Covenant and Commitments: Faith, Family, and Economic Life (Family, Religion, and Culture)

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Summary: Family, Economy, and Covenant Theology
Review: The Greek word "oikos," from which the word "economy" is derived, originally referred to the economy of the household. This premodern conception of the relationship between the household and the economy was "home economics" in the truest sense. In this book, one of a number of excellent titles from the Religion, Culture, and Family Project at the University of Chicago Divinity School, Max Stackhouse shows how the economic systems and ideologies that so profoundly influence family life are, in turn, shaped by theology.

The structural changes in our society as it has moved through its hunter-gatherer, agricultural, and industrialized phases have gone hand-in-hand with changes in our economy, ranging from capitalism, to socialism, to postindustrialism, to the new globalism. All of these changes have had a profound impact on the structure, purpose, and well-being of families. Perhaps the most coherent and comprehensive of the theological models that have sought to navigate these changing social, economic, and familial tides is the "covenant theology" that arose within the Calvinist Reformed tradition. That theology places the emphasis on choice and consent that characterizes so much classical and contemporary discourse within a framework of the interrelation of the "created orders" of church, state, and family.

In laying out this theological and economic theory of the family, Stackhouse touches on many of the most pressing issues in the family debate, such as the Protestant debate over homosexuality, the normative structure of sexuality, the impact of materialism and consumerism on the household, the libertarian reduction of individualistic rational-choice economic theory, the division of household labor, the impact of poverty and welfare on families and children, and the idea of covenant marriage and relationship. For those who follow American politics, Stackhouse's book is a particularly provocative integration of the liberal emphasis on economics and the conservative focus on the family. In the end, it is a timely study of the theological basis for our commitments to what Freud identified as the central features of personhood, namely, work and love.