I am entertaining the possibility of Christian influence on the secular business world for a number of reasons, but this exploration is simply a part of a fundamental tension with which every Christian encounters. On the one hand, believers’ “citizenship is in heaven” (Philippians 3:20) and the Lord Jesus reminds His own that “you will…

The grace of God facilitated the provision of the Jubilee year (described in Lev 25). The pull of sin toward greed and the accumulation of wealth and power made Jubilee a necessity for such grace. The law itself could afford some degree of accountability, but sin could even infest the administration of law resulting in…

Through the generous support of the Kern Family Foundation’s “Faith, Work, and Economics” program, I have been working on a project called “The Jubilee Summit.” The name originates from the same categories that provide the framework and topical treatments of my present Sapientia series, namely, “God, Image-Flourishing, and Jubilee.” This past weekend, January 23–24, a group gathered at…

The last two weeks have explored Genesis 1 and 2 and what they teach us about God as achiever, as well as his intention that humanity would also share in achievement. But as any informed Bible reader knows, there is a sharp U-turn just around the corner. Genesis 3 records the event known as “the…

Protestant and evangelical writes have been increasingly developing something like a political theology, although often without intentional and careful connection to the fundamental theological disciplines. Into this relative void, thinkers like Jordan J. Ballor (Dr. theol., University of Zurich; PhD Candidate, Calvin Theological Seminary)  provide an important voice, reflecting on the theological ground for the…

“It is indeed a sorry statement on the present state of the Christian church that economic opinions … are more definitive of unity than the spiritual bond … of Jesus Christ.”1 So says Jordan Ballor with prophet-like pathos. While most of us cannot give an adequate or well-thought understanding of what we mean when we say…

Join us next Tuesday, February 26th, for Paul Metzger’s Trinity Symposium lecture titled Downward Mobility and Trickle-Up Economics: A Trinitarian Reflection on Money and Power. Metzger has an MDiv from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (Deerfield, IL), and a PhD from King’s College London (London, UK). He now teaches Christian Theology and Theology of Culture at Multnomah University (Portland,…