Is God the Ben Bernanke of the Universe?

This is not really the question that the book God, The Economist by M. Douglas Meeks is asking or answering. Here is Meeks’ summary of his task,

“It is in no way necessary, according to modern economic theory, to consider God when thinking about economy… Thus, however unusual it might seem, I propose to bring the church’s teaching about God, the doctrine of the Trinity, to bear on the masked connections between God and economy.” (xi)

I’m going to follow the headings in the Table of Contents to organize this which means it will be a 9 post series. That seems like a lot, but I think it would be longer if I didn’t do it this way ahead of time. It is a very dense book. I could do another series just combing through the footnotes of the book. Here are the headings:

Preface and Introduction
God’s Economy and the Church
Reconceptualizing God and the Economy
God and the Market Logic
God the Economist
God and Property
God and Work
God and Needs
Conclusion