Greg Forster
One of the things I do most frequently in my work is recommend books. There are tens of thousands of titles on this topic, and quality is very uneven. People need to know what titles they can trust to be a fruitful investment of their time. It has been part of my role to serve as a sort of book recommendation clearinghouse.
As the network began to scale up almost three years ago, I realized we needed an annotated bibliography. It had to be short enough to be accessible, but long enough to include a sufficient number of works. And each book likewise needed a description short enough to be digested quickly but long enough to point people to the exact works they needed.
People who were just encountering the intersection of theology with work and the economy would ask where they should start. More advanced readers wanted to know where they could look to go deeper. And Oikonomia Network faculty leaders often needed to find a book that fit a specific intellectual niche – for example, a book that would help a particular audience have a particular insight, or a book that focused on a particular area of theology or biblical studies.
So I created an annotated bibliography, and circulated it to people as needed. For some time, I meant to put it on our website. The main obstacle was the continual flood of new books worth including on the list! I kept telling myself I would update the list soon and post it, but longer I waited, the further behind I fell.
Now, at last, here it is. I hope you will find it useful, whether to help beginners get started or to help find just the book you need for a specialized purpose. The categories included on the list are:
- Core Resources – Seeing the Big Picture
- Helpful Theological Background
- Work
- Business
- General Economics
- Poverty
- Economics & Society
- Important but Less Faith-Oriented Books
I pray this resource will help you, whatever your reading needs are. And I pray that as the faith, work, and economics movement continues to mature, it will not be long before I find myself needing to update the list yet again!
