Should Christians work for a tobacco company?

I read a very interesting article this week about Philip Morris' $350 million investment to develop a research center dedicated to finding "healthier" forms of smoking. The FDA is apparently planning to begin regulating tobacco (it's amazing to me that it has never been regulated) -- regulations may include product standards (e.g., limiting certain ingredients) and the requirement to turn over extensive information about its products. Proposed regulations also include provisions saying that "if a new kind of cigarette can be scientifically proven to 'significantly reduce harm' to smoker -- and its availability would also benefit the health of 'the population as a whole' -- the cigarette's marketing claims may win approval from the FDA."

So Philip Morris is investing $350 million (plus the ongoing investment to pay doctors, scientists, clinical trial participants, etc.) in search of this "reduced-risk cigarette." To recruit the pharmacologists, neurologists, scientists, and engineers to its new state of the art facility, the company has launched a careers website that includes a quote from a physician saying, "To work on projects that may potentially reduce the health risks associated with smoking is both challenging and exciting."

Here are some of the health claims from Philip Morris' own website:

• Philip Morris USA agrees with the overwhelming medical and scientific consensus that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer, heart disease, emphysema and other serious diseases in smokers. Smokers are far more likely to develop serious diseases, like lung cancer, than non-smokers. There is no safe cigarette.
• Philip Morris USA agrees with the overwhelming medical and scientific consensus that cigarette smoking is addictive.
• To reduce the health effects of smoking, the best thing to do is to quit; public health authorities do not endorse either smoking fewer cigarettes or switching to lower tar and nicotine brands as a satisfactory way of reducing risk.

OK, I try to stay relatively even-handed in these posts but this just pisses me off. Is it possible to maintain a single shred of intellectual integrity and believe that working on a "reduced-risk cigarette" is going to "reduce the health risks associated with smoking?" What these highly educated men and women are doing is effectively enabling Philip Morris (who sells ~50% of the cigarettes smoked in America) to continue selling products that kill 438,000 people a year. The company reiterates on its own website that there is no safe cigarette and "the best thing to do is to quit." They acknowledge overwhelming evidence of the lethal consequences of selling their products and yet they continue to sell them. Why? Can there be an explanation other than profit? This seems to me a powerful case study for the manipulative, heart-destroying power of money (Matthew 6:24).

I suffer from the temptation to make things black and white that are, in truth, complex mysteries, but I'll ask my simple-minded, black and white question anyway -- is it possible for Christian to work for Philip Morris while passionately pursuing Jesus or is the conflict too stark, the required compromise too great? Is it possible to love your brother the way Jesus teaches/personifies and profit from his consumption of a lethal product?

Now clearly this post is not just about a hypothetical situation in which someone is considering employment with Philip Morris. What do you think about the spiritual consistency of your heart in your current job? Does it require you to compromise in ways you never thought you would?

Should pastors be part-time?

This week, we thought we'd link to another blog discussing this topic of pastors/businessmen and how they fit into churches and into the business world. Pretty cool that there are other folks out there talking about these same issues.

The guy who wrote this post has some interesting thoughts. First, he says many full-time church leaders should "step down to part-time." Second, he says "followers" need to increase their involvement in the Church. He bases his thoughts on Jesus' critique of the temple system saying "we all have access to God...no Christian needs another to mediate God to them. That's the curtain you can hear ripping."

What do you guys think? Is there Biblical basis for more pastors/paid church leaders to be part-time or is this guy adding some of his personal bias to Scripture? If you agree/disagree, what implications does this have on our role (whatever your role is) in the Church?