The Capitalist-Christian Contradiction exposes the political, economic, and spiritual contradictions in our society and the church. It points out how Americas capitalist system creates and maintains economic inequality, political corruption, economic exploitation , racial oppression, and spiritual poverty to worship the almighty dollar bill. Furthermore, the love of money has transformed many churches into a den of thieves that promulgates a prosperity gospel, enriching its clergy and impoverishing the community. Humanitys only hope is to seek Gods kingdom or the beloved community of peace, justice, equality, and freedom for all people regardless of race, class, creed, level of morality, gender, or religion.

The Capitalist-Christian Contradiction exposes the political, economic, and spiritual contradictions in our society and the church. It points out how America's capitalist system creates and maintains economic inequality, political corruption, economic exploitation, racial oppression, and spiritual poverty to worship the almighty dollar bill. Furthermore, the love of money has transformed many churches into a den of thieves that promulgates a prosperity gospel, enriching its clergy and impoverishing the community. Humanity's only hope is to seek God's kingdom or the beloved community of peace, justice, equality, and freedom for all people regardless of race, class, creed, level of morality, gender, or religion.

Roland Boer and Christina Petterson here produce a critical survey showing that the rise of capitalist theory was shaped by the way different economic philosophers—Smith, Hobbes, Grotius, Malthus, Locke––read the Bible. Invoking Jeremiah (14:22) and Adam Smith—who took the title of his Wealth of Nations from Isaiah (61:6, 66:12)—they show that early theories of capitalism were shaped by particular assumptions that these theorists brought to their readings of the story of Eden in particular. They examine those assumptions and evaluate what has changed in subsequent centuries. Idols of Nations shows that the Bible was central to the theorization and economic thought of these key thinkers as it explores the distinct problems each sought to overcome.

Essay from the year 2012 in the subject Didactics for the subject English - Applied Geography, grade: 1,0, Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg, language: English, abstract: In recent years, especially after the start of the financial crisis, people all over the world have become more and more worried about the enormous influence of economic factors on their lives. On the level of politics, capitalistic interests seem to get out of control. In the ongoing presidential election campaign in the U.S., economic issues play a major role in the candidates’ canvassing. At the same time, religious beliefs and conflicts seem to become more important in political debates. Political leaders use expressions of their faith to gain votes from certain sections of the population. A March 2012 study by the Pew Research Center found that in the U.S. “[a] plurality of the public (38%) says that there has been too much expression of religious faith and prayer from political leaders.” In general, the influence of economic as well as religious issues seems to have gained influence, especially in U.S. politics. Thus, the question arises in how far politics, capitalism and religion are interrelated. In his essay “The Market as God,” Harvey Cox (1999) establishes a connection between these aspects by comparing capitalism to a religion. He argues that the principles of the free market are similar to certain religious concepts. Cox claims that the so called Market God has three typical divine attributes: omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence. Arlie Russell Hochschild takes up this idea and contends that there is a “sense of the sacred” (2003: 147) in what she calls the religion of capitalism (146). Both Cox (1999) and Hochschild (2003: 148) agree that capitalism functions as a rival religion against the traditional religions like Christianity and Judaism. As mentioned above, in the course of the ongoing global financial crisis, it has become clear that politicians in nearly all governments are deeply involved in economic affairs and processes. The New York Times article “Protestors Against Wall Street” (2011) refers to the “elected officials’ hunger for campaign cash from Wall Street.” At the same time, a large number of U.S. politicians are outspoken and convinced Christians and even bring their religious points of view into political debates. If the so called Market God and Christianity are regarded as rival religions, this intermingling of economic and religious interests in politics seems highly illogical.

David Harvey examines the foundational contradictions of capital, and reveals the fatal contradictions that are now inexorably leading to its end

Many books have been written about the success of the West, analyzing why Europe was able to pull ahead of the rest of the world by the end of the Middle Ages. The most common explanations cite the West’s superior geography, commerce, and technology. Completely overlooked is the fact that faith in reason, rooted in Christianity’s commitment to rational theology, made all these developments possible. Simply put, the conventional wisdom that Western success depended upon overcoming religious barriers to progress is utter nonsense.In The Victory of Reason, Rodney Stark advances a revolutionary, controversial, and long overdue idea: that Christianity and its related institutions are, in fact, directly responsible for the most significant intellectual, political, scientific, and economic breakthroughs of the past millennium. In Stark’s view, what has propelled the West is not the tension between secular and nonsecular society, nor the pitting of science and the humanities against religious belief. Christian theology, Stark asserts, is the very font of reason: While the world’s other great belief systems emphasized mystery, obedience, or introspection, Christianity alone embraced logic and reason as the path toward enlightenment, freedom, and progress. That is what made all the difference.In explaining the West’s dominance, Stark convincingly debunks long-accepted “truths.” For instance, by contending that capitalism thrived centuries before there was a Protestant work ethic–or even Protestants–he counters the notion that the Protestant work ethic was responsible for kicking capitalism into overdrive. In the fifth century, Stark notes, Saint Augustine celebrated theological and material progress and the institution of “exuberant invention.” By contrast, long before Augustine, Aristotle had condemned commercial trade as “inconsistent with human virtue”–which helps further underscore that Augustine’s times were not the Dark Ages but the incubator for the West’s future glories. This is a sweeping, multifaceted survey that takes readers from the Old World to the New, from the past to the present, overturning along the way not only centuries of prejudiced scholarship but the antireligious bias of our own time. The Victory of Reason proves that what we most admire about our world–scientific progress, democratic rule, free commerce–is largely due to Christianity, through which we are all inheritors of this grand tradition.

With a new afterword by the author, this classic analysis of Western liberal capitalist society contends that capitalism—and the culture it creates—harbors the seeds of its own downfall by creating a need among successful people for personal gratification—a need that corrodes the work ethic that led to their success in the first place. With the end of the Cold War and the emergence of a new world order, this provocative manifesto is more relevant than ever.