What do world and regional religions say about economic morality? The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Economic Ethics presents together for the first time the key tenets and teachings of numerous faiths on this subject. In doing so, it also compares the major religions in their positions on various social, business, and policy topics, such as consumerism, competition, ecology, and feminism. It concludes with an analytical synthesis that presents and explains the patterns that emerge from the various religions and themes explored across the Handbook's chapters. Together, these chapters underscore a symbiosis between religion and economic life as they mutually enrich each other. On the one hand, religion improves the efficiency and efficacy of economic life by lowering the frictional and monitoring costs of market operations. Virtuous market participants internalize norms of good economic conduct and behave accordingly. On the other hand, socioeconomic life offers manifold enticements, comforts, and overindulgences that paradoxically push devout adherents to invest themselves even further in their beliefs. Socioeconomic life provides an opportunity for religions to build strong faith communities and for believers to reify their religion in their economic conduct. This Handbook presents the richness, nuances, and rationale of religions and their economic ethics. Readers will discover a remarkable convergence in religions' teachings on economic morality, despite their wide differences in dogma, ecclesial structures, and social practices. This confluence can be traced to similarities in the underlying anthropologies and cosmologies of these faiths. Finally, this Handbook shows, the major faiths share far more values than divide them, at least when it comes to economic morality.

The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Economic Ethics (Oxford Handbooks)

Business & Money

Amore, Roy C.

Barrera, Albino

Economics

Oxford University Press

This book explores the vital role of faith-based organizations (FBOs) in compensating for the market’s and government’s inability to provide vital services. Its key theoretical contribution is the notion that poverty is the result of a triadic failure―when markets, government, and civil society become dysfunctional at the same time. Using data on Catholic missionaries’ development work, this study presents the various ways by which FBOs mitigate market and government failures in healthcare, education, and social services, and in the process build and strengthen civil society. This study has two main objectives. First, it aims to present an overview of missionaries’ development work, evaluating the socioeconomic significance of their faith-based development work. In addition, various comparative advantages and disadvantages have been imputed to FBOs in the religion-development literature, and we assess to what extent missionaries actually exhibit these posited qualities in practice. Second, the groundwork is laid for future religion-development scholars by presenting a theoretical framework and a method for evaluating the role and contributions of FBOs in the larger community. This is an important investigation of contemporary worldwide Christianity and its relationship with development. As such, it will interest scholars of religious studies and missiology, as well as development economics, public service and the political economy.

Catholic Missionaries and Their Work with the Poor: Mitigating Market-Government Failure in Emerging Nations (Studies in World Christianity and Interreligious Relations)

Reference

Routledge

This book explores the vital role of faith-based organizations (FBOs) in compensating for the market’s and government’s inability to provide vital services. Its key theoretical contribution is the notion that poverty is the result of a triadic failure―when markets, government, and civil society become dysfunctional at the same time. Using data on Catholic missionaries’ development work, this study presents the various ways by which FBOs mitigate market and government failures in healthcare, education, and social services, and in the process build and strengthen civil society.\nThis study has two main objectives. First, it aims to present an overview of missionaries’ development work, evaluating the socioeconomic significance of their faith-based development work. In addition, various comparative advantages and disadvantages have been imputed to FBOs in the religion-development literature, and we assess to what extent missionaries actually exhibit these posited qualities in practice. Second, the groundwork is laid for future religion-development scholars by presenting a theoretical framework and a method for evaluating the role and contributions of FBOs in the larger community.\nThis is an important investigation of contemporary worldwide Christianity and its relationship with development. As such, it will interest scholars of religious studies and missiology, as well as development economics, public service and the political economy.

Catholic Missionaries and Their Work with the Poor (Studies in World Christianity and Interreligious Relations)

Albino Barrera argues that Christian thought on economic security offers an effective framework within which to address the consequences of economic compulsion. Markets can often be harsh in compelling people to make unpalatable economic choices any reasonable person would not take under normal conditions. Such economic ripple effects of market operations have been virtually ignored in ethical discourse because they are generally accepted to be the very mechanisms that shape the market's much-touted allocative efficiency.

Economic Compulsion and Christian Ethics (New Studies in Christian Ethics, Series Number 24)

Politics & Social Sciences

Sociology

Cambridge University Press

Albino Barrera argues that Christian thought on economic security offers an effective framework within which to address the consequences of economic compulsion. Markets can often be harsh in compelling people to make unpalatable economic choices any reasonable person would not take under normal conditions. Such economic ripple effects of market operations have been virtually ignored in ethical discourse because they are generally accepted to be the very mechanisms that shape the market's much-touted allocative efficiency.

Biblical Economic Ethics: Sacred Scripture's Teachings on Economic Life

Written in non-technical language accessible to non-specialist readers, this book is a theological synthesis of the findings of scripture scholars and ethicists on what the Bible teaches about economic life. It proposes a biblical theology of economic life that addresses three questions, namely: 
<ul>
<li>What do the individual books of Sacred Scripture say about proper economic conduct? </li>
<li>How do these teachings fit within the larger theology and ethics of the books in which they are found?</li>
<li>Are there recurring themes, underlying patterns, or issues running across these different sections of the Bible when read together as a single canon?</li>
</ul>
 The economic norms of the Old and New Testament exhibit both continuity and change. Despite their diverse social settings and theological visions, the books of the Bible nonetheless share recurring themes: care for the poor, generosity, wariness over the idolatry of wealth, the inseparability of genuine worship and upright moral conduct, and the acknowledgment of an underlying divine order in economic life. Contrary to most people’s first impression that the Bible offers merely random economic teachings without rhyme or reason, there is, in fact, a specific vision undergirding these scriptural norms. Moreover, far from being burdensome impositions of do’s and don’ts, this book finds that the Bible’s economic norms are, in fact, an invitation to participate in God’s providence. To this end, we have been granted a threefold benefaction—the gift of divine friendship, the gift of one another, and the gift of the earth. Thus, biblical economic ethics is best characterized as a chronicle of how God provides for humanity through people’s mutual solicitude and hard work. The economic ordinances, aphorisms, and admonitions of the Old and New Testament turn out to be an unmerited divine invitation to participate in God’s governance of the world. Our economic conduct provides us with a unique opportunity to shine forth in our creation in the image and likeness of God. Often extremely demanding, hard, and even fraught with temptations and distractions, economic life nevertheless is, at its core, an occasion for humans to grow in holiness, charity, and perfection.

Lexington Books

We seek to be both loving and just. However, what do we do when love and justice present us with incompatible obligations? Can one be excessively just? Should one bend rules or even break the law for the sake of compassion? Alternatively, should one simply follow rules? Unjust beneficence or uncaring justice - which is the less problematic moral choice? Moral dilemmas arise when a person can satisfy a moral obligation only by violating another moral duty. These quandaries are also called moral tragedies because despite their good intentions and best effort, people still end up being blameworthy. Conflicting demands of compassion and justice are among the most vexing problems of social philosophy, moral theology, and public policy. They often have life-and-death consequences for millions. In this book, Albino Barrera examines how and why compassion-justice conflicts arise to begin with, and what we can do to reconcile their competing claims.

Compassion-Justice Conflicts and Christian Ethics (New Studies in Christian Ethics)

Religion & Spirituality

Religious Studies

Market Complicity and Christian Ethics (New Studies in Christian Ethics, Series Number 31)

The marketplace is a remarkable social institution that has greatly extended our reach so shoppers in the West can now buy fresh-cut flowers, vegetables, and tropical fruits grown halfway across the globe even in the depths of winter. However, these expanded choices have also come with considerable moral responsibilities as our economic decisions can have far-reaching effects by either ennobling or debasing human lives. Albino Barrera examines our own moral responsibilities for the distant harms of our market transactions from a Christian viewpoint, identifying how the market's division of labour makes us unwitting collaborators in others' wrongdoing and in collective ills. His important account covers a range of different subjects, including law, economics, philosophy, and theology, in order to identify the injurious ripple effects of our market activities.

Christian Books & Bibles

Market Complicity And Christian Ethics

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Barrera, Albino. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Barrera, Albino

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Barrera, Albino. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Economic Ethics (Oxford Handbooks)

Catholic Missionaries and Their Work with the Poor: Mitigating Market-Government Failure in Emerging Nations (Studies in World Christianity and Interreligious Relations)

Catholic Missionaries and Their Work with the Poor (Studies in World Christianity and Interreligious Relations)

Economic Compulsion and Christian Ethics (New Studies in Christian Ethics, Series Number 24)

Economic Compulsion and Christian Ethics (New Studies in Christian Ethics, Series Number 24)

Biblical Economic Ethics: Sacred Scripture's Teachings on Economic Life

Compassion-Justice Conflicts and Christian Ethics (New Studies in Christian Ethics)

Market Complicity and Christian Ethics (New Studies in Christian Ethics, Series Number 31)

Market Complicity and Christian Ethics (New Studies in Christian Ethics, Series Number 31)

Market Complicity And Christian Ethics