Shalom: A Judeo-Christian Response to Greed

In my recent conceptual analysis of greed, I argue that there are three different conceptual aspects, namely, a consuming desire to acquire more and more (the psychological), an inordinate love for material possession and power (the metaphysical), and an action of acquiring more than one’s share by taking what belongs to one’s fellow citizens, essentially with a calculating indifference toward others (the socio-historical). The aim of that analysis, as a foundational work, is to make sense of the vice or the moral mistake of greed in the contemporary world, especially by reviving the socio-historical aspect which is about justice. Building on that understanding, in this paper I construct a Christian response to greed with the overarching vision of shalom in Christianity, a theme that has recently gained traction in Christian scholarship on business. I aim to show how shalom effectively resists greed with responses to all the three aspects, thus offering a fuller understanding of the Christian faith in relation to greed.