Welcome to the first article of Theonomica! I hope that you thoroughly enjoy your experience reading through the discussions and resources on this website. It will be useful before you begin, however, to understand the inspiration behind Theonomica and its driving mission.

In the summer of my freshman year, I embarked on a research project about Christianity in America, and eventually narrowed my topic down to the theory and practice of the Puritan work ethic in colonial New England. I had become a Christian not long before (though I had grown up in the church all my life), and around the same time I became quite interested in the study of business. Until that summer, it never occurred to me that faith and economic activity were in any way correlated. To me, these were two separate aspects of personal and civic life running in parallel lines.

Through my time researching, however, my presuppositions about this secular-sacred distinction were shattered. These American Puritans, whose unique piety and psychology I labored to understand, were determined to regulate the minutiae of the market and economic activity by specific ethical and moral principles. The Puritan faith pervaded all thought and action, and infused professional life with transcendent spiritual importance and theological rigor. Uncovering more about the economic theologies of Reformed Christianity across American history has been one of my great interests ever since.

But although my personal fascination lies in the economic theology of American Reformed Christianity, I quickly realized that the intertwinement of religion and economic culture was not exclusive to the 17th and 18th century Puritans, influential as they were. Indeed, most if not all Christian traditions over the past two millennia have attempted to articulate their ideas of how devout faith in Jesus Christ and obedience to God’s will should translate to a virtuous economic life for individuals and society at large. Christ Himself had much to say about commercial ethics, but the ever-changing form of economic life across time and space has rendered there a need for the faithful to interpret how God’s eternal law should apply to their unique societal arrangements. What has resulted is an indescribably rich diversity of Christian beliefs about human economic behavior, moral economy, market relationships, and more. Theonomica, then, is the platform where these ideas are discussed with scholarly depth, objectivity, and brotherly charity.

It is my sincere prayer that the resources and discussions on Theonomica will not be weaponized toward divisive or polemical ends, but rather toward an informed view of historic Christian economic thought, and an enriched understanding of how we today can serve God faithfully in the marketplace and be witnesses to the whole world of His glorious and life-changing love.