On the First Things site, signed by 68 Evangelicals leaders, theologians, and professors:
Recent global events awaken us to the importance of sustained Christian reflection on the nature and goal of economic life, both within our own societies and in other parts of the world. Accordingly, as evangelical Protestants we applaud the release of Caritas in Veritate (Charity in Truth) by Pope Benedict XVI. We call on Christians everywhere, but especially our fellow evangelicals in the global North, to read, wrestle with, and respond to Caritas in Veritate and its identification of the twin call of love and truth upon our lives as citizens, entrepreneurs, workers and, most fundamentally, as followers of Christ.
In Christ's death and resurrection, God removes all that stands in the way of right relationships between God and the world, among humans, and between humanity and the rest of creation. Human development is included in this restoration of all things to right relationship.
We commend the way in which this encyclical considers economic development in terms of the true trajectory for human flourishing. Caritas in Veritate, following in the tradition of Pope Paul VI's encyclical Populorum Progressio, argues that development is about the transformation of both persons and institutions and of relations among and between them. We echo its call for a new vision of development that recognizes the dignity of human life in its fullness, and that includes a concern for life from conception to natural death, for religious liberty, for the alleviation of poverty, and for the care of creation.
In Christ's death and resurrection, God removes all that stands in the way of right relationships between God and the world, among humans, and between humanity and the rest of creation. Human development is included in this restoration of all things to right relationship.
We commend the way in which this encyclical considers economic development in terms of the true trajectory for human flourishing. Caritas in Veritate, following in the tradition of Pope Paul VI's encyclical Populorum Progressio, argues that development is about the transformation of both persons and institutions and of relations among and between them. We echo its call for a new vision of development that recognizes the dignity of human life in its fullness, and that includes a concern for life from conception to natural death, for religious liberty, for the alleviation of poverty, and for the care of creation.
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