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The story of Colorado Christian University firing a professor because of tension between his presentation and the school's strong identification with free market economics raised questions among many over whether there is a Christian view of economics. I checked in with Jordan Ballor, associate editor of the Acton Institute's Journal of Markets & Morality to get his opinion. According to Ballor, while "there is no single evangelical economic worldview, it does not follow that every economic option is equally valid." Some systems, such as materialist Marxism or a completely unregulated anarcho-capitalism are "incompatible with biblical Christianity."

Economic materialism ends up attempting to "account for the entirety of human existence and experience" while ruling out any notion of the divine. A better approach is to recognize that "The Bible tells us very clearly that human beings are created in the image of God" and that we are responsible for our stewardship of material goods. While there may be some appeal to aspects of a Marxist ethic, the Roman Catholic experience demonstrates that the inconsistencies generated by a materialist worldview tend to crowd out orthodox doctrine.

Anarcho-capitalism mirrors Marxism in the sense that it contains some truth. The Marxist is an advocate for the common man. The anarcho-capitalist sensibly claims human government should have limits. The problem comes in when that nugget expands into an anarchistic worldview, which is clearly also in conflict with Scripture "regarding the nature and function of political authority (e.g. , )."

The unsurprising bottom line is that Christians should never set up any system or philosophy above Christ.

• Creighton University cancels planned lecture by author Anne Lamott due to her pro-choice views.
  
  
• Domino's founder Tom Monaghan's town and Catholic university get rolling in Florida
  
  
• Alister McGrath to debate Christopher Hitchens on atheism
  
  
• McGrath already debated Richard Dawkins on atheism (now on Google/YouTube)
  
  
• Harvard's Noah Feldman on Muslim footbaths in public schools and other religion/state quandaries
  
  

Hunter Baker is special assistant to the president and director of strategic planning at Houston Baptist University. Got a tip regarding academic research or higher education? E-mail him at hunterbaker@gmail.com

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August (Web-only) 2007, Vol. 51