first introduces the concerns of liberation theology, emphasizing its “see, judge, act” methodology of social analysis and its historical critique of development as a “top-down” approach to improving the lives of the poor. The second part charts recent changes within development economics, noting an increasingly holistic understanding of both poverty and human development, as well a growing emphasis on empowering local agents. The final part argues that points of compatibility now exist between the aims and methods of the two disciplines, but also notes ongoing areas of disagreement and difference. The article concludes by outlining subjects on which critical conversation between the two fields may prove mutually enriching. Keywords: liberation theology, development economics, social analysis, institutions, poverty.

JEL codes: O2, B2, Y8

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