Three new Economic Wisdom Project Talks from national leaders are now available. Originally presented at a workshop for 100 Oikonomia Fellows, these dynamic, challenging and fruitful presentations are designed to be used as assignments to help you introduce students to these vital issues in your classes. Featuring Chris Armstrong, Anthony Bradley and Brad Wilcox, these 15-minute talks promise to be a powerful curricular tool.
We are now developing curricular support materials to go with the talks. Please let us know how we can improve as we make plans to produce future resources!
“Vocation? Whatever!” by Chris Armstrong, Wheaton College
Assign this talk in: Ethics, Christian history, spiritual formation and systematic theology classes – and more!
Chris Armstrong shares his personal history of struggle with attitudes about rest, home and work, and presents a fresh, compelling vision of why a theology of vocation must be central to the life of faith. The oft-repeated clichés about “work/life balance” and other approaches that rely on tidy, compartmentalized categories fail to get at our real problem: like Adam and Eve hiding from God in the garden, we use all our activities – work, rest, home and church alike – as ways of hiding from our responsibility to love God and neighbor. Through the theological work of Martin Luther and Gregory the Great, Armstrong articulates how the Great Commandment invites us into a seamless life of vocation that encompasses “whatever you do.”
“Christian Personalism” by Anthony Bradley, The King’s College
Assign this talk in: Missions, ethics, pastoral leadership and spiritual formation classes – and more!
In a dynamic presentation on the history of the culture wars, Anthony Bradley charts their damaging impact on the faith of younger evangelicals, exemplified by a young culture warrior at his college who later became an atheist. Identifying the faith with partisan agendas has hollowed out the church’s credibility, leaving politicians and pundits more influential than pastors. Bradley shows how Christian personalism can move us past the culture wars, providing the framework we need to serve God and neighbor in the marketplace and the public square, providing a deeper discipleship for the next generation and a deeper love of the world around us.
“The Ball and Chain Myth” by W. Bradford Wilcox, University of Virginia
Assign this talk in: Ethics, missions and pastoral leadership classes – and more!
Brad Wilcox provided a humane but very data-supported look at the attitudes about sacrifice, work and responsibility that are challenging marriage in our culture. Wilcox responds to “Six-Pack Craig,” a correspondent of his who expressed an attitude typical of many young men: marriage is an impediment to a happy and flourishing life because it requires giving up leisure and pleasure in favor of work and responsibility. Wilcox lays out the economic, sexual, health and psychological benefits of marriage, acknowledging that marriage requires sacrifices but showing how such sacrifice is necessary to the kind of life people ought to lead.
Also consider watching our four other Economic Wisdom Project Talks:
- Michael Thigpen on “Creation and Economics”
- Darrell Bock on “Luke and Money”
- Christopher Brooks on “Rethinking Urban Poverty”
- Charlie Self on “Faithful Churches Create Flourishing Communities”
