ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with the ethical, political, and economic doctrines of the Judeo-Christian tradition. It focuses on the basic ethical position of the tradition, and then considers the application of that position to politics and economics. Judaism asserts the existence of two opposing sets of values, good values, those revealed in the Law; and evil values, those deviating from the Law. There is an ethical ambivalence inherent in the Judaic tradition. The church made a sharp distinction between the spiritual realm and the secular. The spiritual was good, the secular bad. The economics of the Judeo-Christian tradition must be understood not only in terms of Judaism and Catholicism, but also of Protestantism. It is important to realize that there were two versions of the Protestant ethic, the Lutheran and the Calvinistic. Constantinian establishment and the reversion to primitive Judaic messianism took three forms: the expectation that Jesus would soon return to establish the millennium; the social gospel; and liberation theology.
