”A Priest, a Levite, and a Samaritan Walk into a Bar…” It sounds like the beginning of a joke, but it’s actually the title of a lecture about loving your neighbor in the 21st Century.

The American Enterprise Institute sponsored the lecture as part of its Values & Capitalism initiative, an ongoing project to encourage Christians to understand how faith relates to a free market economy.

“Our working assumption is that free enterprise and capitalism are morally superior to other economic alternatives,” Eric Teetsel, project manager for Values & Capitalism, said. “A free market enables individuals to live out their calling and creates wealth that benefits everyone, including the least among us.”

Values & Capitalism, which began in the summer of 2009, promotes this philosophy by focusing on two groups of people: college students and faculty members. It reaches out to both groups through books, events, and online discussions.

The eight books published by Values & Capitalism are intended to be primers on the most important questions in public policy. They are geared toward freshmen and include a moral component. Teetsel’s goal is to have them added to the curriculum for existing college courses.

Each year, Values & Capitalism holds at least 24 events on Christian college campuses and hosts quarterly events and a summer conference at AEI’s Washington headquarters. Daniel Davis, a sophomore at Wheaton College, attended a two-and-a-half day conference at AEI in June.

“I learned how defensible free market values are from the perspective of faith,” he said. “The things I learned are integrated into a lot of my discussions with people on campus.”

Students like Davis can continue the discussions started at the live events on the Values & Capitalism website forum. Although the discussions are lively, they are not intended to be partisan or political.

“We don’t think very much about elections,” Teetsel said. “We are talking about big, culture-defining questions.”

Both parties can be criticized for enacting anti-free-market policies like farm subsidies, Teetsel said.

The institute chose to focus on evangelical college students because traditionally they have understood the connection between values, faith, and free enterprise. But anecdotal evidence suggests that trend is changing, Teetsel said.

“Free enterprise has assumed that evangelicals will be with them and that’s a mistake,” he said.

Davis agreed.

“College students across the country are not given a fair view of free market principles,” he said.

Values & Capitalism also targets students who might not have much of an interest in public policy. While other groups train students who already share their viewpoint, Teetsel hopes Values & Capitalism will reach “the masses in the middle who don’t know or don’t care about these things.”

Values & Capitalism currently has 3 full-time staffers. Eventually, AEI plans to expand its education efforts to non-Christian colleges and universities. Teetsel hopes the institute’s efforts will help train a new generation of American leaders.

“The vision is that in five to ten years, the U.S. will embody the ideas of individual freedom and economic opportunity and we’ll be living lives that are unburdened by bureaucratic statism,” he said.

@Copyright 2011 WORLD Magazine – used with permission