Reveals the many ways in which religious groups actually embraced commercial culture to establish an urban presence. [back cover].

“Essential and thoroughly engaging...Harvey Cox’s ingenious sense of how market theology has developed a scripture, a liturgy, and sophisticated apologetics allow us to see old challenges in a remarkably fresh light.” —E. J. Dionne, Jr. We have fallen in thrall to the theology of supply and demand. According to its acolytes, the Market is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent. It can raise nations and ruin households, and comes complete with its own doctrines, prophets, and evangelical zeal. Harvey Cox brings this theology out of the shadows, demonstrating that the way the world economy operates is shaped by a global system of values that can be best understood as a religion. Drawing on biblical sources and the work of social scientists, Cox points to many parallels between the development of Christianity and the Market economy. It is only by understanding how the Market reached its “divine” status that can we hope to restore it to its proper place as servant of humanity. “Cox argues that...we are now imprisoned by the dictates of a false god that we ourselves have created. We need to break free and reclaim our humanity.” —Forbes “Cox clears the space for a new generation of Christians to begin to develop a more public and egalitarian politics.” —The Nation

Faith and the Marketplace is a life-transforming book on the supernatural business of the kingdom of God, and a kingdom leadership playbook that promises to catapult you to the next level of your career, profession, business, or ministry. You will learn how to build your faith in God and understand His perfect plan for your life. Your faith was never meant to be separated from your work or business life. Bill Winston meticulously details throughout this book how the two work together. In God's kingdom, you are either a king or a priest. Kings are marketplace ministers who serve in government, business, education, media, the family, and arts and entertainment. Priests are those who serve as an apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, or teacher, or what is commonly referred to as the five-fold ministry. Through a multitude of scriptures, his own life story, and the engaging stories of others, Bill Winston explains why God is calling for the restoration of the unbeatable team of kings and priests to bring faith back into the marketplace, and to advance His kingdom around the world. Bill Winston has served as both a king (in the military and business world) and now a priest, and has been graced by God to reach this topic of faith and the marketplace like no one else.

Markets of Sorrow, Labors of Faith is an ethnographic account of long-term recovery in post-Katrina New Orleans. It is also a sobering exploration of the privatization of vital social services under market-driven governance. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, public agencies subcontracted disaster relief to private companies that turned the humanitarian work of recovery into lucrative business. These enterprises profited from the very suffering that they failed to ameliorate, producing a second-order disaster that exacerbated inequalities based on race and class and leaving residents to rebuild almost entirely on their own. Filled with the often desperate voices of residents who returned to New Orleans, Markets of Sorrow, Labors of Faith describes the human toll of disaster capitalism and the affect economy it has produced. While for-profit companies delayed delivery of federal resources to returning residents, faith-based and nonprofit groups stepped in to rebuild, compelled by the moral pull of charity and the emotional rewards of volunteer labor. Adams traces the success of charity efforts, even while noting an irony of neoliberalism, which encourages the very same for-profit companies to exploit these charities as another market opportunity. In so doing, the companies profit not once but twice on disaster.

Ever since Adam Smith suggested his concept of the 'invisible hand', advocates of the market have argued that social cohension, material prosperity and political vitality have been best served by a policy of non-intervention. This book guides the reader through the complex field of social theorizing based on the capital market.

3000. That's the number of marketing messages the average American confronts on a daily basis from TV commercials, magazine and newspaper print ads, radio commercials, pop-up ads on gaming apps, pre-roll ads on YouTube videos, and native advertising on mobile news apps. These commercial messages are so pervasive that we cannot help but be affected by perpetual come-ons to keeping buying. Over the last decade, advertising has become more devious, more digital, and more deceptive, with an increasing number of ads designed to appear to the untrained eye to be editorial content. It's easy to see why. As we have become smarter at avoiding ads, advertisers have become smarter about disguising them. Mara Einstein exposes how our shopping, political, and even dating preferences are unwittingly formed by brand images and the mythologies embedded in them. Advertising: What Everyone Needs to Know(R) helps us combat the effects of manipulative advertising and enables the reader to understand how marketing industries work in the digital age, particularly in their uses and abuses of "Big Data.' Most importantly, it awakens us to advertising's subtle and not-so-subtle impact on our lives--both as individuals and as a global society. What ideas and information are being communicated to us--and to what end?