Some ways Christians have preached, thought about, shaped, critiqued, and participated in economic life throughout church history

Find more on the history of the church’s relationship with economics and the market in these resources selected by CH’s authors and editors.

Interviews with two scholars who study Christians and the Market

How influential thinkers have approached business, finance, and the market

The rise, struggles, and promise of the faith and work movement

The fair trade movement

How Quakers in North Carolina used the marketplace to free enslaved people from bondage

  Leo XIII and Rerum novarum

Catholic papal encyclicals recommended a middle way on economic issues

 Stewardship advice from John Wesley

The church and economic theories from zero-sum to mutual benefit 

The church and economics from the parables to Brother Cadfael to missionary presses

Adam Smith and moral theory

The long-standing influence of Max Weber’s linking of Protestantism and capitalism

 The Shakers

 Colonial enablers or pioneers of social and economic reform?

the Templars set up banks all across Europe and the Mediterranean

Early Christians emphasized doing good for all, whether or not they were worthy

Martin Luther preaches on taking the “fourth way”

Debt and lending in church history

What should be the relationship of Christians to economics and the market?

Letters to the editor