Faith Hope The Global Economy

"Richard Higginson argues that, rightly understood and applied, faith can be an enormous power for good -- stimulating enterprise, reducing poverty, promoting integrity, ensuring sustainability and making disciples. This ground-breaking book will help business men and women to think deeply about what they do and why they do it. It shows how every episode in the biblical story of salvation has something important, challenging and hopeful to say about business practice. It explores alternative business models that provide signs of hope, and also offers insight and encouragement to those working for mainstream companies."--Cover.

Does faith have any hope to offer a global economy beset by debt and crisis? Richard Higginson argues that, rightly understood and applied, faith can be an enormous power for good - stimulating enterprise, reducing poverty, promoting integrity, ensuring sustainability and making disciples. This ground-breaking book will help business men and women to think deeply about what they do and why they do it. It shows how every episode in the biblical story of salvation has something important, challenging and hopeful to say about business practice. It explores alternative business models that provide signs of hope, and also offers insight and encouragement to those working for mainstream companies. Full of examples from business seen and researched by Richard on his travels, this book will inspire you to see the relevance of your faith to your work - and yourself as God's agent in transforming the world for the better.

The Christian belief that God became incarnate in Jesus Christ to share the human condition with us challenges any absolute division between the spiritual and the material. To pray for daily bread and forgiveness of debts is to recognize that economics cannot be separated from faith. Yet this link is not an easy one to maintain. While the suffering of the poor and the devastation of the environment may anger us, the bewildering complexity of the global economy tempts us to conclude that economics must finally be left to the experts. This "primer for Christians" addresses the paralysis created by seeking simple answers to today's complex economic issues. Drawing on his experience in banking and economics as well as the ecumenical movement, the author provides lucid explanations of the major ideas, forces and realities of the global economy today.

Reflections for Christians for dealing with money in a consumer-driven world In this much-needed book Douglas Hicks looks at how Christian faith applies to the practices of economic life-spending, saving, giving especially as an alternative to a life of unbridled consumerism. This book offers reflections for people of faith and anyone who wants to connect their Monday through Saturday lives with their faith and live a more integrated way. It takes a look at how to realistically apply Christian principles in these especially perilous economic times. Explores how Christians can rethink their practices of faith as consumers, investors, and earners Offers reflections on an important Christian concept in a practical, lively, and engaging style Contains ideas for meeting the everyday pressures, questions, and anxieties of economic life as they connect with Christian faith A new volume in the Practices of Faith Series The book is filled with the author's level-headed, thoughtful reflections on Christian practices of getting and spending.

Shaking the Gates of Hell: Faith-Led Resistance to Corporate Globalization breaks new ground by describing the global economy and its effects from the perspective of an integrated theology of "the earth as primary revelation" and the institutional powers of this world. It reaches the conclusion that hope lies in nonviolent resistance and ecological and social responsibility based on God's action in Jesus and in the triumph of God over the powers. This book describes today's interrelated social, economic, and ecological crises and makes the case that we face a living hell on earth if we do not address them. It provides an overview of the global economic system and offers a comprehensive theological analysis of the network of primary institutions that make up what Walter Wink calls the "Domination System." It points readers in the direction of hope based on following the way of Jesus, who lived in nonviolent resistance to the powers of his day. This new, revised edition continues the powerful story of the original, extending the analysis of the global economy from the 2008 collapse and recession to its alleged recovery. It addresses the Obama administration's policies on economics, trade, and the environment, and provides further reflections on American foreign and military policy in this so-called New American Century.

The global economy is enormous--about $32 trillion per annum--and it is pervasive. Because of mass communication and advanced technology, the global economy affects the output of goods and services of every nation. Gone forever are the days when mighty oceans or mountains allowed any country to isolate itself from the rest of the world. Time zones have been replaced by the 24-hour-a-day stock market. The fate of the South Korean won and the Thai baht is a matter of major concern to the stock markets of Washington, London and Sao Paulo. Today, no nation is an island but a part of a world-wide economic archipelago. Today, because economics is global, politics is becoming global. Furthermore, the globalization of the economy impacts the socio-cultural shape of every nation and people on the face of the earth. From soft drinks to jeans, automobiles to computers, television news to movies, the world is being homogenized, usually in the American image. The film Titanic is playing to standing-room-only crowds in New York City, London and Tokyo. Country singer Garth Brooks is the best-selling singer in history. CNN is the global news network. Cultural blockbusters and superstars are eclipsing smaller, indigenous cultural offerings and entertainers. Is the planet truly becoming Hollywood?Yet, in a world that is changing faster and more dramatically than at any time in history, the family remains the fundamental social unit of every country. How is it faring, economically, socially, spiritually? Beyond debate, the family is being subjected to stresses and strains it has heretofore never known. It is buffeted by China's one-child policy, America's 1.2 million abortions a year, Japan and Western Europe's rapidly aging population, the spreading AIDS epidemic in Africa and Asia, a widening gap between haves and havenots within nations and between nations, and the sharpening conflict between fundamentalists and secularists in many countries. And still most agree that there can be no viable society without viable families. This volume examines the focus of globalization on politics and society and what can be done to preserve and strengthen the family in a world increasingly indifferent to the age-old virtues of faith, hope, and charity.

No Room for Grace addresses a world dominated by free market capitalism, a world where persons become "human resources," the raw materials for competitive production and profitable investment. Barbara Rumscheidt considers how Christians are to do pastoral theology in such a world and explores the potential for Christian faith responses that can resist the dehumanizing dynamics of the global economy.

A world-renowned theologian and ethicist courageously challenges economists' zealous faith in the great god of growth and proposes that policies that produce sustainable development--in which the economy serves the community, and not vice versa--are not only feasible and economically sound, but more faithfully represent Christianity's traditional emphasis on the dignity of the individual and the value of the common good.