Wealth, Work, and Wisdom in Early Modern Society: A Kessler Conversation with Professor David Fink

Named after the world-renowned Richard C. Kessler Reformation Collection held at Pitts Theology Library, Kessler Conversations (30-45 mins) offer opportunities for the general public to learn about the events in Europe the 16th century and to consider what they may tell us about the issues facing our communities. Conversations in a given academic semester focus on a single contemporary theme and trace it back to the Reformers. These conversations are free and open to the public, but registration is required. The theme of the Spring 2021 conversations is “Blessed are the Poor: Wealth and Poverty in the 16th and 21st Centuries.”

This April, David Fink, Associate Professor of Religion at Furman University, joins Dr. Richard Adams in a conversation titled "Wealth, Work, and Wisdom in Early Modern Society."

One of the many changes brought about by the reform movements of the sixteenth century was a reevaluation of long-held Christian assumptions about money and its relationship to goods both in this world and in the world to come. Martin Luther’s radical new understanding of salvation by faith alone disrupted the ancient economy of salvific almsgiving, forcing both Protestants and Catholics to reconsider the meaning of money in a variety of practical and theological contexts. Professor Fink's recent research has focused on early modern reception of the Hebrew Bible’s wisdom literature, a body of writing dense with material bearing on these questions, and which they used to fashion a new social ethic on questions of economic justice, almsgiving, work, and vocation.

David Fink is Associate Professor of Religion at Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina. His teaching and research center on the history of Christianity in the late middle ages and early modernity, and he is currently at work on a book project examining early Protestant engagements with the wisdom literature of the Hebrew Bible.