This book is the fourteenth in the series New Studies in Christian Ethics. Like Michael Northcott's book in the series, The Environment and Christian Ethics, the book is concerned with one of the macro issues facing the new millennium, namely the now dominant world culture of the market economy. Again, like other books in the series, a central concern here is to engage centrally with the secular moral debate at the highest possible intellectual level and, secondly, to demonstrate that Christian ethics can make a distinctive contribution to this debate, either in moral substance or in terms of underlying moral justifications.

Peter Sedgwick is unusually well placed to offer a critical, theological guide to the culture of the market economy. His role within the Church of England's Board for Social Responsibility, along with his previous work as a lecturer at Birmingham and Hull Universities, has given him an exceptionally wide range of contacts and resources in social economics. He has combined sustained scholarship and teaching in Christian ethics with the practical work of the Board. In the process, he has been an important contributor to theological studies following the Church of England report Faith in the City, a key contributor to the more recent report Unemployment and the Future of Work, and the author of the well-received book The Enterprise Culture (1992).

His focus here is upon the cultural and ethical implications of market economics in the modern world.