A number of comments have been floating around the blogosphere related to the news coming out of Colorado last week that a professor at Colorado Christian University was terminated because “his lessons were too radical and undermined the school’s commitment to the free enterprise system.”
Andrew Paquin, who taught global studies, reportedly assigned texts by Jim Wallis and Peter Singer. That in itself shouldn’t be enough to get someone fired. The context within which such authors were assigned and how the professor led the discussion could potentially be enough, however. If Wallis’ politics were presented as Gospel truth, by the professor, that would be problematic.
Ted Olson at the CT Liveblog takes this occasion to ask whether there is an “evangelical view of economics.” In a post titled, “A Capitalist Creed?” Michael Simpson similarly says the CCU story is “quite bothersome.” I’ll note in passing that Christians with an explicitly conservative view of economics and political matters would have difficulty getting into the place of even being hired, much less fired, from teaching positions at any number of secular, mainline, and liberal institutions.
But aside from the particulars of the CCU case, of which there are precious few pertinent details available, I’ll attempt to answer the question that both Olson and Simpson seem to be getting at: is there a uniquely evangelical Christian view of economics? Yes and no.
The answer is no if what you mean is there a single, coherent, overarching and exhaustively detailed economic system that is unequivocally endorsed by the evangelical tradition’s view of Scripture.
From the fact that there is no single evangelical economic worldview, it does not follow that every economic option is equally valid. There are economic systems or worldviews that are unequivocally excluded by evangelical views on these matters.
One such set of excluded views would be economic materialism, exemplified for instance in Marxism. And as I’ve said before another economic worldview incompatible with biblical Christianity is anarcho-capitalism.
So, is there (or ought there be) an (unofficial, unstated) evangelical creed on economics? Again, it depends on how you view creeds.
If you see them as doctrinal statements that define the parameters of orthodoxy, setting up the boundaries beyond which is heterodoxy, but within which there is freedom for diverse expression and thought, then sure, there is and should be an evangelical economic creed. It should exclude economic positions that are incompatible with the basic tenets of Christian faith and practice.
But if you think that a creed is a statement of “rigid” orthodoxy that only validates a single, univocal position, then no, there is no single “evangelical economics.” But I happen to think that view of creeds and confessions is itself defective.