Faith In The Free Market
Religion & Liberty Online

Faith In The Free Market

Wes Selke thought he might be called to seminary. Instead, he wound up in business school. That doesn’t mean he’s any less filled with a sense of mission and purpose.

An article in Christianity Today has Selke discussing his desire as a Christian to invest in social entrepreneurship and how his faith and his work life intertwine. As co-founder of Hub Ventures, Selke seeks to help entrepreneurs get off to a solid start through a 12-week, intensive training course. He also sees his work as worship:

Selke is an investor who views his work as a form of worship. But worship isn’t just where you might expect. For some, a mall can be a modern temple, complete with iconography and rituals, a false faith of consumerism directed at shaping people’s desires. For Selke, worship is embracing capital as a means of achieving human flourishing, an outpouring of his talents in finance and his faith in God.

“The market is a great servant but a horrible master,” says Selke, paraphrasing 20th-century missiologist Lesslie Newbigin. “Our culture tends to become slaves to the market and greed, when in reality the market should be our servant in attaining the best allocation of goods and services.”

Selke believes that by investing in entrepreneurial ventures, he can do good in the world and practice stewardship by creating profit.

“Impact investing is a holistic view of profits, the planet, and people. It’s the stewardship of resources,” Selke says. “Christians thinking about ways to leverage their resources are called to make sure their capital is doing good.”

Read “Faith in the Free Market” at Christianity Today.

 

Elise Hilton

Communications Specialist at Acton Institute. M.A. in World Religions.