Wolfram Stierle, Chancen einer okumenischen Wirtschaftsethik. Kirche und Okonomie vor den Herausforderungen der Globalisierung.

Raiser, Konrad

(Prospects for an Ecumenical Economic Ethic: Church and Economy Facing the Challenges of Globalization). Frankfurt am Main: Otto Lembeck, 2001, 621pp., DM64.00.

The commentaries on the ethics of economics emerging from ecumenical discussions, especially statements by the World Council of Churches on questions of economic order and economic policies, have more often than not been received with a critical reserve, particularly in Germany. This is true of researchers in social and economic ethics as well as--indeed especially--of economists themselves, insofar as they pay any heed to statements from the churches. In general, comments coming from the ecumenical milieu are accused of being more in the nature of moral appeals, and of being so radical that they fail to take into account the laws of economics. They are judged to lack any grasp of economics whatever, and to be influenced by leftist, ideological concepts and prejudices. Only a few professional economists, such as Siegfried Katterle in Bielefeld, have taken the trouble to analyze such statements in greater depth.

A study which tries to portray the ecumenical discussion of economic issues against the background of contemporary discussions on economic theory therefore merits attention.

This study covers the period from the first world conference on Life and Work in Stockholm in 1925 to an ecumenical consultation of experts in Zurich in 1978. The study closes with a look ahead as far as the WCC central committee's 1992 statement on "The Christian Faith and the World Economy Today", currently the most recent such statement. The development is traced in three long main sections. The section titles in themselves indicate the changes which took place in the periods to which they correspond. The development in the period from 1925 to 1948, from Stockholm to Oxford to the first World Council of Churches assembly in Amsterdam, is thus headed "From Pragmatic Idealism to the Responsible Society". The second section, entitled "From Welfare State to Welfare World", examines changes in the course of the discussion of development policy which arose during the period between the second assembly in Evanston in 1954 and the great world conference on Church and Society in Geneva in 1966. The third main section, "From the Crisis in Development Policy to the Critique of Economic Theory", follows developments as reflected in discussions in the WCC-Roman Catholic Joint Committee on Society, Development and Peace (SODEPAX), in the newly founded Commission on the Churches' Participation in Development (CCPD) and the WCC assemblies in Uppsala in 1968 and Nairobi in 1975.

What makes the study interesting and even exciting is the ability of the author, well-versed as he is in discussions of economic theory, to demonstrate that at any given moment throughout all its phases from 1925 to 1978, the ecumenical discussion was closely linked to contemporary economic developments. For example, he shows convincingly that the approaches taken by Schmoller and others in German historical economic research formed the immediate background for the statements being made at the time of the world conference in Stockholm. A particular surprise is his proof that the 1937 Oxford conference report on economic issues, which has often received favourable commentary, was to a large extent the work of the German economist Adolph Lowe, who was forced to emigrate from Germany after the National Socialists came to power. He belonged to the Kairos circle of religious socialists around Paul Tillich and had anticipated, many years ahead of John Maynard Keynes, important elements of Keynes's economic reforms. In his time Lowe was considered one of the leading German-speaking economic theorists.

Around the central period from 1954 to 1966, the author is especially successful in showing that the ecumenical discussion, including the controversial debates at the 1966 world conference on Church and Society in Geneva, was decisively influenced by internationally recognized economists involved in development policy. This section is marked in particular by the arguments between the Dutch development economist Jan Tinbergen and the Indian economic scholar Samuel Parmar.

The third main section deals with the period in which the ecumenical discussion is generally judged to have become increasingly radicalized and distant from the understanding of economic principles. The author is able to show that this radicalization was itself part of a critical debate going on among economic theorists as they turned towards a new understanding of a "political economy". At this time the ecumenical discussion was formulating questions and insights which clearly anticipated subsequent developments in economic theory. These have yielded important insights into the interaction between theological ethics and theoretical economic thinking, not least in the debate between neo-classical economic theory and the new institutionalism.

In the final section the author sums up his findings as follows: "A historical review on the subject of `ecumenism and economics' produces a clear picture. Over against the widely held view that ecumenical statements on economic issues tend to be in the nature of moral appeals, perhaps well-meant but unfortunately not very helpful, it must be kept in mind that, in all the different phases in the development of opinion on the ethics of economics in the ecumenical movement which are here described, theoretical economic thinking has always played an essential role ... Ecumenical thinking on social issues tends to be problem-oriented, and this is reflected at the level of economic ethics in the fact that social crises with an economic background are taken up ecumenically as challenges to economic theory."

Since this discussion has so far been conducted as a controversy, especially among theologically trained social ethicists, this study, which offers differentiated theoretical insights and factual arguments, is very significant. It demonstrates the previously underestimated potential of ecumenical discussion on economic issues to forward the development of a humane economic theory. An extensive appendix with historical and biographical summaries, helpful indexes and a detailed bibliography increases the book's value.

Konrad Raiser is general secretary of the World Council of Churches. This review originally appeared in German in Okumenische Rundschau, vol. 50, no. 3, July 2001, pp.408-10. It has been translated by the WCC Language Service and subsequently edited for publication.