Human beings are by nature relational beings who tend to live in communities. What does this imply, and how is life shaped by communal relationships? Theology has addressed these fundamental questions explicitly and extensively. Economic models often aggregate communities into single agents (methodological individualism) or draw on game theory, whenever notions of community are required for analysis. This conference will explore the topic of community from the perspectives of economics and theology.
- Date
- Thursday 19 Jun 2025, 09:00 - Friday 20 Jun 2025, 17:00
- Type
- Conference
- Spoken Language
- English
- Building
- Mandeville Building
This conference offers a perspective on the importance and role of the community. It will provide an opportunity to engage with and learn from a diverse group of global leading thinkers from (theoretical) economics and theology.
The keynote speakers Arttu Makipaa and Gordon Menzies will explicate how the community is defined differently in the fields of economics and theology, with Menzies providing a theological critique of game theory. The other keynotes, Irene van Staveren and Roel Jongeneel, will highlight the dynamics of the community from their own background.
Moreover, around two dozen academics will present papers on a specific topic regarding the community in economics and theology in two parallel tracks. The paper sessions are either devoted to theological reflection, economic modelling or the integration of insights from both disciplines. Finally, in a final extensive panel discussion we aim to bring together the insights from the conference.
Practical information on date, venue, accomodation and transportation is available through the link below.
Practical information
Keynote: Community and Creation: a Reformed Perspective on Embedding the Economy
Dr.ir. Roel Jongeneel is Assistant Professor of Agricultural Economics at Wageningen Economic Research, part of the Wageningen University (WUR). He joined the WUR in 1992. His work in agricultural economics focuses on EU agricultural and food policy, market outlooks, the dairy sector and environmental issues (incl. biodiversity). He uses a model-based approach to these issues. Next to that, he is also interested in the Reformed economic ethics. In 2022, he published the book Economie moet beter; Christelijk-filosofische dialoog met economen over wetenschap en praktijk (EN: Economics should be improved; Christian-philosophical dialogue with economists on science and society). Earlier, he published Eerlijke economie; Calvijn en het sociaal-economisch leven (EN: Fair economics: Calvin and socio-economic life).
Keynote: What is a Community?
Dr. Arttu Makipaa is a European civil servant, trained in economics and theology, and affiliated researcher at the Evangelical Theological Faculty in Leuven (ETF). Beyond economics, his research interests include political theology and theological anthropology. His PhD in theology, which focuses on Emil Brunner, explores the noetic effects of sin in the social sciences, and was recently published as The Fall of Humankind and Social Progress (Routledge 2023).
Keynote: Can Game Theory Properly Understand Human Community? Towards a Brunnerian Hermeneutic of Suspicion
Dr. Gordon Menzies is Associate Professor in Economics at the University of Technology Sydney. In 2021 he published Western Fundamentalism, a critique of neoliberal freedom. In 2017 he began the Economic Humanist group which works at the interface of academic economic modelling and theology. He holds a DPhil in Economics (Oxford) and a MTh in theology.
Keynote: Towards a Community Economics
Prof.dr. Irene van Staveren is Professor of Pluralist Development Economics at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), which is part of Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR). From 2004 until 2009, she was professor of Economics and Christian Ethics at the Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen. She joined the ISS in 1999. Her work has focused on a wide variety of economic theories, including feminist economics, social economics, institutional economics, the capability approach and post-Keynesian economics. Her key research interest is at the communal level of the economy with topics such as social cohesion, social exclusion, inequality and discrimination, social norms, as well as ethics and values in the economy and in economics. In 2015, she published Economics after the Crisis, a pluralist economics textbook.