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Economics of Faith addresses the multiple ways that leaders of the European Reformation sought to inspire new attitudes toward poverty and wealth, to reform the institutions of poor relief, and to create new organizations for aiding religious refugees. Guided by biblical ideals and values, religious reformers became some of the major contributors in the effort to address poverty, one of the most vexing social problem in early modern Europe. By examining the connections between religion, politics, and community, it highlights the crucial role that religion had in the promotion of social responsibility and the development of social welfare systems.
List of contents
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- List of Figures
- Introduction: Religious Foundations of Reform
- Chapter 1: Wittenberg Reformers: Critique as Catalyst
- Chapter 2: Johannes Bugenhagen: Diplomat of Poor Relief
- Chapter 3: Heinrich Bullinger: Preacher for Poverty Prevention
- Chapter 4: Migration and Religious Refugees: Poor Relief in Crisis
- Chapter 5: John Calvin: Refugee Pastor and Promoter of the French Fund
- Chapter 6: Swiss Brethren and Dutch Mennonites: Networks of Mutual Aid
- Chapter 7: Hutterites in Moravia: Communal Property
- Conclusion: Religious Reformers as Practical Visionaries
- Bibliography
- Index
About the author
Esther Chung-Kim is Chair and Professor of the Religious Studies Department at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, California. She currently serves as the President-Elect of the American Society of Church History and was previously appointed as the Associate Director of the Gould Center for Humanistic Studies. She teaches courses on the History of World Christianity, including the European Reformations, Poverty and Religion, and Christianity and Politics in Asia. Her publications focus on religious conflict, history of biblical interpretation, and charity and poor relief.
Summary
Economics of Faith examines the role of religious leaders in the development of poor relief institutions in early modern Europe. As preachers, policy makers, advocates, and community leaders, these reformers offered a new interpretation of salvation and good works that provided the religious foundation for poor relief reform. Although poverty was once associated with the religious image of piety, reformers no longer saw it as a spiritual virtue. Rather they considered social welfare reform to be an integral part of religious reform and worked to modify existing poor relief institutions or to set up new ones.
Population growth, economic crises, and migration in early modern Europe caused poverty and begging to be an ever-increasing concern, and religious leaders encouraged the development and expansion of poor relief institutions. This new cadre of reformers served as catalysts, organizers, stabilizers, and consolidators of strategies to alleviate poverty, the most glaring social problem of early modern society. Although different roles emerged from varying relationships and negotiations with local political authorities and city councils, reform-minded ministers and lay leaders shaped a variety of institutions to address the problem of poverty and to promote social and communal responsibility. As religious options multiplied within Christianity, one's understanding of community determined the boundaries, albeit contested and sometimes fluid, of responsible poor relief. This goal of communal care would be especially relevant for religious refugees who as foreigners and strangers became responsible for caring for their own group.
Additional text
There are three particularly distinctive achievements in this illuminating book. First: while necessarily selective, it also has refreshingly panoramic dimensions. Second: it retrieves authentically the Reformation era's natural integration of religious faith, theology, service and witness, community solidarity, ethical use of material resources, social welfare, and the public good. Third: the architecture of the book is pleasing; it is not just static, since the major attention devoted to paradigms of migrant and exilic religious groups with their fragility and vulnerability helps animate the investigation and gives it a modern resonance.
