Description
Book SynopsisTraditional scholarship often points to the Calvinists and Max Weber's writing on the Protestant ethic as the catalysts to changing Christian attitudes concerning profit-seeking and wealth. Author Skip Worden argues that the seeds of this change occurred centuries earlier. From the beginning of the Commercial Revolution to the fifteenth-century Renaissance, he shows that the predominant Christian thought on economics went through a fundamental shift, becoming favorable toward profit-seeking and wealth-holding. Worden discusses this dramatic change and explains how the general antagonism toward the pursuit of wealth before the Commercial Revolution transformed into Protestant theologians'' fighting against the prevailing view of a pro-wealth paradigm during the fifteenth century. Worden contends that the shift away from the Patristic view of wealth occurred well before the addition of the Calvinist spirit of capitalism and the Puritan work ethic into Christian economic vernacular. Draw
Table of Contents1 Table of Contents 2 Preface Part 3 I. The Patristic Anti-Wealth Paradigm Chapter 4 1. Antecedents: Natural Wealth and Justice Chapter 5 2. The Strict and Moderated Anti-Wealth Schools Chapter 6 3. Augustine Chapter 7 4. Medieval Voluntary Poverty Part 8 II. The Paradigmatic Shift Chapter 9 5. Aquinas Chapter 10 6. The Renaissance Part 11 III. The Protestant Reformation Chapter 12 7. Luther Chapter 13 8. Calvin Chapter 14 9. Puritan Stewardship Part 15 IV. John D. Rockefeller Chapter 16 10. Rockefeller's Business Ethic Chapter 17 11. The Pietistic Puritan Chapter 18 12. Conclusion: On the Complicity of Christianity 19 Appendix I: A Translation of Calvin's Fifth Sermon on Deuteronomy 23 20 Bibliography 21 Index 22 About the Author
