Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
Faith In The Free Market
Faith In The Free Market
Jan 21, 2026 11:09 PM

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 plete 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 e 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.

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
A Lesson from Michigan: Time to End Crony Unionism
In this week’s Acton Commentary, I take a look at the prospects of “right-to-work” legislation in Michigan, “A Lesson from Michigan: Time to End Crony Unionism.” One of the things that disturbs me the most about what I call “crony unionism” is the hand-in-glove relationship between the labor unions and big government. We have the same kind of special pleading and rent seeking in this system as we do in crony capitalism, but the labor unions enjoy such special protection...
The Politics of Crony Unionism
Last week’s Acton Commentary and blog post focused on my claims about “crony unionism” and how the intimate relationship between Big Labor and Big Government corrupt both. Here’s another instance of the kinds of gross conflicts of interest produced by this relationship: It’s hard to see this as anything but partisan pandering on the part of the largest public sector union, the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). Meanwhile, the Washington Post asks, “Was politics behind the...
Envy: A Deadly (Economic) Sin
Victor Claar, Acton University lecturer and professor of economics at Henderson State University, will give a talk tonight in Washington, D.C., hosted by AEI, “Grieving the Good of Others: Envy and Economics.” If you are in the area, you are encouraged to attend and hear Dr. Claar as well as two respondents discuss the topic of envy and its moral and economic consequences. Here’s a description of the event: Critics of capitalism often argue that this economic system is irretrievably...
Rev. Sirico: Respect others’ rights, but also their values
A new column by Rev. Robert A. Sirico, president and co-founder of the Acton Institute, was published today in the Detroit News. This column will also be linked in tomorrow’s Acton News & Commentary. Sign up for the free weekly Acton newsletter here. +++++++++ Faith and policy: Respect others’ rights, but also their values FATHER ROBERT SIRICO If such an award were to be given for the Most Contentious Religious Story of 2010, the two main contenders would undoubtedly be...
Explaining the New Democratic Logo
“The new Democratic logo is so bad that the intellectual rot in the official announcement went largely unnoticed.” The rest of my piece is here at The American Spectator. ...
The Daily Show Takes on a Union
The Daily Show exposes some union hypocrisy (HT). In the words of the union local head, es down to greed”: ...
Radio Free Acton: The Stewardship of Art, Part 2
Last week, we posted part 1 of our podcast on the proper Christian stewardship of art; for those who have been waiting for the conclusion, we’re happy to present part 2. David Michael Phelps continues to lead the discussion between Professors Nathan Jacobs and Calvin Seerveld, who previously debated this topic in the Controversy section of our Journal of Markets & Morality. The first portion of that exchange is available at the link for part 1; the remainder of the...
Work as if It Mattered
The conversations over the last few weeks here on work have raised a couple of questions. In the context of criticisms on the perspectives on work articulated by Lester DeKoster and defended by menter John E. asks, “…what is it that you hope readers will change in their lives, and why?” I want to change people’s view of their work. I want them to see how it has value not simply as a means to some other end, but in...
Journal of Religion and Business Ethics
The latest issue of the newly launched Journal of Religion and Business Ethics is now available (vol. 1, no. 2). Check out the contents at their website. From the journal’s about page: “The Journal of Religion and Business Ethics is a peer-reviewed journal that examines the ethical and religious issues that arise in the modern business setting. While much attention has been given to the philosophical treatment of business ethics, this is the first journal to address the more inclusive...
Mandating Monolithic Medicine
Among the warnings sounded as the Democratic health care reform bill was being debated was that the federal insurance mandate included in the bill—even though not national health care per se—would essentially give the federal government control of the insurance industry. The reason: If everyone is forced to buy insurance, then the government must deem what sort of insurance qualifies as adequate to meet the mandate. This piece of Obamacare promises to turn every medical procedure into a major political...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2026 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved