Are you going to revisit this topic again in the future? You’ve looked at the contemporary philosophical, theological discussion. Capitalism next?

On a side note, did you notice Barclay is giving a lecture on Paul and the Gift in Australia in April? I’m trying to get a hold of the transcript. If so I’ll pass it long.

Could it be that we have reduced “faith” in Jesus to mere mental ascent to a set of theological presuppositions that do not necessarily guide the concrete actions, particularly the financial actions of the “faithful?” I.e. what really counts in your “faith” is believing the right things about Jesus. If your doctrine is sound, God will bless you and you’ll get to heaven. Now go about your business. 2+2=4, Jesus was the Son of God, just know the right answers and your faith is sound.

Could it also be that many of us (perhaps Joel Osteen is implicated by this, perhaps not) have placed our faith in our faith rather than in Jesus?

I encourage you to continue writing on this subject. We need to recognize the emotional connection that people and animals have to land and places. For too long this very human need has been ignored.

I will concur that Smith’s view was that competitive markets curb rapacious self-interest, but I am not sure who you are aiming your criticism at. You assume that modern proponents of free markets are arguing for some extreme world of free-wheeling, unbridled profiteering, which is not the case in my experience. It is a given in the current discourse that free markets are also competitive.

In the West, we live in a world awash in government regulation, much of it good. The recent problems in the banking sector have lead to a widespread and hysterical view that there are “no regulations!!” It seems the average person has no idea how much financial regulation there is out there.

Before the great stock market crash, prior to 1933, there were virtually no securities regulations in the USA. The Securities and Exchange Act of 1933 is still the main document governing the securities industry in the US.

Whenever a market correction occurs (dot-com bubble), or there is a case of massive corruption (BreX, Enron, WorldCom), the cry goes out for more and better regulation. But note that the greatest fraud of all time, Madoff, occurred after the implementation of Sarbanes Oxley, ostensibly a regulatory regime to root out corruption.

Regulation alone cannot stop a determined criminal.

Economic freedom is a blessing we need to appreciate, not take for granted, and we need to safeguard against over-regulation, which will lead to poverty. Free-trade is good, with its attendant rules.

The vast majority of individuals would rather trade away a measure of their economic freedom in exchange for a steady pay check and perceived job security. Business ventures involve a degree of risk that most refuse to tolerate. This pervasive aversion creates opportunities for those who are willing to take on such risks.

Those willing to take on risk should commended, not vilified as larcenous opportunists. Due to competition, most risky ventures fail, leaving the venturers impoverished.

The “lust of the eyes and the pride of life” (also 1st John) is not synonymous with profit seeking. It is a failing of the human condition that crosses all cultural and socioeconomic boundaries.

Does it not seem that standard economic theory’s deductive model of economic man – the utility maximizer of individual preferences – is not likely to lead us to many helpful economic insights and conclusions about humans created by a loving God, in the image of God, for life in relationship with God, others and all of creation?

Daly and Cobb, For The Common Good, 1989 & 1994, develop a very similar analysis to yours (pp. 97-117). As one small example, they note that as to the negligibility of land for economists, even Richard T. Ely (first president of the American Economic Association) and author of Land Economics, 1940, can, on the one hand say, “Land, as used by economists, means the forces of nature so far as they have economic significance” and “Too often the ‘conquest of nature’ benefiting immediate generations has resulted in the ‘conquest of man’ by those natural forces operating into eternity.” And yet, Ely can more often say that in the production of economic goods and services, “the earth is the inert and man the active factor,” and “land in itself is not productive” (Daly, p. 99).

Daly notes that “a glance through current issues of the journal…Land Economics, shows that even in this subdiscipline….concern for physical reality and for nature has become even more peripheral to land economics, and land economics has remained peripheral to economics in general” (p. 100).

Free markets and competitive markets are not necessarily the same thing. Markets free from government control may be anything from very competitive to monopolies. Smith showed us the beauty of competitive markets, not free markets. While Milton Friedman confessed that if he had a god it would probably be individual freedom, I don’t recall that Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments or the Wealth of Nations had much praise for individual freedom given Smith’s clear-eyed view of human opportunistic, self-interested behavior. I think John’s gospel is not far off the point, “If we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.”