RIEGER SHARES VIEWS ON EMPIRE, ECONOMICS AND CHRISTIANITY FOR 2011 WILLSON LECTURES

Joerg Rieger was the 2011 Willson Lecturer at the Earlham School of Religion on April 4-5. He presented three lectures on the Richmond, Indiana campus addressing the theme: Empire, Economics, and Christ: Does Christianity Still Make a Difference?

Dr. Rieger is the Wendland-Cook Professor of Constructive Theology at Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University. He has been on the Perkins faculty since 1994 and is the author of a dozen books including: No Rising Tide: Theology, Economics and the Future, Christ and Empire, and Globalization and Theology.

This year’s Willson Lectures reflected Rieger’s interest in the intersection of theology and economics and were a critique of how the Church is often formed by visions of the dominate culture more than by a vision of the Christian gospel. He asked whether the economic adage, “a rising tide lifts all boats” is really true, or whether it has become a principle of “blind faith.” Do economic booms benefit all, or even most? In view of the widening disparity between the wealthy and the poor, between corporate profit and growing unemployment, and in view of the uneven distribution of the national tax burden, it is clear that all boats are not lifted and the most vulnerable in the world have no boat at all.