Die Organisatoren der Tagung zu “Economic Reform and Social Change in the Age of Reformation” gehen von der These aus, dass die “denunciation of the sale of salvation also put the whole economics of traditional faith in question… Church’s financial excesses” provozierten “Luther and many other Reformers… took a stance against usury, interest-bearing loans, commercial monopoly and capital accumulation, monetary shortage, debt collection, and practices of managing public relief for the poor.”
Die Tagung möchte u.a. die Frage beantworten, ob es möglich sei “to assess the actual impact of religious discourses and doctrines on economic behaviour on individuals, families, communities, town and entire states”. Ziel der Organisatoren: “We believe that studying the diversity of the first generation of Reformers’ positions on what they considered to be an ideal Christian economy … is far more revealing of the multiple economics experiences that result from the Reformation.” Dies soll am Beispiel “socio-economic practices of communities of faith”, “financial and economic management of clerical institutions”, “individual experiences of clerics” und “economic and financial public policies” untersucht werden.