In this episode, Al Roxburgh and Jenny Sinclair welcome back Luigino Bruni for a second conversation, this time exploring how churches and religious orders confront crisis. An economist and scholar of organisational life, Bruni reflects on what is at stake when Christian communities lose confidence. Attentive to the extent that the methods of management culture have become defaults for many church systems, he observes how communities are losing touch with the core of what it means to be God’s people. At the heart of a Christian community is the presence of Jesus among the people of God, and the task of those entrusted with care and oversight is to help their people discern the movements of the Spirit, both among them, and in their local communities. Bruni counsels that this is not the work of outside consultants bringing business models into the church. He cautions that outsourcing can lead to confusion and weaken the heart of communal life. Instead, he believes that in the midst of our great unravelling, churches and communities facing difficulty have a special calling. He insists that “crisis itself has precious things to teach”, and that at such times, the work of a community is to embrace practices of discernment that are rooted in the confidence that Christ is among them making all things new.
Professor Luigino Bruni is an economist, an historian of economic thought and a scholar of organisational life. He is Professor of Political Economy at the Lumsa University in Rome, a public non-state Italian university formed on Catholic principles. Here he also coordinates the Phd Programme in Civil Economy. His scholarship of economics extends to biblical commentaries on the history of economic thought as well as to the religious nature of capitalism. Professor Bruni is involved in many grassroots projects devoted to developing a new economic paradigm: he is International Co-ordinator of the Economy of Communion project, a Board member of the Economy of Francesco Foundation and a member of the international Focolare movement. In addition, he is Editor-in-Chief of the International Review of Economics, an active columnist and author of many books.
Links
For Luigino Bruni
https://www.luiginobruni.it/en/
https://www.luiginobruni.it/it/ec-ea.html
https://francescoeconomy.org/eof-board/
https://lumsa.it/it/docenti/luigino-bruni
https://www.edc-online.org/it/header-pubblicazioni/luigino-bruni.html
https://www.luiginobruni.it/en/ec-ea/mother-superior-or-leader-the-convent-is-not-a-business.html
Books
The Genesis and Ethos of the Market
Civil Economy: Another Idea of the Market co-authored with Stefano Zamagni
The Wound and the Blessing: Economics, Relationships, and Happiness
Capitalism and Christianity: Origins, Spirit and Betrayal of the Market Economy
The Economics of Values-Based Organisations: An Introduction
Further books in English listed here
https://www.luiginobruni.it/en/books.html
For Alan J Roxburgh:
https://www.facebook.com/alan.roxburgh.127/
https://www.facebook.com/thecommonsnetwork
Books
Forming Communities of Hope in the Great Unraveling: Leadership in a Changing World (with Roy Searle)
Practices for the Refounding of God’s People: The Missional Challenge of the West (with Martin Robinson)
Joining God in the Great Unraveling
Leadership, God’s Agency and Disruptions
Joining God, Remaking Church, Changing the World: The New Shape of the Church in Our Time
For Jenny Sinclair:
https://t4cg.substack.com/s/editorials
https://t4cg.substack.com/s/from-jenny-sinclair
https://togetherforthecommongood.co.uk/from-jenny-sinclair
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenny-sinclair-0589783b/
https://www.facebook.com/TogetherForTheCommonGoodUK
https://www.instagram.com/t4cg_insta/
