Work Out Your Salvation: A Theology of Markets and Moral Formation
D. Glenn Butner Jr. 2024. Minneapolis, MI: Fortress Press. ISBN 978-1-5064-7941-5. $49.00 (Hardback).
It is not every day that one reads a book looking at the relationship between theology and economics that starts with an examination of experimental economics and market design. In addition, that book is written by a theologian: Glenn Butner is an associate professor of theology at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, and he knows his economics. In one of the endorsements for the book, Kate Ward describes Work Out Your Salvation as a “wholly original book” (Kindle edition, p. 2). I concur.
In the introduction to the book, Butner describes (p. 17) the question he intends to answer. “What does it mean for a person to daily be transformed and sanctified toward the end of participating in the communion of the Father, Son, and Spirit in a world where that person’s daily life primarily consists of participation in a market economy?”
Butner navigates between those ethicists who assert that markets “are a major hindrance to Christian moral formation” (p. 19), like Daniel Bell and James K. A. Smith, and those writers such as Deirdre McCloskey who argue that “most virtues are enhanced by markets” (p. 21). Butner asserts that both camps pay “insufficient attention . . . to the variability of moral formation in markets” (p. 21) and that his book “resists common simplified treatments of markets as beneficial or harmful by appealing to the variability of markets and thus the variability of the possible influences that markets can have on moral formation” (p. 23).
Although deep and significant, the book is quite well written and thus reads relatively easily. It is extensively footnoted, includes a substantial bibliography (30 pages), and has valuable name and subject indexes. One thing that I found surprising is the number of new ideas I encountered; this book is not a rehash of ideas from other sources. Overall, it is a very careful work of scholarship.
The book’s first section, on “Economics,” comprises three chapters. Chapter 1 presents extensive evidence from studies in experimental economics. Butner concludes that
experimental economics and game theory have uncovered evidence that selfishness can be fostered in the context of social norms treating self-interest as socially acceptable. Conversely, experiments have shown that trust and fairness can be fostered in a similar manner by establishing a similar social norm. (p. 41)
In this chapter, Butner also examines the importance of market design. He asserts:
Contrary to many theological debates, it is not clear that markets automatically produce just or unjust outcomes. In fact, many specific features of a given market determine the nature of the outcomes for different participants in that market – small changes may shift outcomes from being unjust to being just. (p. 49)
Anyone who wants to examine the relationship between theology and economics must take the issue of the positive/normative dichotomy head-on. Butner does so in Chapter 2. He provides a clear and readable history of this distinction, with an emphasis on some of its more contemporary formulations. Although he believes that theology can provide “facts” that are important for economic analysis, ultimately, Butner argues for a
much more modest claim to dismantle the positive/normative distinction: positive or descriptive economics cannot be completely detached from values and normative economics. Such modest aspirations alone are enough to warrant theologians a seat at the table for any level of economic analysis. (p. 65)
Chapter 3, titled “What is a Market?”, expands on Butner’s definition of a market as “an imagined space where participants voluntarily buy and sell goods through a mechanism of exchange based on certain information, including price” (p. 95). He includes several examples of how markets fit into this framework, with a special focus on both Amazon and markets for pollution permits. Butner argues that in many cases, “markets are designed by governments, corporations, economists, and other stakeholders” (p. 116). This idea is a foundational principle of his analysis and leads him to the conclusion that, “sound moral analysis [should] move from blanket acceptance or rejection of capitalism or markets to a careful analysis of which market formations are moral and which are not” (p. 94). For Butner, not only can market design “shape the justice of the outcome of markets” (p. 118), but it can also “shape the ways that markets morally form us” (p. 118).
The book’s middle section, “Theology,” encompasses three chapters on core theological topics and their relation to economics. Chapter 4 discusses the concept of providence and makes a strong case for why a proper understanding of this concept is important for economic action. Questions about the relationship between God’s control and human freedom are complicated and have been the subject of theological discussion for millennia. Butner develops a model of “concurrent human and divine action” (p. 131) that asserts “moral formation in the marketplace to be the work of God without eliminating human freedom, responsibility, and causation” (p. 131).
Chapter 5 of the book examines how sin and grace can impact the ways that markets affect their participants. The chapter includes a helpful framework that clarifies how sin can work through markets, distinguishing between what he calls “social sin” and “structures of sin.” While noting that more centralized economies can suffer from corruption due to the concentration of power, Butner claims that more decentralized economies can be “inattentive to the amplifying effects of structures of sin” (p. 164). The chapter also includes an extended discussion of the impact of “common grace” on markets; Butner concludes that “markets may be both a product of common grace and a means of transmitting that grace” (p. 154). He also describes the necessity of seeing both common grace and God’s special grace within a theology of economics.
Chapter 6 provides a detailed explanation of the doctrine of the Trinity and its relation to the economy. For Butner, “a sound theology of moral formation in the marketplace must necessarily be a trinitarian theology” (p. 187). He surveys various approaches and rejects those that suggest what he describes as an “exemplary approach,” one that treats “the Trinity as a model for the ideal human society” (p. 188). Instead, he focuses on what he describes as the “economic acts of the Trinity” (p. 188), and he works to connect “theological accounts of divine action in redeeming human beings and social-scientific accounts of the effects of markets on market participants” (p. 188).
The third section of the book, “Theology and Economics,” makes new connections between the first two sections. Chapter 7 is titled “The Father’s Providence and the Context of Markets.” Here, Butner examines both economic inequality and culture and how they provide the context for individuals in the marketplace. He interprets inequality and culture “theologically as the result of divine providence” (p. 220), by which he means that they are the setting in which we find ourselves. Our situation provides “an opportunity for Christians to act according to their duty in the context in which they find themselves” (p. 236). Given that he believes that Scripture strongly argues against inequality, he proceeds to describe “some methods of market design that can be used to reduce the structures of sin in markets and make market participants more receptive to common grace” (p. 236).
Butner suggests that labor unions, cooperatives, antitrust legislation, and the design of taxation are examples of areas where market design can take place. As a labor economist, I believe Butner is too sanguine about the possibility of labor unions bringing more justice to the economy. For a variety of reasons, private sector workers have largely rejected unions in the USA, even under the more pro-union environment of the Biden administration. Public sector unions have lobbied hard against giving workers the “right to work” without their representation, and many have become quite political in their orientation.
Overall, I found the depth of options Butner presents here for market design to be a bit lacking. I was also surprised about his pessimism concerning the “human ability to intentionally direct culture” (p. 243), which I believe impacts what options he suggests. This pessimism may lead to more top–down remedies for the problems that he sees. I have less confidence in the government to design markets fairly than Butner does. While he asserts that markets and their design can impact moral formation, I also believe that Christians can still impact moral formation in a significant way. He does note that the church can make an impact by “fighting to restrict the commodification of reality, or, to put it another way, resisting imagining certain spaces as markets” (p. 243).
Chapter 8 is titled “Markets, Discrimination, and Identity in Christ.” Here, Butner examines the phenomenon of discrimination in markets and suggests some ways that market design could help remedy it. The largest focus here is on statistical discrimination, and he presents a detailed analysis of audit and correspondence studies that suggest that this type of discrimination is widespread.
Butner asserts that New Testament ethics are inconsistent with “the utilitarian justifications offered in defense of statistical discrimination” (p. 270). He is also concerned that the process of statistical discrimination itself can “train Christians to reify the social constructs of race in a manner that makes market participants more prone to what economists call ‘taste-based discrimination,’ or, in common parlance, bigotry” (p. 271). He notes that remedying such discrimination through market design will be particularly difficult because of the interlocking ways in which discrimination has worked over time (“redlining,” for example). Butner also encourages the participation of those most victimized by discrimination in the process of the design of potential solutions.
Chapter 9, titled “The Sanctifying Spirit and the Market,” includes a beautiful exposition of the doctrine of sanctification, and “how the Holy Spirit’s indirect work through the means of grace might be undermined by markets” (p. 300). Butner also examines the idea of “liturgies” in markets, and the impact of technology on moral formation. He concludes that these factors “will reveal markets to be a potential means of common grace, though also a potential site for social sin” (p. 300). Throughout this chapter, Butner emphasizes where markets are lacking as opposed to how they can benefit people. There is some discussion throughout the book about the virtue-creating properties of markets for individuals, but less about some of the positive effects of markets for society as a whole, which are often accomplished without significant intentional design or control.
Work Out Your Salvation deserves wide attention from the academic community. Butner’s emphasis on how markets can form our character and that markets need to be designed for greater justice is thought-provoking and insightful. During my reading, I ended up thinking about the connections between markets and theological concepts in new ways. While I found the book very useful, the final third was slightly less than what I hoped for. As always, it is easier to analyze problems than to find definitive solutions. I would highly recommend this book to any economist interested in the relationship between theology and economics, to any theologian who wants to know more about economics, and to those who have an interest in social ethics.