This is Thinking in Public, a program dedicated to intelligent conversation about frontline theological

and cultural issues with the people who are shaping them.

I'm Albert Mueller, your host and president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville,

Kentucky. Benjamin M. Friedman is the William Joseph Meyer professor of political economy

and former chairman

of the Department of Economics at Harvard University. Professor Friedman received his PhD in economics

from Harvard, and since 1972 he has served on Harvard's faculty. He's a widely sought-after

scholar in the field of economics and economic policy. He's authored more than 150 academic articles. He's the

author or editor of 14 books. His book, Religion and the Rise of Capitalism, was the topic of

a previous thinking in public conversation in 2021. It's his most recent book, Religious Influences,

on Economic Thinking, that is the topic of our conversation today.

Professor Friedman, I welcome you to thinking in public.

Thank you for having me.

Professor Friedman, one of your particular interests is actually the intersection of religion,

your book Religion and the Rise of Capitalism, has been succeeded by your lectures at

University of Zurich, or actually for the Swiss

National Bank in Zurich entitled Religious Influences on Economic Thinking. So your work is at the

intersection of these two powerful intellectual forces. And how did you arrive at the intersection of religion and economics in terms of your own academic work?

To begin, as you correctly stated, I'm an economist. I am not a religious scholar. I'm an economist.

But I've always been interested in the question of where ideas come from

and why ideas emerge when and where they did.

And we know a lot historically about the origins of modern Western economics.

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