2023-24 Academic Catalog

The Bible says that “the love of money is the root of all evil,” but the history of Christianity and mammon contains multitudes – voluntary poverty and acquisitive empires, radical utopian communities and the blessings of business, peace movement feasts and prosperity gospels, colonialism and humanitarian neo-liberalism, and commodity fetishism for Christ. This course will use a breadth of historical case studies alongside critical theories of modernity and capitalism to explore Christianity’s relationship with wealth, from pre-modern economic theologies, to faith in modern industrial capitalism and Christianity’s vexed entanglements with late capitalist ideologies and practices.