St. Maximos' Hut

I was using "orthogonal" to suggest that economics and religion talk about very different subjects and to suggest that I see no contradiction between looking at the world as an economist and looking at the world as a Christian.

For example, economics suggests utility maximization as a goal. In economic terms, Christianity tells me how to define my utility function. Once I've done that, I don't see a contradiction between maximzing my utility and living according to my faith, for an essential feature of my faith is the belief that living life as a Christian is what I (and all mankind) was created to do. Can't maximize utility much more than that.

Of course, not everyone accepts the same faith - and even amongst ourselves here at St. Maximos' Hut we've got a wide range of Christian denominations with some fairly deep theological differences. Economics can't tell us anything about how to resolve those differences or the even deeper ones between Christians generally and those of other faiths. An economist can tell us something useful about which religious faiths might succeed in gaining "market share" through practices that improve their success at winning converts. (You can read some excellent work on that topic, collected by the Center for the Economic Study of Religion, here.) But that is a topic for another day/post.

So my claim of orthogonality merely was a claim that there was not a contradiction between being an economist and being a Christian.