I know some will consider this shameless marketing. I truly hope that you will see the relevance and import of the message contained within it to the global discussion on the role of business in God’s mission. I believe the book bears out, beyond business as mission, that business is mission. The book explores theology surpassing that well established on work and stewardship to establish a biblical theology of the marketplace, that is the function of cooperation, collaboration, and exchange in God’s design and purposes.
About Eden’s Bridge: The Marketplace in Creation and Mission and the Author, David Doty
For the last twenty or thirty years, it has become increasingly obvious that God is moving in the marketplace. Many marketplace-related ministries have sprung into action including workplace Bible studies and prayer groups, executive discipleship programs, economic development and skills training programs by missions and urban renewal ministries, and so on. A great deal of literature has been produced, especially on principles-based Christian marketplace ethics, the theologies of work and stewardship, and development work among the poor (both domestically and internationally).
What has been missing is a theological understanding of the marketplace, specifically in Biblical and missional perspectives. According to Victor Claar, economics professor and co-author of Economics in Christian Perspective, my newly published book from Wipf & Stock Publishers, Eden’s Bridge: The Marketplace in Creation and Mission, makes both the theological and practical cases for the marketplace in creation and the mission of God.
The central thesis of Eden’s Bridge is that the marketplace is an institution of God, modeled implicitly in the creation narrative of Genesis 1–2 and vital to God’s mission in the world for the advancement of His Kingdom.
Eden’s Bridge accomplishes three important things:
- It articulates the first biblically-based theology of the marketplace, that is, the nature and purpose of economic exchanges;
- It validates the careers of Christians in the marketplace as divine calling, liberating Christian workers from the false notion of “secular” vocation;
- It challenges each Christian worker to consider how their vocation contributes to advancing God’s Kingdom and glorifies God.
Given the imperfection of a fallen world, there are no perfect answers to current issues in the marketplace.. But, Eden’s Bridge aims to challenge the status quo. It asks readers to press more deeply into the Bible and their knowledge of God and His ways to bring about positive change in and through the marketplace as glorifying witness to the goodness of God and to advance the mission of God (the missio Dei) in the world.
Outcomes that I envision are
- The empowerment of marketplace Christians toward a rising witnessing and discipling movement in the marketplace
- The opportunity to coordinate intentional advancement of God’s mission through the marketplace with regional, national, and global ministries, and
- Pursuing additional research toward that coordination and the revelation of God’s intentions in the marketplace and in economic justice in our day and looking forward.
Re my personal history and the making of Eden’s Bridge: I have held business management and administrative positions in a variety of industries through my thirty year career. Half my career has been as an entrepreneur, starting and owning three small businesses. In the midst of that career, God called me to complete an M.A. in World Mission and Evangelism at Asbury Theological Seminary (2006). I came to write Eden’s Bridge as a convergence of those two paths. The book is the result of eight years’ research and the opportunity to complete it came after Teresa and I shut down our last business in February, 2010, as a result of the recession. I believe God called us to the Atlanta area last fall (2011) to facilitate bringing this message to the church globally.
Eden’s Bridge is available from Amazon.com (paperback and Kindle) or from the author (paperback) via the www.edensbridge.org web site.