A comparative assessment of late 19th/early 20th century and contemporary Christian economists.

摘要

The purpose of this study is to compare and assess the Christian economic thought of a select sample of eleven Christian economists spanning two time frames: the late 19th/early 20th century and the last quarter of the 20th century. The principal objective is to identify the salient issues Christian economists sought to address, the similarities and differences in positions, and why they considered Christianity to be in relevant to the study and understanding of economics. The first group of economists are surveyed in chapter two, the second group in chapter four. Chapter three demonstrates that the thought of the early economists cannot be separated from the issues and considerations peculiar to their time and that Christianity as it relates to economics performs a rhetorical and ameliorative function. Chapter five supports the view that the thought of Christian economists cannot be separated from the world view of which they are apart. Chapter five also provides a discussion of the role of Christian economics as social control. Chapter six identifies four considerations accounting for distinctive differences in Christian economic thought over the two time frames, with additional consideration given to the issue of uniqueness and the decline of Christian economic thought circa 1885. Chapter seven assesses the thought of Christian economists on the basis of monistic and pluralistic approaches to Christian economics, demonstrating that such a distinction involves dissimilar views of economic reality, scarcity, methodology, the putative scientific status of economics, and the post-modernist critique of economic science.