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Over the last several years I find myself more and more being drawn more into conversation about religion\u2014specifically, Orthodox Christianity\u2014and economics. Originally, my interest in the economic side of the conversation was minimal.\u00a0 Embarrassing though it is to say now, I only took one economics class in college and while I got a \u201cB\u201d I was an indifferent student of the subject.<\/p>\n
Thanks to personal friendships I\u2019ve discovered the work of economists such as Ludwig von Mises<\/a> and Fredrich A. Hayek<\/a>\u2014two dominate voices in the Austrian School of Economics.\u00a0 Even here though my interests were, initially at least, not so much in policy as methodology; unlike the quantitative and empirical approach I studied in college, the Austrian school conceives of economics more along the lines of the qualitative approach at the center of human science<\/a> movement.\u00a0 This qualitative approach to economics has resulted in some interesting, and to my mind extraordinarily helpful and insightful, research into religion by scholars such as Laurence Iannaccone<\/a> and\u00a0Rodney Stark<\/a>.<\/p>\n Among other things, the economic study of religion<\/a> helps us understand why pluralism is good for religion in general but to the disadvantage of some religions in particular. Ironically, the free market in religion is harms those liberal religious communities who value cultural pluralism and economic liberalism (in the contemporary American sense) but are suspicious, and even overtly hostile, to economic capitalism. On the other hand, those religious traditions that resist cultural pluralism and contemporary liberalism\u2014but who often, though not universally\u2014favor a free market approach to economics are the main benefactors of the free for all that characterizes the American religious landscape (see for example, Iannaccone, 1994).<\/p>\n Through this, circuitous route, I have lately come to an interest in economic public policy.\u00a0 Unfortunately such an interest is usually greeted with something less than enthusiasm\u2014at least when (as in my case) you are an Orthodox priest. At the risk of making a gross generalization, clergy are typically as ignorant of economics and business as economists and business people are of moral theology and the ascetical tradition of the Church.\u00a0 Since I\u2019m trading in stereotypes already, I would say that discussions between theologians and economists break down quickly since\u2014intentionally or not\u2014theologians assume economists are wicked even as economists assume that theologians are ignorant.\u00a0 Representatives of the two disciples rarely understand each other because they rarely have even a basic grasp of the other academic discipline and the kinds of questions and concerns that its scholars seek to address.<\/p>\n This is why three small books published by the American Enterprise Institute<\/a> are so welcome. The books (P. Wehner & A. C. Brooks, Wealth & Justice: The Morality of Democratic Capitalism<\/em>; A. J. Pollock, Boom & Bust: Financial Cycles and Human Prosperity<\/em>; S. F. Hayward, Mere Environmentalism: A Biblical Perspective on Humans and the Natural World<\/em>) are part of AEI\u2019s Common Sense Concepts series<\/a>.\u00a0 They\u2019re all short\u2014each took just an afternoon to read\u2014introductions to basic ideas in economics.\u00a0 What is especially important is that they do this in a way that takes seriously Christian moral concerns.\u00a0 Meant primarily for college students and written from a broadly Evangelical Christian perspective, singularly and together they offer a good ethical and practical defense of democratic capitalism.<\/p>\n That said though a defense of the American model of democracy and of the free market, these works do not allow either politics or economics to drive the conversation.\u00a0 Rather both are examined soberly in light of \u201cmerely Christianity.\u201d I think all the authors would all acknowledge, as Wehner and Brooks do explicitly in their book, that \u201ccapitalism, like American democracy itself, is hardly perfect or sufficient by itself\u201d (p. 8).\u00a0 Both require \u201cstrong, vital, non-economic and non-political institutions\u2014including the family, churches and other places of worship, civic associations, and schools\u2014to complement,\u201d sustain and (when needed) reform them.<\/p>\n But this symphonia<\/a><\/em> is impossible without \u201can educated citizenry.\u201d\u00a0 Such an education must be more than technical\u2014essential though a sound technical foundation is.\u00a0\u00a0 To fulfill the vision sketched out in these three books assumes that we possess personally what Peter Kreeft (1992) might call the \u201csoft\u201d virtues \u201csuch as sympathy, altruism, compassion\u201d as well as the \u201chard\u201d virtues of \u201cself-discipline, perseverance, and honesty.\u201d\u00a0 Like technological skill, personal virtue alone is insufficient. We need not only healthy, robust and vibrant families and churches, but also a political culture that supports and abides \u201cby laws, contracts, and election results (regardless of their outcome).\u00a0 Without these virtues, capitalism [and democracy] can be eaten from within by venality and used for pernicious ends.\u201d<\/p>\n Why are personal virtue and the rule of law essential?\u00a0 Because:<\/p>\n \u2026capitalism, like democracy, is part of an intricate social web.\u00a0 Capitalism both depends on it and contributes mightily to it.\u00a0 Morality and capitalism, like morality and democracy, are intimately connected and mutually complimentary.\u00a0 They reinforce one another; they need one another; and they are terribly diminished without one another. They are links in a golden chain (p. 9).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n As both an Orthodox Christian and a social scientist, seeing democratic capitalism in this way helps me understand how the ascetical and liturgical tradition of the Church can make a contribution to American civil society.<\/p>\n Especially for St Maximos the Confessor<\/a> and St Gregory Palamas<\/a>, the ascetical struggle does not extinguish desire (i.e., self-interest) as much as does purify it.\u00a0 As St Augustine<\/a> argues, prayer, fasting and almsgiving teach me to order rightly the different elements of my life in light of the Gospel; asceticism points me beyond myself to Christ, helps me to love Christ, and in Christ to love my neighbor.\u00a0 Just as asceticism purifies my desires, the Church\u2019s liturgical tradition provides me with a sense of the larger, eschatological context within which I live my life.\u00a0 Apart from such an eschatological experience, I will invariably and necessarily succumb to the temptation to take and make ultimate rather than \u201clay aside the cares of this life\u201d as we hear in the Cherubic Hymn.<\/p>\n Wehner and Brooks are correct, capitalism and democracy \u201cpart of an intricate social web.\u201d Understanding this social network requires not only personal virtue and just laws, but the eschatological vision that we receive in the sacraments and which we constantly accept and embody in the ascetical life.<\/p>\n In Christ,<\/p>\n +Fr Gregory<\/p>\n