Christianity and the New Spirit of Capitalism

One of the world’s most celebrated theologians argues for a Protestant anti-work ethic

In his classic The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Max Weber famously showed how Christian beliefs and practices could shape persons in line with capitalism. In this significant reimagining of Weber’s work, Kathryn Tanner provocatively reverses this thesis, arguing that Christianity can offer a direct challenge to the largely uncontested growth of capitalism.
 
Exploring the cultural forms typical of the current finance-dominated system of capitalism, Tanner shows how they can be countered by Christian beliefs and practices with a comparable person-shaping capacity. Addressing head-on the issues of economic inequality, structural under- and unemployment, and capitalism’s unstable boom/bust cycles, she draws deeply on the theological resources within Christianity to imagine anew a world of human flourishing. This book promises to be one of the most important theological books in recent years.

• Economy of Grace
• Christ the Heart of Creation
• Just Capitalism: A Christian Ethic of Economic Globalization
• Christ and the Common Life: Political Theology and the Case for Democracy
• Divine Currency: The Theological Power of Money in the West (Cultural Memory in the Present)
• For the Life of the World (Theology for the Life of the World): Theology That Makes a Difference
• Neoliberalism's Demons: On the Political Theology of Late Capital
• Fill These Hearts: God, Sex, and the Universal Longing
• Political Theology of the Earth: Our Planetary Emergency and the Struggle for a New Public (Insurrections: Critical Studies in Religion, Politics, and Culture)
• Knowing Christ Crucified: The Witness of African American Religious Experience