Let's Put the Church Back in Business

Forget writing

2010-08-28T21:20:00.006-05:00

In Plato's Phaedrus, Socrates tells of the legend of the god Theuth, the inventor of many things including writing. Theuth presents the virtues of his invention to King Thamus who challenges writing's virtue saying instead that "Those who acquire [this technique of writing] will cease to exercise their memory and become forgetful...your pupils will have the reputation for [wisdom] without the reality: they will receive a quantity of information without proper instruction, and in consequence be thought very knowledgeable when they are for the most part quite ignorant. And because they are filled with the conceit of wisdom instead of real wisdom they will be a burden to society."

We have no idea what it's like to live in a culture driven by oral communication, thus no basis for judging whether written communicators are more forgetful and ignorant than oral communicators. But 5,000 years after the advent of writing, a new technique now threatens to become primary: digital communication (yes, this).

Is that a bad thing?

Neil Postman, in his book Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology, suggests the introduction of a new technique or technology creates an entirely new society. "Technological change is neither additive nor subtractive. It is ecological...if you remove the caterpillars from a given habitat, you have a new environment and you have reconstituted the conditions of survival."

"Because of its close and intimate relationship with culture, technology does not invite a close examination of its own consequences. It is the kind of friend that asks for trust and obedience, which most people are inclined to give because its gifts are truly bountiful..."

"The uncontrolled growth of technology destroys the vital sources of our humanity. It creates a culture without moral foundation. It undermines certain mental processes and social relations that make human life worth living."

Recent studies show that this prophecy is being fulfilled one text message at a time:

One report from China says 83% of kids report problems remembering how to write some Chinese characters. Some of the youth interviewed were quoted saying "When I can't remember, I will take out my cellphone and find it (the character) and then copy it down." "It's like you're forgetting your culture." In 2008, the Chinese sent 700 billion texts per year.

In the US, 50% of teens send more than 50 texts every day. Teen girls average 100 texts per day. Texting has now surpassed face-to-face contact as the primary way teens reach their friends.

One thing is clear: our unexamined adoption of digital communication is reconstituting the conditions of survival.

Live more living with less

2009-01-29T21:55:00.010-06:00

Article about the spirituality of simplicity:

Brad DeLong puts this economic crisis into perspective. Why is a lower standard of living unimaginable for us for a while? Why is it essential that income keeps rising? What can't we do more with less?

...everybody I know finds it very difficult to imagine how people can survive on less than one-third of what they spend—never mind that all of our pre-industrial ancestors did so all the time. There is a point at which we say "enough!" to more oat porridge. But all evidence suggests Keynes was wrong: We are simply not built to ever say "enough!" to stuff in general.[...]
Our goods are not only plentiful but cheap. I am a book addict. Yet even I am fighting hard to spend as great a share of my income on books as Adam Smith did in his day. Back on March 9, 1776 Adam Smith's Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations went on sale for the price of 1.8 pounds sterling at a time when the median family made perhaps 30 pounds a year. That one book (admittedly a big book and an expensive one) cost six percent of the median family's annual income. In the United States today, median family income is $50,000 a year and Smith's Wealth of Nations costs $7.95 at Amazon (in the Bantam Classics edition). The 18th Century British family could buy 17 copies of the Wealth of Nations out of its annual income. The American family in 2009 can buy 6,000 copies: a multiplication factor of 350.
Books are not an exceptional category.

This is why our problem is not just economic; it's spiritual. We have mistaken consuming for living.

New life

2009-01-11T19:52:00.005-06:00

Our daughter was born on Monday and it was one of the most worshipful, intense, and humbling experiences of our lives. Being part of the labor and delivery with Erica has taken our marriage to another level...starting with the profound respect I have for what she went through. And, of course, having this new little girl in our lives, Saylor Grace Smith, stirs in me a joy I was honestly skeptical would be real.

I've reflected a lot on childbirth since we learned we were pregnant and the experience -- the intensity of the pain and the joy -- blew away all of my expectations. God could have chosen any means to bring children into the world and He chose the process of conception, pregnancy, and birth. The deep spiritual parallels of each stage are incredible and humbling. Man nor woman able to bring new life on their own. God's long, patient work of knitting together new life. And the juxtaposition of maybe the greatest pain imaginable and the greatest joy.

Childbirth may be the only worldly pain with such promise. Most pain is a warning. Labor is full of hope. I couldn't get this parallel with life out of my head during Erica's labor. That pain, that struggle was God's illustration of life in the flesh...followed by the indescribable joy of new life given to us by our Creator and Redeemer.

As I look at Saylor Grace, I'm humbled by all she represents. Christ, in speaking to the disciples about His imminent crucifixion, said:

"You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy. When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world. So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you." John 16:20-22

And Paul uses childbirth to illustrate the struggle underway by all of creation:

"For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us...For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now...as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved." Romans 8:18, 22-24

And in the song Yahweh, U2 sings:

Yahweh, Yahweh
Always pain before a child is born
Yahweh, Yahweh
Still I’m waiting for the dawn

Still waiting for the dawn, the sun is coming up
The sun is coming up on the ocean
This love is like a drop in the ocean
This love is like a drop in the ocean

Yahweh, Yahweh
Always pain before a child is born
Yahweh, tell me now
Why the dark before the dawn?

Saylor's birth was a struggle and there were certainly times we didn't think we'd get through it. But it was on that dark canvas God began to reveal His light. The past 9 months and especially on Monday, we sang the verses "Still I’m waiting for the dawn...Yahweh, tell me now, why the dark before the dawn?" And then she came.

I can't take my eyes off this little girl. I love kissing her chubby cheeks. I've never touched anything as soft as her skin. I'm completely in love. And this love is just a drop in the ocean?

Praise God for this life of labor and the hope it brings. Praise our Father for the promise of adoption. Praise Him for glimpses into a joy so deep and profound. "No one will take your joy from you." Praise God.

New Year's self-examination

2008-12-30T21:56:00.001-06:00

List of great, challenging questions to ask ourselves

New Covenant vs. New Deal

2008-12-30T21:52:00.002-06:00

Is it possible to be a Christian and engage in politics? Yes, I think so. But we need to be very careful where we are placing our hope and trust. I choose Jesus over the government...even one led by the almighty Barack Obama. This article traces our infatuation with the "hope" of politics back to the New Deal.

Story of Stuff

2008-12-29T16:04:00.002-06:00

If you haven't watched this -- "The Story of Stuff" -- you have to. One of the best, quick summaries I've seen of our current global economy and the strain our consumption places on creation, culture, and even our spiritual health.

Redemption at work

2008-12-29T12:24:00.005-06:00

Awesome article by Rick Reilly about a football game played outside of Dallas a few weeks ago where, in his words, "everything about it was upside down."

The game was played between Grapevine Faith and Gainesville State School. Gainesville is a high school that also happens to be a maximum security facility. The love showed to these kids by the coach, players, and fans of Grapevine Faith is inpiring. Everyday people doing the hard, joyful work of redemption.

Should the Church advertise?

2008-12-14T21:47:00.008-06:00

We've all seen advertising from churches. It can be as simple as a church announcing its service times. Or as provocative as claiming to speak from God. There's a billboard just south of Dallas saying:

"Stop the porn and be reborn
-- God."

So I wasn't too surprised to see this article about an atheist buying advertising space on London's iconic red buses in response to "Christian" advertising on the same buses. The "Christian" ads threatened those who reject Christ with "torment in hell." The atheist's ads say, "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life."

In a way, the atheist's ad seems to better glorify God. At least it reflects a shred of the creativity He wired into us.

It's easy for me to criticize billboards about porn or hell. But I'm not so sure any "Christian" advertising is a good idea. Advertising, by its nature, communicates to people you don't know. Should any message carrying the spiritual significance the Church intends be communicated in such an impersonal way?

*Update -- CNN report on the atheist ad campaign: http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2009/01/07/cook.uk.athiest.bus.cnn

Walmart employee trampled to death by Christmas shoppers

2008-11-30T21:34:00.005-06:00

A Walmart employee was killed by stampeding shoppers on "Black Friday."

I'm sure many of you have already seen this. My prayer is that it causes many of us to rethink our hysterical addiction to consumption. For people to rip a door off of its hinges, trample a man to death, and then complain when the store was being shut down because of the death -- all to "save money" by buying stuff -- seems to lend itself to only one explanation: the intoxication of consumerism.

May we have the compassion to love man more than money and the conviction to reject the sirens of stuff for the joy that can be found only in Christ. May He be honored in our giving and receiving this season...

Is there good in separateness from God?

2008-06-24T22:50:00.008-05:00

I have been studying the theology of "creation care" recently and one of the books I am reading has a passage I can't wrap my mind around. The authors are men I respect and with whom I generally agree, but they make a bold statement: there is goodness in the separateness of creation from God.

Here is a passage from the book:

There are two ways of reading the phrase "and God saw that it was good,"
which appears six times in Genesis 1. The first is that the goodness of
creation is a reflection of the goodness of God -- a way of saying "I am
good." This meaning is evident in such declarations of the Psalmist as
"the heavens are telling the glory of God" (Psalm 19:1). Unquestionably,
then, one purpose of creation is to give God glory.

The other dimension to the phrase does not contradict the first, but it is
often overlooked. The statement is not only a reflection of the goodness
of God. It is often misquoted as "God said that is was good," implying that
the goodness of creation is the result of divine fiat. But in the wording
"God saw," there is a recognition of the separateness of creation -- and of
the goodness in the separateness. Most profoundly and mysteriously, it
points to the price the Creator was willing to pay for the independence of
his creation.

Thus God does not simply "say" or "declare" the goodness of what he has
made: he sees its goodness, as a free response to his own calling.
Though its origin is clearly from God, the very fact of creation gives
creatures an independence, a goodness, and a freedom of their own.
"God saw that creation was good" is thus not so much a declaration
as it is a response to creation.

The first question seems to be whether God actively declares -- thereby assigning -- creation's goodness or He passively observes -- thereby acknowledging -- creation's goodness. The Hebrew word "saw" in Genesis 1 is "ra'ah" which means to see, to understand intellectually, to perceive. This certainly implies God observed, He didn't declare.

Following the authors' logic, I think they would go on to say the implicit goodness God observes in creation was derived entirely from Him. So a passive observation makes Him no less responsible for creation's goodness.

That said, what more (if anything) should we interpret from the repeated use of the word "saw?" Can we go as far as to agree with this sentence: "But in the wording 'God saw,' there is a recognition of the separateness of creation -- and of the goodness in the separateness?"

Sin has clearly caused separation between creation and God, but is there a benign separateness before the Fall? A liberty that is good in itself but distorted by man?

What will it take to keep Christ at the center of the "green" wave?

2008-05-18T23:36:00.012-05:00

No, I'm not talking about Tulane. I'm talking about the insane hype around "going green." Christ is at the core of true stewardship of Creation, but I fear that most motivation to "care" for Creation is selfish: anything from vanity (bragging about driving a Prius) to greed (saving money by saving energy).

Truth is, caring for Creation is hard and will require sacrifice and thoughtfulness. To engage this green wave, I think we need to give serious consideration to these three issues:

1) We willingly bow at the altar of a three-headed monster: Consumerism, Excess, and Distance
The best way I know to illustrate this issue is to compare exceptional stewards of God's Creation to us. Native Americans are renowned for their use of every part of a buffalo. They lived on the land and respected the buffalo. They were personally involved with each kill. There was no excess, no waste.

It is laughable (in a heart-breaking way) to picture those same Native Americans shopping at Wal-Mart. It would be completely counter to their belief in the Created order to shop for shelter or dinner walking down aisles stocked with thousands of buffalo. But this is our reality. We are so removed from the kill (be it a cow for a steak dinner, a tree for office paper, or an entire habitat for oil) that we welcome ignorance as an excuse for irresponsibility. I believe that if we reconnected with Creation, eliminated that distance, our souls would be stirred to dramatic and lasting change.

But eliminating distance isn't enough. We have to fight the excess that plagues America. It is a shame that we can drive to the store to buy food any time we want. There used to be a time (and it is a present reality for most of the world) where food came from the ground, not Kroger. But in America, we have so much -- and we can have it whenever we want -- that we can afford to waste and just go buy more. I can buy 12 bananas and, if 5 of them turn brown before I eat them, I'll just throw them away and buy more. Nevermind the energy consumed in flying them halfway across the world to get them to my grocery store. Nevermind the landfill that is filling because I bought too much.

Excess is the disease that leads to pantries full of food we can't remember buying, newspapers delivered daily that we don't read, and 35 minute commutes to work (and these are just 3 examples from my life). I believe that if we had to wait longer to get less, we would be dramatically closer to the way God designed us to interact with Creation.

Finally, consumerism -- whether it's shopping for a TV or shopping for a church -- tells me my decisions are all about me. I'm certain I don't have to expound on the dangers of this kind of selfishness. But we do have to acknowledge its nagging presence in virtually every decision we make.

2) We believe in a false, separate entity called "the environment"
Consumerism, excess, and distance are symptoms, I believe, of deeper issues: false understanding of the relationships with our Creator and within Creation.

The Oxford English Dictionary says Geoffrey Chaucer was the first to use the word "environing," from which we get our word "environment." Today, the word "environment" is so culturally ingrained that we don't stop to consider the implications of that word. Until Chaucer's writings in the late 1500s, it seems the English language had no way of expressing ourselves as separate from Creation. Creation, as described in the Bible, was the whole of things created. Today, however, we have humans and the "environment."

Separating ourselves from the rest of Creation is a dangerous and -- I think proving deadly -- mistake. Not only do we suffer the physical consequences of our resulting mistreatment of Creation, this false separation causes us to miss the spiritual significance of our interconnectedness with Creation. "The environment" was not created to serve man. Creation was created to serve God. If we truly believed the latter to be true, we would learn to live as true conservationists -- never taking without giving back.

3) We substitute "global warming" for "Creation care"
Unfortunately, the most public of "environmentalists" have led us to set up camp on what I believe to be one of the shakiest possible foundations: global warming.

The Bible commends to us stewardship of God's Creation. All of it. Global warming reduces the conversation to the emissions that result from our energy consumption. It doesn't address water conservation, topsoil erosion, sustainable agriculture, waste management, etc., etc. But, because we live in a culture dominated by single-issue marketing and celebrity-endorsed advocacy, global warming has become the one issue of ultimate concern. In fact, people now often use "global warming" as a substitute for a broader concern for Creation, e.g.:

"Do you care about conserving and preserving Creation?"

"Yes, I am very concerned about global warming."

We must acknowledge the consequences of this singular focus on global warming. Caring about CO2 emissions and not water conservation (for example) is like giving a band-aid to someone who broke multiple bones in car accident. Marketers believe we can only understand one issue at a time, but I think we're smarter than that. I think we know something is broken -- lots of things, in fact -- and we need much more than a band-aid to set those bones so true healing can take place.

Culture will continue to tempt us with the lie that we can "save the planet" without giving up our comfortable lifestyles. But I'd argue that for real, Christ-centered change to take place, it's going to require sacrifice -- both materially and in terms of time dedicated to studying a Biblical view of Creation. It's going to be hard and we shouldn't listen to anyone who tells us otherwise.

Is global warming real? Should we sell it?

2008-04-22T02:40:00.006-05:00

First, happy Earth Day!

Two questions for this newly re-energized holiday:

1) Should (or how should) we as Christians and Christian businessmen interact with the earth? Certainly issues like global warming have gotten a lot of attention of late. Is global warming real? Do we have a Scriptural command to do something about it?

2) Marketing adds a fun twist to our interaction with the earth. Not only do businesses today use the earth to make goods, we use the idea of preserving the earth to sell those goods (keep in mind I work in environmental marketing for "The ($40 billion) Man"). What do you think about the practice in general? Shouldn't consumers know if a company is doing good things for the earth?

What do you think specifically about Wal-Mart's new TV ads that feature "Budget-friendly prices. Earth-friendly products."? Watch them at http://www.savemoneylivebetter.com/.

Are trees and birds part of God's plan for salvation?

2008-04-07T23:43:00.006-05:00

I just finished reading Rob Bell's Velvet Elvis and I'd love to get your thoughts on some of the things he says in the book. For example, he suggests that the salvation described in the Bible is much more than a mere legal transaction where we "accept Jesus into our hearts" to cover over our sins and provide right-standing before God. Instead, he says:

The Bible pains a much larger picture of salvation. It describes all of creation being restored. The author of Ephesians writes that all things will be brought together under Jesus (Eph. 1:10).
Salvation is the entire universe being brought back into harmony with its maker.
This has huge implications for how people present the message of Jesus. Yes, Jesus can come into our hearts. But we can join a movement that is as wide and deep and big as the universe itself. Rocks and trees and birds and swamps and ecosystems. God's desire is to restore all of it.
The point is not me; it's God. (pages 109-110)

I don't know about you, but this is pretty different than the understanding of salvation I was taught growing up. Are trees and birds and rocks and swamps really part of the salvation brought through Jesus?

Where do we go when we die?

2008-03-24T23:40:00.005-05:00

First, props to The Dude and Hudson's Dad for sharing some of their thoughts on eschatology for all of us. This is clearly a complex issue, so I just want to focus for a moment on one aspect -- location.

NT Wright says Christians misunderstand three aspects of the afterlife: 1) the timing, 2) our physical state, and 3) the location. I think the common cultural response to this week's question would be "to heaven." If you ask where heaven is, people would talk about clouds.

There are certainly a number of verses that indicate that heaven is in fact in the sky. But are the heavens where we will spend eternity as Christians? If theologians like NT Wright are correct and "life after life after death" is spent in a new earth, this has significant implications on how we treat the earth today.

Some verses that seem to indicate a location for our eternal destination other than the sky:

Revelation 21:1-4: "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first
heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw
the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a
bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,
'Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and
they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will
wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall
there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have
passed away.'" (Also 2 Peter 3:13 and Isaiah 65:17 and 66:22)

Acts 3:21: "...Jesus whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring
all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long
ago." (Also Philippians 3:20 and 1 Thessalonians 1:10)

Acts 1:11: "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This
Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you
saw him go into heaven."

This topic is relatively new to me, so I feel very underprepared to offer my own interpretation. Instead, I'd love to hear what you guys think. Will heaven come down to earth in the time appointed for Christ to restore all things or will we dwell forever in the heavens? Or both? Or neither?

Do we have a wrong idea of heaven?

2008-03-10T23:43:00.005-05:00

In February, Anglican Bishop NT Wright said in an interview with Time Magazine that Christians are wrong about heaven. He specifically rebuts the cultural picture of heaven Maria Shriver described in her book What's Heaven:

"[It's] a beautiful place where you can sit on soft clouds and talk... If you're good throughout your life, then you get to go [there]... When your life is finished here on earth, God sends angels down to take you heaven to be with him."

NT says the Bible teaches that heaven is not a place where we float on clouds as body-less souls listening to music all day; heaven will come down to earth and, with redeemed bodies, we will work the redeemed Creation.

This is a pretty significant claim as I imagine many Christians -- many of us included -- fall into the camp NT is criticizing. Thoughts?

Is bigger always better?

2008-02-25T22:51:00.003-06:00

Americans (and especially Texans) love boasting that bigger is better. We can see it in our businesses and in our churches. But is it?

A story on NPR today asked some challenging questions about business growth. Charles Handy, the founder of London Business School, asked why business is different than orchestras, schools, or hospitals. Once an orchestra reaches a certain size, if you asked the conductor about growth, he would likely discuss their expanding repertoire, not adding more violins.

I heard an environmental scientist address this issue once, drawing the distinction between growth and development. Biologically, once we have eyes, ears, limbs and organs, we are done growing. The rest is development:

For our own bodies, and our communities, development is getting the right things in the right places in the right amounts at the right times in the right relationships. Just like there is no advantage for our brain to grow out of proportion with our stomach or vice versa, so there is no advantage to adding house to house at the expense of the farms and gardens that sustain our food supply, or at the expense of clean air and water that sustain our health.

Growth freed from the constraints of true development is cancer, as we all know.

For those of us working for public companies, we are complicit in a system that unashamedly pursues growth as a fundamental tenet of delivering shareholder value. But public companies are just the easiest example. I wonder if most business and even most churches aren't pursuing the same "growth imperative" without regard to the consequences.

Cells that get too large either burst or split to form new life. Why doesn't business/church heed wisdom from the basic building block of all life? How can we ensure the growth we are pursuing isn't cancerous?

Is technology that mimics Creation any better?

2008-02-20T22:03:00.006-06:00

I don't know about you guys, but I'm starting to get worn out with the technology discussion. But I have to dedicate one more post to it (for now) because I was pleasantly surprised recently by an article that I think offers some semblance of redemption to this debate.

This article in American Way (American Airlines' illustrious magazine) may not win a Pulitzer, but its topic is very cool: biomimicry, or biologically inspired design. Some examples of technology highlighted in the article:

Removing blood from hospital linens without using bleach by studying insects like mosquitoes
Self-cleaning paint, roof shingles, and fabric modeled after the lotus plant's leaves
Buildings in Zimbabwe that don't need air conditioning because they are designed to mimic a termite mound

Of course biomimicry doesn't necessarily address some of the deeper spiritual issues we've discussed like the way technology distracts us from or encourages us not to rely upon God. But it does clearly reflect Him and His creativity. So with all the problems technology presents, should we encourage/pursue this kind of invention? Just because it is based on Creation, does that make it any better?

Is technology a surrogate for God?

2008-02-04T23:01:00.000-06:00

Two comments last week essentially said "technology's not the problem, it's our hearts." We had a great discussion almost a year ago about whether it's really "all about the heart" -- if you haven't seen that thread, check it out.

Rather than rehash that debate, I want to push on this idea that "technology is neutral, it's our hearts that screw it up." I both agree and disagree with that statement. I agree that it is neutral if we are talking about lifeless circuits and chemicals. But adding human intention to the invention and utilization of technology gives life to otherwise lifeless technology. Technology is created by humans to fulfill a human desire. So the very existence of a specific form of technology is much more than a lifeless gadget, pill, or instrument. It represents a specific intent, an end it is intended to satisfy.

I think most technology could be at least loosely associated with one of a handful of ends: saving money, saving time, minimizing pain/inconvenience, or prolonging life. So my question: are these Godly pursuits?

There are certainly a number of scriptures that suggest a lack of money, the necessity of patience, suffering, and death are powerful agents in pointing us toward Christ. So why do we continue to invent and use new technology that dilutes these potentially significant spiritual experiences?

I think Broun's comment a couple weeks ago began to answer this question:

Traditionally the goal of medicine from a Christian perspective has been redemptive. Disease isn’t simply a biological problem; it is a moral one, the result of sin. So for the same reason we preach the gospel, we also fight the Asian Bird Flu epidemic, recognizing in it yet another facet of the curse sin has brought on the world...However you say it, under the old paradigm the goal of medicine was to fix what is broken.

[There is now] demand for a new paradigm. We want [medicine] to do more
than merely repair what’s broken. We want it to make us better.

Is the iPhone fixing what is broken or is it something we hope will make our lives magically better? Did the printing press? Or the car? Will cloning cattle? Or chemotherapy?

Is any technology good?

2008-01-28T22:50:00.000-06:00

Wendell Berry, a Christian/farmer/writer we have referenced before on the blog, wrote an article several years ago about why he would never buy a computer, saying he doesn't want to write more or faster, he wants to write better. A number of people responded with fierce criticism and Berry replied with an article detailing his perspective. If you have time, read the whole thing as it is very challenging to the suburban Christian worldview. If not, check out these exerpts and let us know what you think about how we ought to view technology as Christians. Should we clone cows to reduce the cost of beef or milk? What if that helps feed the hungry? Are there deeper issues we must address first? Is it possible to pursue any technological innovation (faster computer, better medicine, artificial life) with Christ-centered motivation?

The various reductions I have been describing are fairly directly the
results of the ongoing revolution of applied science known as 'technological
progress.' This revolution has provided the means by which both the productive
and the consumptive capacities of people could be detached from household and
community and made to serve other people’s purely economic ends. It has provided
as well a glamor of newness, ease, and affluence that made it seductive even to
those who suffered most from it.
Some people would like to think that this long sequence of industrial
innovations has changed human life and even human nature in fundamental ways.
Perhaps it has—but, arguably, almost always for the worse. I know that “techno-
logical progress” can be defended, but I observe that the defenses are
invariably quantitative—catalogs of statistics on the ownership of automobiles
and television sets, for example, or on the increase of life expectancy—and I
see that these statistics are always kept carefully apart from the related
statistics of soil loss, pollution, social disintegration, and so forth.
To ask a still more obvious question, what is the purpose of this
technological progress? What higher aim do we think it is serving? Surely the
aim cannot be the integrity or happiness of our families, which we have made
subordinate to the education system, the television industry, and the consumer
economy. Surely it cannot be the integrity or health of our communities, which
we esteem even less than we esteem our families. Surely it cannot be love of our
country, for we are far more concerned about the desecration of the flag than we
are about the desecration of our land. Surely it cannot be the love of God,
which counts for at least as little in the daily order of business as the love
of family, community, and country.
And so the question of the desirability of adopting any technological innovation is a question with two possible answers—not one, as has been commonly assumed. If one’s motives are money, ease, and haste to arrive in a technologically determined future, then the answer is foregone, and there is, in fact, no question, and no thought. If one’s motive is the love of family, community, country, and God, then one will have to think, and one may have to decide that the proposed innovation is undesirable.

Should Christians have an opinion about cloned beef?

2008-01-21T21:52:00.000-06:00

This has been a red-hot topic recently with the FDA ruling that meat and milk from cloned animals is safe. The FDA spent 6 years studying the meat, muscle tissue, and milk from cloned animals and determined they are "as safe as food we eat every day." There is currently no provision to label cloned meat/milk, so we could begin consuming this food without knowing it.

Does that bother you? Should it?

The FDA was focused on safety...some scientists and consumer groups say cloned beef is unethical. Is there Scriptural support for one position vs. another?

Does technology undermine the Gospel?

2007-11-12T22:55:00.001-06:00

I am really having a hard time with this ends/means debate. Two of the three examples I gave last week were, in my opinion, no-brainers:

No, we should not rejoice that Joel Osteen is reaching millions of people with his message. I have no doubt God can use Osteen's message to bring people to a real understanding of the Truth but, the fact is, Osteen preaches the anti-gospel: God exists to serve man.

And no, Halo is not a good idea even if it brings teens into the church. Since when was the beauty of Creation and the redemption of the soul so boring we needed a video game to attract a certain demographic?

The third -- the one about investing in water-saving technology a community desperately needed so a company could do business there -- is a bit tougher for me, but I'll save that one until next week because I thought Broun asked an interesting question about Halo that I think carries a lot of cultural significance: Why have we not thought or discussed critically "the embrace of technology as THE medium through which to communicate the solid truths of Scripture?"

The example shared last week described churches' use of Halo as a means to attract teens to fellowship where they can hear God's word. But the examples of technology being employed for ministry are pervasive and the utility of many is difficult to discern:

GodTube.com is the fastest growing website in America. The site is based heavily on concepts popularized by YouTube and Facebook but presented from a Christian point of view. The site has many videos of sermons, music, and other content screened by students at Dallas Theological Seminary and Chris Wyatt, GodTube's founder, highlights the fact that "GodTube users on Sunday mornings outnumber the congregation of the megachurch pastor Joel Osteen in Houston."
Kiva.org is a virtual interface to connect would-be lenders to entrepreneurs across the world looking to work their way out of poverty. The site was created by a Christian at Stanford Graduate School of Business and currently features, among many others, a Samoan woman seeking a loan of $475 to repair her canoe and buy new fishing gear. Sixteen people from Hawaii to British Columbia have loaned the funds with repayment terms set for 18 months.
Many churches -- including Mars Hill led by Mark Driscoll in Seattle, Bethlehem Baptist led by John Piper in Minneapolis, and The Village Church led by Matt Chandler in Dallas -- have begun videotaping their sermons and playing them during additional services to extend the church's ministry beyond what time, distance, or the church building's size would otherwise enable. On the Mars Hill website, Mark Driscoll explains that video services are a means to "humbly find ways use the opportunities that our culture would give us so that the person and work of Jesus could be known by as many people as possible" (interpreting 1 Corinthians 9:19-23).

Driscoll equates the use of technology today to Paul's means of engaging culture in 1 Corinthians 9 suggesting both have the same end: "that by all means, [we] might save some" (verse 22). He runs through a list of technological adaptations that have been adopted by churches throughout history -- including the pipe organ, air conditioning and heat, electricity and amplification -- that were often scandalous in their introduction but are now widely accepted.

So is technology a wise means to engage culture or are there aspects of some/all technology that fundamentally undermine the message of the Gospel?

Do the ends justify the means (round 2)?

2007-10-22T23:46:00.001-05:00

The "ends justify the means" debate is clearly a challenging one, with difficult examples in both Scripture and the Church. I loved a quote Dave included in one of his posts:

"American-style evangelicalism has been thoroughly McDonaldized, mimicking the popular fast-food chain. Consumer-oriented marketing principles have been embraced to attract and satisfy more and more people in order to sustain ever increasing egos, visions, budgets, staffs and buildings. In this type of environment almost any conceivable program is justified as a legitimate means to a desired end. Yet this is nothing but unrestrained pragmatism. Such a perspective is open to criticism because even if something works it does not necessarily make it right, true or conducive to forming genuine Christ-followers."

Here are a few examples of the "ends justify the means" debate that I found over the past couple of weeks:

Joel Osteen leads a church in Houston that has upwards of 50,000 weekly attendees. He has written the international best seller Your Best Life Now, just released his new book Become a Better You, and the TV broadcast of his sermons are seen by millions around the world. People flock to Osteen to tell him how God has used him to change their lives. He was dubbed "America's Pastor" on a recent episode of 60 Minutes. Osteen has some staunch critics, saying his lack of theology makes him nothing more than a motivational speaker, but should we not respond with Philippians 1:15-18: "...Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in Truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice?"
Many churches are using Halo, a violent but popular video game that has a Mature (17+) rating, to attract teenagers to church. Critics argue that adult leaders are giving teens access to inappropriate material but should we not also recognize that, not only does Halo provide an outlet for fellowship, it brings kids into church at an impressionable age?
A survey conducted by McKinsey & Company highlighted the increasing social consciousness of corporate CEOs. The CEOs discussed issues such as the increasing demand and limited supply of natural resources and the urgency to act, but the motivation is clear. The CEO of a consumer packaged goods company said "Water is the biggest issue for our company right now -- the ability to do business in water-stressed areas is critical to our growth." Corporations may act in search of profit but is that a bad thing if they help relieve the suffering imposed by a lack of sanitary water?

If lives are truly being transformed through sermons light on theology or through discussions about Halo's depiction of the battle between good and evil or through corporate environmental conservation, should we not rejoice?

What should our response be as businessmen? Should Christ-following artists work to create games like Halo because of the fellowship they provide? Should Godly retailers sell books that promote self esteem more than Scripture because of customer demand? Should Christian employees use profit potential to push their companies to protect the environment?

Do the ends justify the means?

2007-09-30T22:24:00.000-05:00

I went to Austin last week for work and got a chance to spend some time with some guys from my old fraternity at UT, Brothers Under Christ. I asked them the question from last week's blog -- what does it mean to preach the gospel at all times in business -- and we had a very interesting conversation. The primary theme that seemed to arise again and again was a very utilitarian philosophy -- that the end justifies the means.

One example: "Doesn't the actual business itself come second to the hundreds of employees who depend on that business for jobs, health care, etc."

What I found most interesting is the fact that I had a very similar conversation with a man in his 50s who has spent time both as a businessman and as a pastor. He told me that, as Christian businessmen, we should be satisfied with providing people with jobs and, in working with them, developing relationships. I don't disagree that those are important but, as I've said a million times, we have to scrutinize all that we do (including and especially the work we do every day) from a perspective transformed by the Gospel. If we pick and choose that which the Gospel is to transform in our lives, we are living religious morality, not the Gospel.

It seems this utilitarian perspective is pervasive among Christians of all ages, with all kinds of education and experiences. But I have to say I disagree with it completely. I think an "ends justify the means" mentality grows out of a fear of lost control. "If I don't look out for myself first, who will? Once I guarantee financial security, then I can be a minister of the Gospel." But Jesus commands us to choose Him over money (Matthew 6:24), not money in hopes it will facilitate ministry. We are to seek first His righteousness and He will add all of these things (Matthew 6:33).

So what do you think? Put yourself in a small business owner's shoes -- is it Godly to care first about providing wages and health care for your employees, regardless of the means?

Or consider 1 Timothy 5:8 which says "If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever." Is this commanding us to place primary priority on providing for our families with secondary consideration to the means?

How can we preach the Gospel at all times?

2007-09-24T23:48:00.000-05:00

I have been haunted this week with this question. The Dude and I talked about the famous St. Francis of Assisi quote a few months ago -- "Preach the Gospel at all times and when necessary use words" -- and agreed that: 1) most Christians use that quote as an excuse to not use words, 2) while it seems basic, most of us don't know what the Gospel is and 3) if we don't know what it is, we certainly don't know how to preach it at all times.

Preaching the Gospel at all times undoubtedly requires attention, as we discussed last week, to the amount of time dedicated to work and home, but it is much, much bigger than that. I may be wrong, but I think most Christians in the business world boil their ministry down to relationships at work and relationships at home. And while relationships are clearly extremely important, I think that view is way short of God's intention for our lives.

The Bible is clear about how marriage is intended to boldly and clearly communicate the Gospel, but what about a job in marketing/medicine/financial planning?

I talked to a buddy tonight who currently works for one of the Big 4 accounting firms and is considering a new job doing financial planning for small companies. As we talked about this question -- how he could preach the Gospel at all times in this new job -- we talked about the opportunity to study God's teaching about money and share that with the companies he consults. Odds are he won't talk about tithing, but he can certainly encourage them to get out of debt. And if the occasion arises, he can talk about the power money has over the heart...and maybe about how money isn't a bad thing, it just has to be honored as a gift from God for His glory, that we are helpless without Jesus and even the decisions we make with our money should reflect that understanding.

I was encouraged after talking to this guy because I'm afraid we/I too often overlook what we do every day, 8/10/15 hours a day in terms of how it communicates the Gospel. What do you guys think? How can you communicate the Gospel in sales when you have targets you have to hit? In law when you have hours you have to bill? How have you done it or seen it done?

Does work make it impossible to be a Godly father/husband/friend?

2007-09-10T00:58:00.000-05:00

Welcome back. We have some exciting ground to cover this Fall -- from advertising to the environment to poverty -- but I saw a provocative article on CNN.com yesterday I couldn't pass up. The title: "Survey: Working dads want more family time." Some highlights:

37% of working dads say they'd leave their jobs if their spouse or partner made enough money to support the family
38% would take a pay cut to spend more time with their kids
24% of working dads feel work is negatively impacting their relationship with their children
27% of working dads say they spend more than 50 hours a week on work and 8% spend more than 60 hours; contrast that with 25% who spend less than one hour with their kids each day and 42% who spend less than two hours each day

This raises some very interesting questions for us as Christ-followers (I realize this kind of work week applies to men working in business, in the church, or virtually anywhere else)

Is there a Biblical mandate to spend time with our kids/wife? I think we'd all say we should, but why?
- I think passages like 1 Peter 4:7, Ephesians 5:25-30, and Psalm 78:1-8 make it clear we are to impart the glory of God to our wives and children. Our culture has introduced the false notion that this can be done over the phone or over a weekend.

Is it Biblical to be a stay at home dad?
- I think the answer is No. Genesis 2:15 leads me to believe that, in God's perfect design (before the Fall), man was created to "work the land." From Genesis 3 to Ephesians 5 to 1 Timothy 5:8, the Bible places primary responsibility for financial and spiritual leadership on the man -- I believe that is difficult socially and spiritually if the wife is the primary breadwinner.

If 38% of men would take a paycut to spend more time at home, why don't we?
- I think it's simply because we wouldn't actually take the paycut if it were offered. Sure it sounds like a good idea on a survey but not when it means actually parting with money.

Is there a viable alternative to the 40/50/60 hour work week? Is it even possible to love our family, friends, neighbors the way Christ commands when we only have the weekends and 1-2 hours a night?
- My first reaction is that my laziness/lack of true love and discipline is more to blame than work but I also believe there is something very wrong with the amount of social emphasis we place not only on work but the hours we work...as if working long hours is a badge of honor while crumbling relationships at home are ignored. I can also attest (as I write this at midnight) that if I choose to work long hours and spend time with Erica/friends, I consequently fail to honor God by sleeping and taking care of my body.

I miss discussing these things with you guys. I'm looking forward to getting after it again.

Should Christians work for a public company?

2007-08-01T00:56:00.000-05:00

This week's post comes compliments of Dan Morehead and Dave -- they have made similar comments recently about working for public companies and I think they raise a very difficult question.

Dan Morehead: "Should Christians work for companies that are publicly traded? The notion here would be that the owners (stockholders) of companies that are publicly traded have limited liability (and therefore responsibility) and are disconnected from the locality of where the business operates. This makes it exceedingly difficult to be accountable to anyone other than the stockholders themselves and the demand for growth."

Dave: "It would seem that our ability to divorce ethics from our business practices proportionally rises as the chance of ever meeting the client you are profiting from decreases."

Two questions:

1) If you work for a public company, why and do you find working for a public company conflicts with the process of becoming more and more like Jesus?

2) If you don't work for a public company, why not...and have you worked for one previously and chosen specifically to leave?

Who's doing the transforming?

2007-07-15T19:16:00.000-05:00

I recently got back from Ireland and have a few quick anecdotes from that trip I'd like to share to illustrate this conundrum of how we as Christians fit into the business world:

First, as a continuation of last week's question about Philip Morris, I saw several (all?) cartons of cigarettes in Ireland with a huge warning in big black letters (probably took up 25% of the front of the packaging) saying simply: "SMOKING KILLS."
Second, on the flight to Dublin, we boarded the flight (2 hours delayed) and then were delayed another hour and a half due to a "problem with the generator." Many of the passengers on the flight were connecting in Chicago to London. After the generator delay, a flight attendant announced that all of the London passengers would miss their connection and they had been rebooked on a flight for Saturday (this was Thursday). When one passenger asked whether American Airlines would reimburse him for having to stay in Chicago for two nights, the flight attendant said, "No, I'm sorry, we don't reimburse for weather delays." That just straight hacked me off. We were clearly delayed by the malfunctioning generator and American Airlines' policy is to compensate for inconveniences caused by mechanical problems. The problem was, I used to travel for a living so I knew the policy -- the passenger asking the question clearly was flying for the first time so he was going to get screwed.
Third, at the Avis desk, the agent asked the customer in line in front of me whether he wanted the "gas option." This essentially means "Do you want to pay for a full tank of gas now?" In other words, it's a total rip off disguised as convenience ("You can just return the car...don't worry about filling it up") -- the only way you even break even is if you return the car completely empty (and often their price per gallon is higher than average). Again, I knew this because of my job but I'm sure many unsuspecting tourists buy into the "convenience" pitch and throw away money. And companies like Avis are happy to take that money.

So my question is this: what happens to people when they become employees that they cease being human beings and morph into revenue-generating/cost-cutting robots with no love for their brothers and sisters?

This is probably a better way to ask the question I was attempting to ask last week. I realize that my previous question (and others before that) pointed more toward action than heart, suggesting that a line can be drawn between "good" and "bad" actions. Even if a line can be drawn (the law) that is not the message of Jesus. Let's talk about motivation, about a heart that is being sanctified to become more like Jesus. How can we reconcile the call to conform to the character of Jesus with motivation of companies like the ones highlighted above?

This is not theoretical -- if you're like me, you face this conflict every day.

Should Christians work for a tobacco company?

2007-06-25T19:31:00.000-05:00

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?

2007-06-20T00:28:00.000-05:00

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?

What are the roles of theologian/businessman in the Church?

2007-05-30T01:41:00.000-05:00

I want to highlight something Dan Morehead said in one of his comments from the last post:

I don't want church to be a place where you go to get information. Christianity isn't a set of propositions to which one must assent. Practices like baptism, Eucharist, and meeting the needs of those who may be marginalized, along with right preaching and worship, should form us to be the kind of people who can live faithfully as children of God.

I completely agree with this statement. But I have a feeling this isn't what most people experience in their church life. Most people I know do go to church to get information. Most people I know do believe that Christianity is a set of propositions to which one must assent. Maybe some reading this blog are in that group.

The lines of business and church have bled but in all of the wrong ways. Rather than approaching all that we do -- business, church, dinner with friends -- as worship, we treat church as yet another thing to consume. We shop for the best speaker/music/style and we place all of the responsibility of studying and teaching Scripture on the pastor.

What if in the church everyone was already assumed to be a "theologian?" Everyone of us is, in fact, a theologian whether we like it or not. We can ignore that calling in our lives and defer to a pastor or a theologian to do our thinking for us, but I would argue that that is unbiblical and just plain wrong. The priesthood of all believers, the communion of saints, the ekklesia (called out)...these are some descriptions of the church. To be more personal, I will use Wendell Berry as an example, and I'm sorry if it's getting old, but he is a farmer and a writer, a husband, father, grandfather, political activist, conservationist, and community voice of reason. None of those things are separate from the rest. I just read an article in which he says, when asked how his farming and writing are connected, (loosely quoting), "I write as a farmer, and I farm as a writer. I don't think there is any other way I could do it." I would say that is how we are to be both "theologians" and "businessmen." No one lives in a vacuum and no action is done independent of others. When I pass a homeless man on the street and fail to look him in the eye for fear of him asking me for money, I do that as a theologian and a student. When I rip off my customers by selling them things they don't need, I do that as a theologian and a businessman.

If we focus on pastors and their role in the community, I believe that lay empowerment is the key to a "good" church and a good pastor. A pastor must get into the nitty gritty parts of life and walk with people in it, helping them to be better theologians and businessmen at the same time. A good pastor doesn't sit in an ivory tower and dream of great sermons about the corporate life when he hasn't heard the cries of his flock. There is an obvious interdependency here: the church sustains the life of the pastor in order to create space for him to care for the flock in the best way he can. In many cases, I think pastors should be bi-vocational and have a job on top of pastoring, but this only seems to work in small churches where administrative and bureaucratic BS can stay at a minimum.

So what does all of this mean for those of us not going into pastoral ministry or full-time academic work? What do you go to church for? What do you see as your role, today, in leading the church? How can you be both a theologian and a businessman?

For those of us in or going into pastoral ministry, what might it look like to have a congregation who wasn't looking for information but rather to be shaped into the people of God? How do you encourage that?

How much theology should a businessman know?

2007-05-14T20:05:00.000-05:00

Of all of the responses to the last post on homosexuality, only one really went the direction I was hoping to go. I attempted to use homosexuality as a topic to test our thought processes -- the way we search Scripture, examine our hearts, incorporate thoughts from experiences/scholars/etc. -- and Dan Morehead's comments addressed this process directly. If I may summarize points from Dan's post, he encouraged us to consider the breadth of Scripture, not just passages focusing on homosexuality, sex, or marriage; to recognize the scientific (and theological) complexity of an issue like homosexuality as biology does not always produce XX females and XY males; and to incorporate perspectives voiced by church fathers past.

Dan also recommended we read several different books as "it's not clear to me how much work Matthew or anyone one else here is willing to do to start asking difficult questions…Since I've already said why I think the kind of reasoning that has gone on here is weak and needs to be expanded, I'll wait to see if any expanding goes on. Otherwise, I'm not even sure we're playing the same game."

I would say that we are absolutely playing the same game -- that is what this blog is all about. It's not about right answers nearly as much as it is about the process of thinking through difficult issues. It's about playing the game, regardless of whether you are in Little League or the Majors. We can all learn from each other.

I have not read any of the recommended books nor do I honestly feel like I have a firm grasp on how "the sabbath, Job, or Jesus' parables contribute to [my] thinking?" I am in the middle of that journey and I hope we would all extend each other the grace to allow room for growth.

In pursuing that journey, I'd like to shift the focus off of homosexuality and onto our role as thinkers/contributors to the Great Conversation. My first reaction to a call to invest a significant amount of time reading books on any particular topic is defensiveness (that's the pride in me). I am a consultant (for 4 more weeks) and I work ~70 hours a week. I am also a husband. Maybe one day I will be a father. The time I invest into thinking about performance management, business process redesign, or the next date with Erica is time that I cannot spend reading/thinking about issues like the ones we discuss on this blog. I'm not trying to create a false dichotomy between secular and theological thinking -- I hope my relationship with Jesus would be fully integrated into everything I do -- I am simply communicating the struggle I fight with the finiteness of my own mind. Maybe you guys have the capacity to think on spiritual things while working on a complex spreadsheet or while leading a meeting. I have not reached that level of maturity.

The Gospel is a call to live a holistic life. That certainly requires businessmen and women to live their lives, both in and out of the workplace, knowing what they do and why they do it. But the modern business world is high-pressured, time-consuming, and fragmented. Exploring theology and having thoughtful answers to everyday issues can seem almost impossible to some of us who live life in the midst of spreadsheets and meetings. So how do we balance a call to business and a call to explore the depth and breadth of Christ-centered theology?

Or, put another way, how much business is a theologian called to know and how much theology is a businessman called to know? And for what purpose? I am not speaking theorectically -- this would be a very different conversation if all business (and theology for that matter) was Christ-centered -- I am asking for practical perspectives. In 1 Corinthians 7, Paul alludes to the struggle of a married man remaining 100% devoted to Jesus -- "The married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided" -- yet marriage (Genesis 2, Matthew 19, 1 Corinthians 7, Ephesians 5), like work (Genesis 2, Ecclesiastes 3), is clearly a God-ordained institution.

For those of us who are not going to be professional theologians, pastors, or teachers, how do we navigate the dangerous and ambiguous theological and ethical roads that seem to be everywhere without taking shortcuts on the 'Purpose Driven Life' or the 'Your Best Life Now' highway?

How should we think through issues like homosexuality?

2007-05-01T22:30:00.001-05:00

The conversation the past couple of weeks has been great. I hope though, as we have these discussions, we keep Ephesians 4:1-7 top of mind, particularly verses 3-4: "...with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." We all have the same God and we are all striving for Him, not to be right or win an argument.

So I want to continue the discussion on homosexuality but, first, I want to take step back. My primary hope in raising this topic honestly had nothing to do with homosexuality -- it was to point back to The Dude's post a few weeks ago. He outlined a few steps he follows in thinking through issues like this one:

1) Why do I hold this position (emotionally, intellectually, culturally, traditionally, and scripturally)?
2) How does the larger Biblical narrative (creation, fall, redemption, new-creation) influence this topic?
3) What do Scripture, my own experiences, and church tradition say in general terms about this topic?
4) Taking #1-3 into account, what might a thoughtful Christian response be?
5) What other areas of my life does this issue affect and need to be integrated with?

The problem with this approach is it takes too long. But don't we owe it to God, ourselves, and each other to take the time to really seek Truth? My hope is that we as Christians won't allow our view of Truth to be swayed by the shifting winds of politics or public opinion. But if we hope to withstand that pressure, we have to examine the foundation of our beliefs. Let's do that for homosexuality this week. I'll take a shot at answering The Dude's 5 questions for myself (as briefly as possible):

1) I grew up in the Bible Belt, going to two mega-churches both of which are actually fairly liberal for the Bible Belt, but I would say that my view of homosexuality was almost always just assumed: "It's wrong." I never had any interaction with nor even knew anyone who was gay (I do now, though). Then in college, I heard that the former pastor of my church was now teaching at a church in New York that the open practice of homosexuality was Biblically acceptable. I was confused and researched the sermons I could find and wrote my pastor to ask his opinion. I'm just now going back to revisit that process I started in college to determine why I believe what I believe.

2) When I look at the Creation story, I see God say "It is not good that man should be alone" (Genesis 2:18) and then proceed to create for Adam a female companion. Unfortunately, I know that we sinners twist every good thing God created for us. From the very beginning, God's intention was for "man [to] leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed" (Genesis 2:24-25). But somehow, between that time of open and unashamed nakedness, we sexualized our relationships with women and even other men such that this gift of female companionship, of physical, emotional, and spiritual oneness, served little purpose beyond the gratification of fleeting lustful urges. Of course I trust in Jesus' promise to redeem us despite our perversion of this great gift and to restore His intended creation.

3) Ephesians 5:22-33 clearly outlines the intent for husbands and wives to reflect the relationship between Christ and the Church in marriage: "This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the Church" (v. 32). 1 Peter 3:1-7 also provides instruction for the husband/wife relationship saying "[show] honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life..." (v. 7). In 1 Corinthians 7, Paul says "For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise, the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does" (v. 4). Paul wished that "all were as I myself am (single)" (v. 7) and even says, "To the unmarried and the widows, I say that it is good for them to remain single as I am. But if they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to be aflame with passion" (v. 8-9). He goes on to say, "The unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord. But the married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided...I say this for your own benefit, not to lay any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord" (v. 32-35).

If I was to look purely at biology, it would be clear that heterosexual sex is the only natural means for procreation. Thus, any other form of sex is not natural. I believe this includes masturbation, homosexual sex, and many other perversions. Of course, heterosexual sex can be unGodly (casual sex, rape, incest, etc.), but it is natural and, biologically and spiritually, we must begin there.

4) I believe my response to this Scripture, my own experience with marriage, and the experiences of married men and women much wiser than me is to say marriage is an incredible gift from God that, like most of His Creation, was designed to point to Christ, not to satisfy man. The same is true of sex. Marriage and sex are gifts, not rights -- and, again, their purpose is Christ. Paul strongly encourages abstinence in 1 Corinthians 7 that our devotion to the Lord may be undivided. He explains to the Ephesians that marriage is a mysterious union that paints a living portrait of Christ's relationship with the Church. A man cannot be substituted for the woman in these verses. A male/male relationship fails to reflect Christ and the Church as marriage was intended to do. God created us in His image and I think few of us would debate the fact that God created male and female distinctly different (physically and emotionally). It is together, when male and female are one, that we reflect the full range of His character.

We have discussed "committed homosexual relationships" -- I would agree that these are possible -- but it is called friendship. I am confident that two homosexual men, two heterosexual men, or any combination thereof can have a committed, intimate friendship that does not involve sex. There are many examples of intimate relationships in the Bible (e.g., David and Jonathan, Jesus and Peter), but sex was designed, from the very beginning of Creation, for a man and woman to become one and, in so doing, understand Christ's love for us in a unique way. I feel like I need to reiterate my belief here -- sex is a gift from God but we must never mistake that gift as a right.

On a slightly different note, I feel I ought to address one comment a couple of weeks ago that noted Christ Himself never condemns homosexuality. I disagree. Condemnation of homosexuality may never have come from Jesus' physical mouth, but Old Testament Scripture is often cited as Jesus' words. Obviously Jesus, in His earthly form, was not yet alive so this is mysterious. The explanation is spiritual. John 1:1,14 says "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God...And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us..." Jesus is the Truth. Truth is a man, not a collection of verses. A pastor at our church once said we must take the “sum of Scripture” not “some of it.” Looking in a concordance and plucking verses – Old Testament or New – that include the word “homosexual” to develop a belief is spiritually irresponsible. As The Dude has laid out in this 5 step process, we must consider a lot of factors if we hope to truly understand the depth of our beliefs. Let's be careful not to discount Scripture outside of the Gospels. Jesus certainly didn't.

5) I think this issue is much, much more than a plank in a political platform. Personally, I need to be much more cognizant of my words and actions and how they convey my love for people regardless of sexual orientation. I need to be aware that, if there aren't gay people around me, there are probably people around me with gay people in their lives -- so I need to stop making "gay" jokes and stop saying "that's gay." I also need to think proactively about the ways I can love the gay people in my life. But, on a much broader scale, I need to encourage a Christ-centered view of intimacy with my wife and close friends. We need to build deep relationships based on prayer and Scripture and shared experiences and hopefully those relationships will stand in stark contrast to the lie that intimacy equals sex. We need to raise our kids in that environment and drive a deeper sociological shift back to a reverent understanding of sex's role in marriage and, spiritually, to understand its reflection of Jesus and the Church.

I'll close with a quote from The Dude's last post: "This process is not simple and I usually wrestle hard over this stuff. And I am convinced that faith is what allows me to come to any decision. Not certitude. Faith. Not that I'm right but rather that I am doing my best to follow the story of scripture and that it is OK for me to make a mistake."

What are your thoughts on this process? My comments?

Would Jesus discriminate?

2007-04-16T22:51:00.000-05:00

Continuing the thread of political hot topics, I read an article today about billboards being placed around Indianapolis "by Jesus Metropolitan Community Church of Indianapolis with support from Faith In America and Metropolitan Community Churches worldwide." The billboards quote Scripture in defense of homosexuality and each includes the question/website www.WouldJesusDiscriminate.com. Here are some examples:

Jesus affirmed a gay couple. Matthew 8:5-13.
David loved Jonathan more than women. II Samuel 1:26.
Ruth loved Naomi as Adam loved Eve. Genesis 2:24; Ruth 1:14.
Jesus said some are born gay. Matthew 19:10-12.
The early church welcomed a gay man. Acts 8:26-40.

The website has explanations for each of the passages.

"I can already hear tires screeching across Indianapolis as folks see the billboards," said Reverend Jeff Miner, Senior Pastor of Jesus MCC. "Most people have no idea that the Bible contains passages that powerfully affirm gay people."

On www.WouldJesusDiscriminate.com, there is a short video in which a man explains how "good-hearted" Christians have used the Bible to support wrong stances on significant issues such as slavery, voting rights for women, and interracial marriage. How could we have been so wrong? His answer: "They allowed deeply ingrained cultural prejudices to distort their interpretation of the Scriptures on each of those issues...For all of human history, slavery had been regarded as an established institution, it just seemed to be part of God's natural creation. For all of human history, women had been denied the right to vote. This too just seemed to be part of God's natural order...we pray that we would never make that kind of mistake again...Could most Christians be wrong again today when they say God condemns homosexual relationships?"

The website also has rebuttals for Romans 1:21-28, Leviticus 18 and 20, Sodom and Gomorrah, 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, and 1 Timothy 1:10.

I'm not 100% sure what they mean when asking "Would Jesus discriminate?" I don't know if they are asking whether Jesus would withhold love, grace, redemption, compassion, forgiveness...but I do assume they are talking specifically about discriminating between heterosexual and homosexual men/women. So what do you think? Would Jesus discriminate?

How can we live in light of the Resurrection?

2007-04-10T01:04:00.000-05:00

"But we are here today, on Sunday, the resurrection day, to celebrate and proclaim to the world the fact that Jesus Christ is risen from the dead. We live by this truth and we shall die by this truth. We comfort each other by this truth and we are stirred to love and devotion and service by this truth. Let us therefore settle it in our minds and hearts that we will allow the truth of the resurrection to propel us to be true revolutionaries. Not the cheap and easy kind of revolutionary, those who want to use violence to overthrow the present order and simply turn it upside down and replace it with one of their own. No, we’ve had plenty of those and it doesn’t work. No, we are like Jesus and, in his love and power to be double revolutionaries, celebrating his victory over death and sin, and finding through prayer and politics and Bible study and campaigning and love and fellowship and celebration and truth — finding the way to bring that victory to birth, both in the dark corners of our own private and personal lives and in the dark corners of God’s suffering world.

May God give you grace and joy in his service and in believing and living the gospel of the resurrection and to his name be the praise and the glory. Amen."

--Bishop N.T. Wright, from a sermon given at The Falls Church

My question today is a simple one:

While we stand in the shadow of the cross, how can we live in light of the resurrection?

Maybe some of us haven't, as Bishop Wright has said, "settled it in our minds and hearts that we will allow the truth of the resurrection to propel us to be true revolutionaries." What is holding you back? This weekend we were able to celebrate the resurrection in our local communities. What might it mean for us to proclaim the resurrection of the Lord through our work? Is that even possible?

He is risen!

Why Love Is Not the Answer

2007-04-04T05:13:00.000-05:00

From a talk given by Stanley Hauerwas posted on The Dude's personal blog last year:

http://postcritical.blogspot.com/2006/04/why-love-is-not-answer_19.html

How should faith influence our political positions?

2007-03-27T00:00:00.000-05:00

If we are going to talk about our involvement in politics as Christians, maybe we ought to take a step back and think about how our opinions are formed. If we're honest with ourselves, we probably care more about what people think than why they think it but that often produces devastating consequences. We argue political positions with people who have had and who are living experiences we could never imagine so, by caring more about issues than the people we are debating, we make our brothers into enemies.

So what then? How do/should we form political positions on gay marriage, abortion, war, creation, gun control, taxes, etc., etc.? Is it just scripture? Should experiences/emotions/church history be part of the mix?

The issue of scripture is obviously important for me. I don't like using words like 'inerrant' or 'infallible' because scripture doesn't claim that for itself. Those are post-enlightenment categories that are violently applied to scripture for self-serving reasons. I prefer the Bible's own language of "inspired" and "useful". Now, don't start getting angry and think that I have a low view of scripture. I don't. I just want to be clear what we are arguing and defending. I have no way of discussing this here, but if you want to get into the larger conversation going on there are a few things you can do. I wrote a few posts about a year ago on my own blog having something to do with this issue so you can at least read what I think there. They are flawed thoughts, like most of what I think. However, they both reference a few books and articles that are written by less-flawed individuals with much sharper minds and words than myself. But take a look at what these guys have written as well. It will open you up to new ideas and see the larger conversation all of this is a part of. Here are links to my posts:

1. Three Thoughts on the Bible
2. A Few Thoughts on Inerrancy (I really should be more creative with my titles...)

The scriptural issues are another ballgame. But they are interrelated. All that stuff needs to be kept in mind while dealing with any issue, so know that I am assuming what I have written above for everything else I say. Below I have sketched out a short example of how I go about examining and determining my beliefs about some of these political issues. This process is not simple and I usually wrestle hard over this stuff. And I am convinced that faith is what allows me to come to any decision. Not certitude. Faith. Not that I'm right but rather that I am doing my best to follow the story of scripture and that it is OK for me to make a mistake. God is big enough for my mistakes. And I hope the Spirit guides me despite my mistakes.

Before I start, I want to clarify that this is not intended to be prescriptive; this is just the way I think through issues like politics. I hope it challenges us to take a different approach to thinking about issues...not necessarily this approach:

1) The first thing I should do is take a minute to think through why I hold the position I do (emotionally, intellectually, culturally, traditionally, and scripturally). This varies from issue to issue. Some issues are highly emotional to me because they have directly impacted my life. Others I feel less passionately about and that is OK. But I must recognize how each part plays into an issue. I must take each of these aspects seriously. But, it is important to try to figure out why I feel/think/believe what I do as a starting point. Many times I can recognize that I am in no position to formulate an opinion because of some other issues I must deal with first. So I start here.

2) Now I think about the larger Biblical narrative (creation, fall, redemption, new-creation) in order to think through a biblical perspective on the issues at hand. But it is good to start with the big picture. 1) My theology must be rooted in Creation. It places itself within the context of a Creator God who ordered the cosmos. It remembers this Creator God declared his creation 'Very Good'. This God created man in his image. 2) It must also take into account the fall. Not just of man, but of all creation. Every part of life is touched by the fall. This is not to say that everything or everyone is completely ruined, but the image of God has been scarred badly and the 'Good' creation has been tarnished by sin. 3) It also looks to the resurrected Jesus as the climax of redemption. Although the whole of scripture witnesses to God's redeeming action, Jesus is the pinnacle of this. And He wants to redeem everything. Everything that is fallen is a target for his redemption. 4) And finally, this redemption is consummated in the new creation that God has begun in Jesus. This new creation 'comes down' from heaven to earth. God will not scrap his original creation--much like a painter will not scrap his masterpiece--but rather He will restore it. This is a very basic and simple outline, but it is how I would at least begin this process.

3) Without prooftexting (picking random, unrelated scriptures to prove my point) and logical fallacies, I try to pull together a coherent argument using the revelation of scripture, my own experience, and the traditions of the church. This involves a lot of work; reading, wrestling, discussion, and prayer. Most importantly prayer. But having the big picture in mind I can begin to develop my thoughts on the issue at hand.

4) Now I can deal with the broader issues but only after the hard work of understanding the story I am a part of. An example: earth-keeping. Creation is a gift from God, and our relationship to the earth should be that of both steward to creation and as a fellow creature of God (Genesis 1-4). My focus on earth-keeping is in sync with both God's love of his creation (therefore, our love, because we are in the image of God), recognition of the fallenness of creation (Genesis-Revelation), and hope of God's new-creation (Revelation), while rejecting the anti-creation sentiment of the Left Behind series (as one example) and the escapist attitude of most American Christianity. I wholeheartedly believe God will not destroy this earth, but rather renew it and our work (and life) should be in accord with this act of new-creation of God.

5) I can now begin to make decisions on smaller aspects of the issue at hand because of my ability to articulate the larger narrative. I can now deal with the specifics--for earth-keeping at least--of pollution, destruction of the earth, oil, energy conservation, organic produce, animal husbandry, local farming, etc. And all of this is held in faith with open hands. I need to constantly go back to #1 to rethink my position.

It is a long process that requires patience but I hope that helps you see how I process this stuff. For issues like abortion or gay marriage, I would say, for me, these are smaller parts of two larger issues--namely, a life-giving God, and a God who desires his creation to live in harmonious intimate relationships in an ordered creation. I would have to work through these larger issues using the framework above (loosely, of course) before I dealt with either of these specific examples. So, needless to say, I am hesitant in telling you what I think seeing as I have a lot of work to do.

This process is obviously inadequate and meant to be an outline, not a thorough, detailed checklist, but I hope it takes us out of this mentality of trying to develop a political platform that we take to the streets. Personally, I think we could all stand to spend more time researching/wrestling through issues before we proclaim them as being Biblically based.

What do you guys think? How do you evaluate your own views on political issues? Do you look at your emotions as well as the scriptural basis? Do you examine the traditional as well as the cultural contexts in which you find yourself? Do you have another model you use to help inform your political views—or to inform the rest of your life, for that matter? My hope is that we will not fall victim to literalism, traditionalism, or legalism, but rather have thoughtful, informed Christian worldviews that take into account more than our cultural biases, more than our emotional reactions, and are much more than intellectual exercises. How do you do this? How can we do this?

Should our faith dictate how we should vote?

2007-03-19T20:42:00.000-05:00

The most common topic suggested last week, other than those posted by The Dude and myself, was the interaction between government and the church, be it the separation of church and state or involvement with political candidates. So let's start with the latter. Here were posts from Hudson's Dad and Anonymous:

"Should we as Christians be obligated to support a certain candidate because he/she claims to be a believer? Let's say Bush had one more eligible term. Would it be wrong as a fellow believer to vote for Hillary or Obama instead of Bush?"

"to add to the last comment ... the Catholic Church explicitly stated that voting for Kerry last election would be committing an act of sin due to his condoning of abortion. Did the Catholic church go too far?"

I think these are great questions. What do you think?

What role does our faith or should our faith play in determining which political candidate we will support? Jimmy Carter says he is a Christian and many would say he was a terrible president. Bill Clinton says he is a Christian and he had an affair in office. George Bush says he is a Christian and lots of people would debate his choices.

I've done some research on each of the top candidates for 2008 and we can discuss them specifically next week, but this week, I wonder if we can talk specifically about the role of Christianity or, in the case of Anonymous' post the Church, in dictating how we vote.

Is it ignorant to expect Christians to be good presidents because they assumedly spend time in the Word and in prayer? Should we vote for a president just because he/she is a Christian? Should we just vote the issues? What do we do if we disagree with Christian politicians on certain issues?

What topics do you want to discuss on the blog?

2007-03-12T22:32:00.000-05:00

This week is a bit different. Instead of discussing a topic we select, we want to hear what you guys are interested in discussing. While we love talking and praying through the things to discuss, we recognize the danger of being trapped in our own Christian bubbles and missing very important topics. So what do you want to discuss? If you want, we can set you up as a "Contributor" and you can write the next post yourself. Personally, I believe the more the merrier. The more diverse the perspectives we hear, as crazy as they may sound to one or some of us, the better -- each of us has a background/experiences/wisdom that will challenge and refine us as we seek Truth. (On that note, if you have friends who might be interested in the blog, please share it with them...several of you have asked and, yes, we would love to hear from all kinds of different people. Just let me know if they want to get the weekly email.)

The intent of the blog, as noted at the top of the page, is twofold: 1) To destroy the idol of money and restore Jesus to His rightful throne in each of our lives, and 2) To encourage men to change our communities and maybe the world to the glory of God through the way we do business. So, generally, we talk about how to keep Jesus at the center of everything we do as we make and spend money. That said, we will obviously veer off the business/money course to tackle a specific issue here or there. So what do you want to discuss? Some ideas might include:

The environment
Politics/politicians
"Preach the Gospel at all times and when necessary use words"
In depth look at Proverbs or the life of Daniel
Giving to the church vs. missionaries vs. nonprofits
Is saving and/or retirement Biblical?
Marketing/advertising in general and based on religion, sexual orientation, etc.
Spiritual implications of globalization
Debt
Obesity
Genetically modified food, cloned animals, and/or humane treatment of animals
Corporate giving and/or community involvement

I'd better stop. What do you want to discuss? All ideas are welcome...feel free to post anonymously if you'd like.

PS -- if you know how to develop websites, let us know. We have been talking about moving someday to a different format where people can post articles, websites, etc.

Do you seek refinement from community?

2007-02-28T01:58:00.000-06:00

"Thus deceit can be a function of wanting to think of ourselves as honest persons...." - Hauerwas

This is so key to what I was trying to say last week. I think we all want to think of ourselves as honest persons but the reality of the matter is that it is likely that we deceive ourselves. The problem is, once recognized, how does this play itself out in real life in our communities?

This excerpt comes from a short book called Let Your Life Speak, by Parker Palmer (San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons, 2000) and although I don't agree with everything he says in it, this section is profound. And I do recommend the book. I hope this is a concrete example of some of the theories we've been throwing around these past few weeks.

"...I was offered the opportunity to become the president of a small educational institution. I had visited the campus; spoken with trustees, administrators, faculty, and students; and had been told that if I wanted it, the job was mine.

"Vexed as I was about vocation, I was quite certain that this was the job for me. So as is the custom in the Quaker community, I called on half a dozen trusted friends to help me discern my vocation by means of a 'clearness committee,' a process in which the group refrains from giving you advice but spends three hours asking you honest, open questions to help you discover your own inner truth. Looking back, of course, it is clear that my real intent in convening this group was not to discern anything but to brag about being offered a job I had already decided to accept.

"For a while, the questions were easy, at least for a dreamer like me: what is your vision for this institution? What is the mission in the larger society? How would you change the curriculum? How would you handle decision making? What about dealing with conflict?
"Halfway into the process, someone asked a question that sounded easier yet turned out to be very hard: 'What would you like most about being a president?'

"The simplicity of the question loosed me from my head and lowered me into my heart. I remember pondering for at least a full minute before I could respond. Then, very softly and tentatively, I started to speak: 'Well, I would not like having to give up my writing and teaching....I would not like the politics of the presidency , never knowing who your real friends are....I would not like having to glad-hand people I do not respect simply because they have money....I would not like...'

"Gently but firmly, the person who had posed the question interrupted me: 'May I remind you that I asked what you would most like?'

"I responded impatiently, 'Yes, yes, I'm working my way toward an answer." Then I resumed my sullen but honest litany: 'I would not like having to give up my summer vacations....I would not like having to wear a suit and tie all the time....I would not like...

"Once again the questioner called me back to the original question. But this time I felt compelled to give the only honest answer I possessed, an answer that came from the very bottom of my barrel, an answer that appalled even me as I spoke it.

"'Well,' said I, in the smallest voice I possess, 'I guess what I'd like most is getting my picture in the paper with the word President under it.'

"They did not laugh at all but went into a long and serious silence - a silence in which I could only sweat and inwardly groan.

"Finally my questioner broke the silence with a question that cracked all of us up - and cracked me open: 'Parker,' he said, 'can you think of an easier way to get your picture in the paper?'

"By then it was obvious, even to me, that my desire to be president had much more to do with my ego than with the ecology of my life - so obvious that when the clearness committee ended, I called the school and withdrew my name from consideration. Had I taken that job, it would have very bad for me and a disaster for the school.

"The ecological theory of life, the theory of limits, works wonderfully well with situations like this: my nature makes me unfit to be president of anything, and therefore - if I stay true to what i know about myself - I will die having avoided a fate that for me would be worse than death.

"...If I try to be or do something noble that has nothing to do with who I am, I may look good to others and to myself for a while. But [it] will eventually have consequences. I will distort myself, the other, and our relationship - and may end up doing more damage than if I had never set out to do this particular 'good.'"

Some reflections as I read this:

1) He gathered a group of people whom he trusted to ask him honest and open questions. No criticizing or judging, just simple questions. When was the last time I made myself vulnerable like that with people who loved me?

2) He was mature enough to know that it needed to be done and didn't make a major decision without consulting the community. Granted, it is a part of his theological tradition, but can I make this a regular part of my life--asking my community of believers to join me in making decisions? What are some other decisions besides a new job?

3) In the end the truth set him free. He admits that if he had taken the job he would have been in it for the wrong reasons and both parties (himself and the school) would have been worse off because of it. That admittance was probably a hard conclusion to come to but he is now able to go forward in hope and with freedom that he can make wiser decisions--that is, decisions more in line with God's will for the world.

Last week we talked about seeking refinement of our hearts from Scripture, but what about community? Do you have a group of guys you can sit down with and talk about your heart, your motivations? Will you let other guys be painfully honest with you? Why not?

Is it really just about the heart?

2007-02-25T21:53:00.000-06:00

Yes, it probably is, but let's take a look at what that might mean.

In Matthew's Gospel, especially in the Sermon on the Mount (chs. 5-7), Jesus has a series of statements that are framed by, "You have heard it said...but I tell you...." What Jesus is doing here is expounding the Torah and redefining the ethics of the Jewish people. For example, from Matthew 5:27ff:

You have heard that it was said, 'Do not commit adultery.' But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

The point is that committing adultery is the action that is a symptom of a deeper problem that lies within the sinner's heart. A similar example in Matthew 5:21ff:

You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, 'Do not murder'. . . But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother (some manuscripts: 'without cause') will be subject to judgment...

Again, anger at your brother or sister (without cause) is actually the problem, not murder. Murder is just the outflow of what is already in your heart.

So it is right to note that Jesus is literally addressing the heart of the matter. Furthermore, Jesus says to the Pharisees and teachers of the law in Matthew 15:

Don't you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man 'unclean.' For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what make a man unclean...

Jesus is surely concerned with the heart. And so, too, should we. But is that it? Does that mean that I can do whatever I want as long as my heart is in the right place? Of course not. But does it mean that I must sit back uncritically as my Christian brothers and sisters live out their faith in a way that seems to contradict our call? This is where I think we have the most problems. We are so afraid to 'judge' each other that we completely abstain from even questioning each other. If I say I'm a Christian but destroy the earth, would you stop me? If I say I'm a Christian but treat others as if they are not worthy of respect, would you call me out on it? If I say I'm a Christian but make or sell a product that encourages laziness, gluttony, greed, envy, lust, or is just plain idolatrous, would you be able to question me at all?

I would hope so. Because otherwise I'm screwed. Jeremiah says in chapter 17:

The heart is deceitful above all things
and beyond cure.
Who can understand it?

"I the LORD search the heart
and examine the mind,
to reward a man according to his conduct,
according to what his deeds deserve."

Like a partridge that hatches eggs it did not lay
is the man who gains riches by unjust means.
When his life is half gone, they will desert him,
and in the end he will prove to be a fool.

The heart is wicked and deceitful. Jeremiah's words are an indictment of all humanity. I know--because it happens almost every day--that it is easy to lie to myself. I deceive myself so easily that I don't usually know that I'm doing it. In fact, unless someone helps me to see the deceit, it will go unnoticed. I submit that the deceitfulness of our hearts and our lack of attention to it has allowed us to play a sadly accommodating role to the consumeristic society that we find ourselves in. We have unquestionably (for the most part) gone along with our society so much that we no longer can see the problems in our own hearts. Stanley Hauerwas of Duke University says this:

"Societal roles provide a ready vehicle for self-deception, since we
can easily identify with them without any need to spell out what we
are doing. The role is accepted into our identity. It may define our
identity in the measure that we feel committed to live out and defend
our identification with it. In the narrow confines of a job and of
corporate loyalty, such an individual can easily be caricatured as a
'company man,' and come under a simple censure of establishment
myopia. Where the description is more exalted and vocational, however,
the opportunity for deceiving oneself increases. A man may think of
himself as a public servant concerned with the public good. Even
though he may be party to decisions which compromise the public good,
he has a great deal invested in continuing to describe them as
contributing to the public good. To call certain decisions he makes by
their proper name would require too painful a readjustment in his
primary identification of himself as a public servant. Thus deceit can
be a function of wanting to think of ourselves as honest persons....

"[W]e will remain subject to those propensities which lead to a state
of self-deception as long as we feel ourselves to be constituted
either by the conventional roles we have assumed or by the level of
awareness we have been able to articulate."

So yes, it is all about the heart. But the heart is deceitful. That means that I must know this and make certain decisions to address it. Perhaps that means getting together with the community of believers and retelling the story of Jesus so we remember who we are. Maybe that will expose some of the lies we have been living with that drive us to attain popularity and wealth. Perhaps it means looking around at the Christians we see in the world and, in love, asking them how their hearts are. It may even mean calling out actions we think are unethical and go against the basic narrative of the Christian story. John Powell, S.J. right says, "It is for God, not for you or me, to judge human responsibility. If, however, we could not judge the rightness or wrongness of an action in itself, it would be the end of all objective morality. Let us not fall into this, that there is nothing objectively wrong or right, that it is all in the way you look at it. However, to judge the responsibility of another is playing God."

Most importantly we must see this as a conversation, not an indictment. None of us have the last word and we should be quick to remember that. When my Christian brothers and sisters are involved in something I think to be wrong, it is my duty to question. It is also my duty to listen gracefully to their response.

So what is your response? The Christian Evangelical stereotype is that we regularly play God by dispensing judgment at every opportunity. But based on last week's comments, we wonder if some of the guys on this blog tend to the other extreme -- refusing to judge the rightness or wrongness of an action because it's all about the heart. Does it have to be one extreme or the other? Do you find Hauerwas' comments to be true in your life, that your identity is so wrapped up in what you do or what you've always done that it's hard to be objective about what is truly right and wrong? I know I do.

Are Christian artists pimping Jesus?

2007-02-19T19:57:00.000-06:00

As we continue the conversation about creativity, I want to consider whether we, as Christians, should be selling Christ-focused products (I'll use music for the sake of this conversation). Is that not selling Jesus for the sake of profit? Is it not pimping Jesus? Yes, that is offensive, but shouldn't it be?

If you are reading this blog, I am assuming you have at least a handful of albums from Christian bands so we are all implicit in this conundrum. Most of those bands have signed record deals and their labels market them as Christian artists. They play in churches on tour and sell "merch" at a table in the back. They set up email lists and promotions to specifically target Christians. Question is: Is this shrewd marketing or detestable sin?

What I'm trying to say is this: If their music is worship (we can agree on that, right?) and they are selling that music, is it not accurate to say they are profiting off of worship? Off of Jesus? Are they prostituting Jesus?

Obviously, this question can be applied to books, art, clothing, churches, and all kinds of other stuff through which people use Jesus to extract money from us. But I want to focus on music for two reasons: 1) I respect many Christian musicians so this is a tough question for me, and 2) the sale of worship music seems to bear some similarity to the merchants selling tools of worship in the temple (John 2:13-17).

I honestly don't know where I fall on this one. I get extremely upset at just the words "pimping Jesus" and yet the beautiful music created by the Robbie Seay Band is encouraging and challenging me as I type. God has used the music of Caedmon's Call, Derek Webb, Shane & Shane, David Crowder and others to shape my character and transform my heart. It would be sad not to experience their art but is it not an indication of non-existent community that we have to buy a CD with worship music on it? It seems one of these two options would be better for Christian musicians:

1) Churches fund the distribution of this music as ministry, and/or
2) Musicians facilitate worship in community. After Jesus rose into heaven, the disciples "were continually in the temple blessing God" (Luke 24:50); they not only went together to the temple every day, they broke bread together in their homes (Acts 2:42-47).

So what should think of all this? Would Jesus take His whip of cords to the Christian music industry if He were on earth today? Do you agree with my suggestion that this is a product we have created and justified due to an absence of true community?

PS -- The guy on this blog takes pimping Jesus to a different level. It's a great, sobering read...but note the irony of advertisements selling sermons, journals, and books.

Also, I don't want to derail the question for this week but I do want to call out some great comments left on previous posts that we should all spend time thinking about:

"I think that maybe it's hard to focus on what is beautiful, unique, and creative when in the depths of my soul, I am hell-bent on conforming to what is ordinary." -- Alex

Grabow's comments about accountability within creativity (last one on this page)

What are Kingdom values?

2007-02-12T13:21:00.000-06:00

It's great to see that we had a lot of response to last weeks discussion. Because of the feedback, we're going to stay on this track for another week to see where we can go with it.

I read an article interviewing Derek Webb this week and I wanted to narrow the discussion to something I alluded to in last weeks comments, and to which Webb hits on in this article.

From, Warning: Explicit Lyrics:

"Switchfoot, P.O.D., Sixpence, Jars of Clay - we know who they are," Webb ticks them off on his fingers. "These are the bands that are making good art and are therefore invited into that big discussion. I can't stand it when my own heart, or my friends, or people I know who are Christian artists say, 'Man, we have a mission to cross over and to get into that discussion but they don't want to hear what we have to say. It's 'cause we're Christians.' They talk like they are martyrs. It is not because we are Christians that the world won't listen to us. It is because we make bad art. The church at this point in history champions bad art. We hold our artists to a ridiculous standard by saying, 'Your art is only useful in the church if it is explicit.' But that is not true. We have to learn to define what is beautiful, what is good."
“What are the things that we American Christians value in our culture," Webb asks. "And how is that different, and often ‘upside down’ from true Kingdom values? I’ve found that often success looks more like failure, riches more like poverty, and have found that real life often feels more like death, as the Christian life is very literally the process by which we are killed.”

It's the last paragraph I want to focus on. What are the things that we American Christians value in our culture? How is that different, and often 'upside down', from true Kingdom values? Where does a theology of the Cross fit into the way we look at art or business and, let's not forget, all of life?

Why is “Christian” business so boring?

2007-02-06T05:18:00.000-06:00

"Christians often ignore the pressing questions of the day. This could be because they fear that even to understand the issues in depth might weaken their faith. Or it could be because they believe that timeless truths don't need to refer to contemporary anxieties. This is why the most common criticism of Christian art is that it is old-fashioned and irrelevant. In other words, it looks, sounds, or reads like something from another period, and the issues it addresses are not the issues currently bothering people.

"It can be disheartening to put the words 'Christian' and 'art' together in an Internet search engine. Instead of discovering something vital, perceptive, challenging and earth shaking, you are led to sites that display cute greeting cards, comforting verse and bland illustrations.

"When I was researching my radio series 'The History of Religion and Rock' I taped songs by some leading CCM (contemporary Christian music) recording artists and gave them to the editor of a highly influential music paper to see what he would make of them. I then asked him what he thought. 'I felt embarrassed,' he told me. 'The music is paralyzingly dated. There is no fire in it. There is no innovation and no energy. The music is basically a prop for the lyrics which sound like a groovy Californian sermon. The music and the words don't mesh together and the sentiments are pretty wet.'" -- Steve Turner, Imagine, Pg. 101-102

Do you agree with this criticism? Have you ever listened to a Christian radio station and been frustrated at the lack of musical innovation? Why?

For me, it is a frustration at the failure to accurately represent the creativity of God. Instead of creating something "vital, perceptive, challenging and earth shaking" Christians often simply take something that is culturally relevant and put a "Christian" spin on it. Exhibit A: t-shirts that say "A Bread Crumb and Fish" instead of "Abercrombie and Fitch." Why do we do that?

What are some examples of "Christian" businesses? I immediately think of Family Christian Bookstores -- are there other examples? With Christ-following men and women throughout the business world, we have to have created other businesses besides bookstores that sell "A Bread Crumb and Fish" t-shirts.

Why is "Christian" business so boring, so unimaginative?

How can we be U2 instead of Justin Timberlake or Michael W. Smith? How can we use the imaginations God gave to us to be "vital, perceptive, challenging and earth shaking" while being Christ-centered in business?

How have you been counter-cultural?

2007-01-29T20:56:00.000-06:00

The last time someone asked you "How are you doing?" how did you answer? I'm betting it was something like, "Man, I'm just so busy." Doesn't that offer frightening insight into our culture and ambitions?

The number of hours we work, the amount of money we make, the stuff we own have all become badges of honor we wear proudly for the world to see while they slowly eat away at us on the inside. I wonder how things would be different if we started "bragging" about different things. What if instead of "I put in 90 hours last week," I told people "I had an unbelievable weekend with my wife?" What if instead of "I bought a new 42" plasma," I told people "I just got rid of our cable?"

In the comments to last week's post, Greg said, "I am happy to say I've never missed a birthday or sonogram appointment in the 10 years I've been in consulting." Awesome. We need to hear about more men doing these kinds of things.

This forum is certainly no substitute for real, face-to-face, intimate community (I truly hope each of us is searching for Godly community at work -- I talked to a guy about praying in the office on Fridays...only took me 3 years to do that) but I do think we can accomplish some things via blog. Namely the exchange of ideas. So that's what I want to do this week -- open it up for you to offer advice/encouragement/examples of practical, counter-cultural things we can strive for at work and at home. Examples may include refusing to miss birthdays, spending more time with our families, selling our stuff and giving sacrificially to the Church and the poor. If you have done counter-cultural things at work or with your money, tell us what/how/why. Give us Scripture to think about.

I'm hoping that by knowing some of the other things you guys have done, things we should consider in our own lives, we'd be encouraged to live more obediently, more simply, more generously. An amazing result of that lifestyle would be the opportunity to then speak counter-culturally in everyday conversation.

How can we get started?

How do we forge real community at work?

2007-01-22T23:44:00.000-06:00

I am a consultant and two of the prominent aspects of my job are 1) I work long hours and, 2) I travel. The crazy thing is, those two aspects of my job (aspects I have openly mocked and criticized) have gradually become more justifiable. I mean, everyone I work with does it and I have to pay the mortgage, right?

It amazes me how I begin to define my world by the people around me. What's right, what's true, what people are like, what God is like. It's not necessarily something I do intentionally, it just kinda happens. The people around us have an unbelievably powerful effect on shaping who we are, what we believe, and what we do.

But I see truly frightening examples of men drinking the corporate Kool-Aid and the damage that inflicts on their lives and families. And I see vulnerability in myself that I may soon follow directly in their footsteps. Take Dennis (names masked to protect the guilty). He recently missed his daughter's birthday because he was out of town. He was going to let her open her presents early the next morning after he got into town, but he had to be at a meeting early.

Or take Peter. Peter's wife is pregnant with their first child and she called him while he was traveling so he could listen to the heartbeat for the first time on his cell phone.

Now take me. I am sitting in a hotel room halfway across the country from my wife seeking to provide for her financially but reducing our daily interaction to a 30 minute phone call. When I started this job, I had all kinds of ideals that I have gradually violated, one after the other, until I feel like some aspects of my character are virtually unrecognizable. How did I get here? It was a slow process guided by the people with whom I chose to surround myself.

Last week, The Dude talked about being "the light of the world" at work, being a "city on a hill" shining our individual lights collectively into the darkness. I have friends I hang with and talk with weekly about this stuff but I think there is something different about having community with other Christians at work. And I suck immensely at intentionally seeking that community at work. Somewhere along the line I bought into the lie that I have to do the work of God at Deloitte myself, that it's up to me, that I am alone in my struggles here.

I think there are two primary reasons I personally haven't sought real, Christ-centered community at work:

1) The times I've tried, I've experienced a fellowship that is too cheeseball "Christian." It's reading a Bible passage with a bunch of people I don't know and trying to force community. Or it's sharing prayer requests over email with people I have never and probably will never meet. Maybe I'm too cynical, but those just feel so contrived...

2) When I have actually thought about my need for real, intimate community at work, I get discouraged by the thought that I don't know if there are even any other "real" Christians out there.

So how can we find this community? How can we identify other Christians at work? How can we engage in relationships based on prayer and encouragement? Really, how do we do these things? How can I do them? I can dream of a day when another dude and I will meet before work each week to pray for each other, to pray for other people in the office, to discuss our struggles, to challenge each other to invest more in our families than in our work, etc. but I feel totally lost in terms of taking that first step...please, ideas would be much appreciated.

How can we be the light of the world?

2007-01-15T16:12:00.000-06:00

You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven. (Matthew 5:14-16)

How many times have you heard the idea that we are called to "the light of the world"? How many times have you heard it used in terms of the workplace, i.e. "I'm just trying to be a light at the workplace"?

I generally don't like it when people say things like this. There are a few reasons:

Jesus is talking to a group of people. He is not addressing one person.
He references a city, which, to me, signifies a way of life, a system of smaller parts working together for a greater cause.

First, I think that we need to recognize that I am not the light of the world, and YOU are not the light of the world, but rather WE are the light of the world. It is in this WE-ness that the light of the world is actually shown to men. Second, and connected to the first point, is that Jesus' reference to a 'city' is not to be taken as just a good metaphor. I think we need to be thinking of the Kingdom of God, the city in the Book of Revelation that descends from heaven to earth. And, like I said, a city is a place where people INTERACT with each other and have a certain way of life.

So what's my point? Well, we are called to be the 'light of the world.' And we are called to be 'light' in the workplace. But we cannot do that alone because one man does not make a city. So being the 'light' implies doing life with other Christians in a way that can be displayed for all to see. And the city we are is a city that lives under the rule of God. So at work, are you in relationships that display who God is? Relationships that show care for each other, involvement in each other's lives, sacrificial living on behalf of each other? Relationships that, like the city of God, are under God's rule and care that allow us to point to something greater than ourselves?

What are other people saying about this stuff?

2007-01-10T23:33:00.000-06:00

I have run across several articles recently that made me think of you guys and the blog:

USA Today: "Generation Y's goal? Wealth and fame"
The most important life goal for 18-25 year olds is to be rich (81%). Second most important is to be famous (51%). Last is to become more spiritual (10%). 30% of this group also said money/debt is their biggest problem. In 1967, the most popular life goal was "developing a meaningful philosophy of life."
EthicsDaily.com: "Baptist Pastoral Letter Calls Wal-Mart to be 'Golden Rule' Company"
In December, a group of Baptist pastors and leaders wrote a letter challenging Wal-Mart to to become a "Golden Rule" company, saying the company's practices conflict with "pro-family values like justice and responsibility." The pastors say that responsibility includes:
-- Fair-living wages, not poverty-level wages.
-- Generous health care benefits, not eliminating low-deductible health care plans.
-- Decent places to work that treat women with dignity and equality.
-- Respectful schedules for children in school.
-- Good benefits for sound retirements.
PS -- there was an interesting article on Wal-Mart's new labor scheduling software in last week's Wall Street Journal
CNN: "Christian CEO brings faith into workplace"
A blog entry by Anderson Cooper about the environment created by an overtly evangelical guy who is the CEO of a construction company in Tampa, Florida. The comments below the blog post are amazing.
LetJusticeRoll.org: Website dedicated to providing workers with a "living wage"
This website, sponsored in part by Sojourners, discusses the necessity for raising the minimum wage. Apparently the House passed an increase today.

Disclaimer: don't assume I/we agree with everything in these articles or on these websites. I'm linking them for their relevance more than their position.

More articles and/or opinions are certainly welcome…

How are we oppressing the poor and giving to the rich?

2007-01-02T14:33:00.000-06:00

He who oppresses the poor to increase his wealth
and he who gives gifts to the rich—both come to poverty.
Proverbs 22:16

A simple statement that begs simple questions and demands simple answers.

1. Are you oppressing the poor to increase your wealth?
2. Are you giving gifts to the rich?

Some of our conversations about fair-trade coffee, local produce, and global economies have brought to our attention the ways in which we might be implicated in oppressive economic practices. I think that we must take these questions seriously in both our behavior as businessmen and also as consumers in our American economic system. Too many of us, myself being guiltier than most, have blindly followed our culture in deciding how to do business, what to buy, and what to care about. By not being Christians first--that is, putting the cross of Christ at the center of what we do while looking forward with hope towards the resurrected Jesus--we have compromised ourselves for the sake of security, nationalism, wealth, celebrity, etc. We must seriously question our economic practices while living in the midst of a culture blind to the suffering in the world.

As for question number 2, "Am I giving gifts to the rich?", I want to use this to question our motives for business. What is my business for? What is its purpose? Personally, I think business should exist to fill the real needs of a community. I don't think we should be creating needs, like fashion trends for example, in order to succeed at the business of selling clothes. Nor do I think we should we tell children what makes them cool and profit off of the sale of goods to them. My gifts as a human being should be used to work for the sustainability and preservation of the community I am a member of. So am I giving my gifts to the rich? This one is hard for me to deal with because much of the business I used to be a part of was appeasing already wealthy clients in order to keep business strong (hopefully every time they drink out of their PricewaterhouseCoopers coffee mug they will think to call upon that great professional advisory firm for all their business consulting needs). But more than that, what about my own gifts as a creature of God? Am I using my economic brilliance (I am of course not speaking of myself here) to put money in the pockets of already wealthy executives? Or am I using that God-given gift to subvert the system and empower the poor?

While not trying to be dogmatic about any of the proverbs we must still take them seriously and try to listen to their wisdom. The writer warns us that both of the above practices will lead to poverty. What kind of poverty? How are we to think through this as Christians in business?

How does the incarnation impact us as businessmen?

2006-12-18T10:10:00.000-06:00

"The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us." -- John 1:14

In one week we will be celebrating this glorious event of the Word becoming flesh. The scandalous incarnation of YHWH, God himself, into the person of Jesus. The question I want to ask this week is this: What implications does the incarnation have on the way we do business?

The incarnation challenges us to rethink who God is and what he is like. Does God sit far away on his throne, indifferent to the cries of the poor and oppressed? Jesus tells us no. In fact, in Jesus we see that God identifies himself with the poor and oppressed in a way the religious people of his day found hard to deal with. I suspect we find it hard to deal with as well.

A verse we discussed last week (Jeremiah 22:13-17) indicated that judging the cause of the poor and needy was to know God.

Paul tells of Jesus' choice to step off the throne of God and into darkness in Philippians 2: "So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men."

How much does Jesus' example conflict with our pursuits in business! We are taught (and we may even teach others) to achieve, to work hard, to do well, to "succeed." And we may even quote Scripture along the way to justify our ambitions. But Jesus was different: sitting at God's right hand, he did not aspire for a promotion; he put on skin to hang out with sinners and morons like you and me.

If we do nothing else this week, let's reflect on that amazing Truth.

But we can (and should) also ask how Jesus' sacrificial humility translates to business. If you read the story in Luke 3 where John the Baptist is proclaiming the good news of Jesus' coming, you see his shocking words to the people who came to be baptized:

"You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father.' For I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. The axe is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire."

"What should we do then?" the crowd asked.

John answered, "The man with two tunics should share with him who has none, and the one who has food should do the same."

Tax collectors also came to be baptized. "Teacher," they asked, "what should we do?"

"Don't collect any more than you are required to," he told them.

Then some soldiers asked him, "And what should we do?"

He replied, "Don't extort money and don't accuse people falsely—be content with your pay." (Luke 3: 7-14)

Share your abundance with the needy, don't extort money, be content with your pay.

This was said by the one who was preparing the way for the Lord and it seems consistent with Jesus' heart as he prepared to come to earth as a baby. He was content with his current position and sought not advancement but service. He cared so much about the poor and helpless that he did one of the craziest, most selfless things imaginable. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.

When Jesus was asked the same question posed to John, Jesus' reply is much harsher than John's: "Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." (Luke 18:22)

It's clear that our reward is in heaven, but do we live that way? Jesus did. Jesus moves beyond morality to a new ethic: total and complete surrender of the self for the glory of God. Or, as the pastor of a church in Houston would call it: waving the white flag of victory.

During Christmas, how might we prepare the way for the Lord? What are the ambitions of your heart you need to put aside to make way for a King that demands sacrificial service? What are the things or circumstances with which you should be content? What are the ways you can sacrifice your own desires, pride, and ambition for someone else?

Jesus' incarnation should affect every aspect of our lives. What does it demand from you?

Note: there will not be a post next week. Have an awe-filled, thought-provoking, and merry Christmas.

Do we disobey God with some of our everyday purchases?

2006-12-11T17:31:00.000-06:00

I learned two things this week:

1) Starbucks, despite professing to be a values-based company (and in many ways they are and should be commended), sells only one blend of coffee that is Fair Trade certified -- "Cafe Estima" -- and it is rarely the blend of the day. In other words, it's probably safe to say that 95% or higher of the cups of coffee sold in Starbucks are not Fair Trade.

2) Many people assume Starbucks sells all Fair Trade coffee.

The inconsistent application of "values" drives me nuts, but that's not what I want to talk about. Last week we talked about obeying God in the things we don't buy -- this week, I got to thinking about obedience in terms of what we do buy, products we buy regularly that, in and of themselves are not unGodly, but can be unGodly in certain contexts. In other words, coffee is not an unGodly product but I would argue that coffee that does not meet or exceed Fair Trade requirements is unGodly (and yes, I absolutely think it is our role to call this out).

The difference between this week and the question a couple of weeks ago is the focus is not on the company, it's on us. I am not asking about the impact we could have on Starbucks by drinking Fair Trade coffee -- instead, I am asking us to look at our purchasing decisions from the perspective of personal responsibility and obedience.

We've talked about Fair trade before on this blog, but what does it mean? You can learn more about fair trade by clicking on the "Make Trade Fair" link on the right side of this page, but I'll summarize:

Fair Trade does not just apply to coffee but that is the most common association so I'll use that as the example. Essentially, coffee retailers in developed countries have realized that they can get coffee beans and incredibly cheap prices from countries in Latin America, Africa, etc. and, being the capitalists that we are, we bid the prices down as low as we can. The irony, of course, is that coffee is sold for $4 a cup in America while coffee farmers in Third World countries are languishing in poverty because the market dictates what they get paid -- and it's not enough to live on. And really, no one can fault companies like Kraft, Nestle, or Starbucks for taking advantage. They seek to obey market forces, not the commands of God, so there is no reason not to seek profit regardless of consequence. The problem for us is, the Bible directly calls us to care for the poor:

"Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness, and his upper rooms by injustice, who makes his neighbor serve him for nothing and does not give him his wages...Did not your father eat and drink and do justice and righteousness? Then it was well with him. He judged the cause of the poor and needy; then it was well. Is not this to know me? declares the LORD. But you have eyes and heart only for your dishonest gain, for shedding innocent blood, and for practicing oppression and violence." -- Jeremiah 22:13-17
"Open your mouth for the mute, for the rights of all who are destitute. Open your mouth, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy." -- Proverbs 31:8-9 (these are but 2 of 2000-3000 verses about the poor)

Not only are these verses saying that caring for the poor is obedience to God, Jeremiah says it is to know Him. In Matthew 22:35-40, Jesus says the greatest commandment is "love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind" followed by "love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets." So all of our actions should revolve around the call to love God and love others. And God clearly has a heart for the poor. But is it fair to make the leap to say we can/should love our neighbors and defend the rights of the poor and needy through our purchases? Consider these quotes:

"I'd like to tell people in your place that the drink they are enjoying is the cause of all our problems. We grow it with our sweat and sell it for nothing." -- Lawrence Seguya, Uganda.
"The coffee farmers of Latin America are suffering the worst crisis in a hundred years. I urge everyone concerned with this growing misery to read this report. I hope you will use it to promote action to stop the scandal of hard-working coffee farmers falling further into poverty because of the price which the transnationals pay." -- Raul del Aguila, Junta Nacional del Cafe de Peru (Peruvian Coffee Farmers' Organisation).
"If a few companies were less greedy, the people at the bottom would have a lot more. We can do our bit by pressuring politicians to change this insanity, and by buying Fair Trade coffee."-- Chris Martin, lead singer of Coldplay

The bottom line is this: non-Fair Trade coffee promotes poverty, Fair Trade coffee fights it.

So then the question is: Do we have a call to examine our purchases to understand the ramifications in light of "God's economy?"

Obviously I think the answer is "Yes," so I've decided to make it a personal goal to never consume another cup of coffee that is not Fair Trade certified. This will be difficult in the sense that Fair Trade coffee can be scarce, but I've gone most of my life not drinking coffee at all so I think it's doable. I started this last week and it was cool to talk with the Starbucks cashier about my interest in Fair Trade. Next time, I hope to have a verse memorized to share the source of my motivation.

But I want to reiterate what I said above. This is not about sticking it to the man -- I didn't boycott coffee altogether -- it's about obedience. If I'm going to drink coffee, I don't know how I buy stuff that exploits the poor.

I wonder, then, how this applies to other products, products that we all buy that aren’t unGodly in and of themselves but could be. Products like cars (e.g., energy efficient), houses (e.g., sustainable design), clothes (e.g., fighting child labor), and food (e.g., caring not just about how much I pay but how much the farmer gets paid). I know we have engineers, lawyers, doctors, consultants, and others out there who could shed light on the negative effects certain products have on the poor, the environment, etc. and the alternatives available to us.

So what do you think? Do you agree with my assessment that Fair Trade is the only way to drink coffee in light of the call to love God and love our neighbors? If so, how far can/should this logic (examining all of our purchases and the impact they have on others) be extended?

Is simplicity Godly? How do we do it?

2006-12-05T23:40:00.000-06:00

Seems like last week's topic hit a bit of a nerve. Good -- that's exactly the kind of dialogue we're hoping to see. We need these diverse perspectives to challenge and refine our collective search for truth. If you haven't read the comments from last week, take a minute to do so. There are some interesting perspectives on all sides of the discussion about consumerism. Because it seems to be a bit of a raw topic, we hope to dedicate at least a few more weeks to the issues related to our role as consumers.

Last week we touched on questions of affecting change, personal money management, and obedience but those are topics for other weeks. I hope we can focus strictly on one side of this discussion this week: simplicity.

In the context of Godly behavior, there seem to be two antonyms of simplicity: accumulation and extravagance:

Accumulation -- Exodus 16 records the amazing story of God providing manna (bread) from heaven. There are so many elements of this story that reveal pieces of God's character, but a particularly compelling lesson resides in the condition that if anyone gathered more than one day's worth of bread, it would spoil (v. 19-21). God specifically said He was testing their obedience (v. 4). It was a system by which God required the Israelites to trust Him daily for provision. Each day, every family had more than enough, but God destroyed the excess. Each day was a new test of trust. Our pastor said recently he hoped we would be a people who didn't have storage units; that we wouldn't have so much crap (that we don't even use) that we can't even fit it in our house and garage so we pay to store it somewhere else.
Extravagance -- Tonight, I went to dinner with some people from work. When I arrived, they were discussing the home theaters in their houses and debated the merits of a $3000 HD projector versus a mere 60" plasma TV. I sat there thinking about what I could say but just about everything that came to mind was arrogant and judgmental, so I kept my mouth shut and came home frustrated. My silence indicated my approval at worst and my indifference at best to extravagant self-centered consumption. I shared my frustration with The Dude and he suggested that I could have countered with a statement as simple as, "Isn't the abundance we enjoy in America amazing?" Maybe that leads to conversation about the distribution of wealth across the world. Maybe that leads nowhere. But it's better than silence, right?

So my questions this week are these:

1) Do you accumulate excess at the expense of trusting God's provision?
2) What luxuries do you own that would make you ashamed if a poor villager from Africa came to your house?
3) What can we do today, in our current situations, about accumulation and extravagance? Is it just modeling it ourselves? What steps will you take? Is it speaking out in the name of simplicity? How can we actually do that in a way that is both effective and filled with grace and truth?

What is our role as consumers?

2006-11-27T10:24:00.000-06:00

Last Friday marked the annual pinnacle of our consumerism (in stores at least). Today is "Cyber Monday," where everyone goes back to work and high-speed internet…and spends the work day shopping online. The coming weeks will see several of the top 5 shopping days of the year.

We've talked a lot about being Godly businessmen, but what is our role as consumers? Is it to consume less? Consume some products and not others?

An interesting phenomenon occurred in business two weeks ago and we have OJ Simpson to thank. OJ decided to write a book titled "If I Did It" that provides a hypothetical account of how he would have killed his wife and Ronald Goldman, if he had done it. It's an astonishingly bad idea but I'm not sure we should have the highest expectations of OJ. But what about the company (ReganBooks) that decided to publish the book? What about companies (Amazon.com) that were taking advanced orders of the book? What about the network (Fox) that decided to air a two-part special about the book during the all-important sweeps month? What about the companies that planned to advertise during the two-part special on Fox? Plenty of people create terrible products but those products disappear into obscurity if no one buys it or helps to sell it.

We can complain all we want about these big, bad companies, but what are we doing about it? Putting OJ and even ReganBooks and Fox/News Corp aside, what role do we have as consumers in this whole process?

The phenomenon that I observed two weeks ago was the reaction and subsequent counter-action. When the book was announced, people went crazy. An industry publication called it an "evil sweeps stunt." Bill O'Reilly (a Fox employee) called for a boycott of the book, the TV special, and every sponsor who advertised during the program. Sales of the book reached the top 20 on Amazon.com but by last Monday, had fallen to number 51. And last week, News Corp Chairman (parent company for Fox) Rupert Murdoch cancelled the book and TV special saying, "I and senior management agree with the American public that this was an ill-considered project."

So while it was a disgusting product and several businesses participated in selling or promoting it, in the end, the reaction from customers got it pulled. This was an unprecedented move...and I have to wonder where else we might be able to exert our influence if we just thought more about our role as customers in the creation, sale, and consumption of products deemed unGodly.

This season is a time for us to focus on the incredible gift God gave us in Jesus but it often becomes more about the new trinkets we buy or get. So it seems this is as appropriate a time as ever to discuss our role as consumers. Here are some examples:

Tobacco -- I heard a public service announcement the other day dogging tobacco companies saying tobacco kills 400,000 people a year and then I pulled into a Wal-Mart to get gas and the pump was advertising chewing tobacco. If I should boycott the tobacco companies, should I also boycott retailers that sell their product?
Speaking of Wal-Mart -- We talked about some of Wal-Mart's business practices a few weeks back (http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=33034334&postID=115964340382678546) and I was particularly critical, yet I still shop there regularly. If I am going to be critical of them, do I need to stop shopping there?
Starbucks -- I heard a quote recently that essentially said we are perpetuating poverty when we buy coffee that is not fair trade and we are fighting poverty when we buy fair trade. Only one of Starbucks' coffees is fair trade...
Transportation -- If we care about God's creation, do we have a responsibility to choose the fuel efficient car or public transportation when we can?
Christmas -- I'd say we all think Christmas is a holy day, a day for rest, reflection, and celebration. But often, my family's celebration takes us to a restaurant or a movie theater whereby we indirectly necessitate that some waiters or ticket-takers work on a day we'd say you shouldn't have to work. Should we stop patronizing businesses on days we think others shouldn't have to work? (Disclaimer: this is a question of consistency in profession/action, not a legalistic debate about keeping the Sabbath)

By buying products, we provide the demand side of the economic equation and, in this capitalistic society, business responds with supply to meet our demand. Sometimes business starts with the supply and tests whether we will buy it, but free enterprise always comes down to demand. The question is, should we demand some products/services and not others?

We have to realize that, whether we like it or not, we live in a community; our actions affect other people. Our actions as consumers introduce products and services to the market, Godly or otherwise. Our actions as consumers also encourage businesses (read: people, employees) to respond to meet our demands in ways that we may consider unGodly.

So what is our role over the next 4 weeks of this season? What are other examples of products/businesses that are unGodly? What are conflicts you expect to face as a customer during this Christmas shopping season? What should be our response as consumers? Do we boycott the product? The business altogether? Do we try to organize more public action like writing to Congressmen or staging protests?

How can we be what we should be right where we are?

2006-11-13T22:33:00.000-06:00

I saw an interesting quote this week from Elton John. In addition to some comments about religion and homosexuality we could discuss for weeks, he said that, in general, people these days are too busy blogging on the internet to go out onto the streets to stand up for what they believe in. "They seem to do their protesting online and that's not good enough. You have to get out there and be seen to be vocal, and you've got to do it time and time again."

Sir Elton has got me pegged.

dany's comment from a few weeks ago keeps resonating in my head: "the call to obey is never absent." I feel like we spend too much time addressing secondary issues in our lives and justifying our actions and not enough considering those ways in which we disobey God every day at work. Similarly, as GJ pointed out from James 4:17, "Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins." How many of us know things we should be doing differently and simply refuse to do them?

One of my favorite quotes is from Os Guinness: "It is not that the Christians are not where they should be, the problem is that they are not what they should be right where they are."

So, using some lessons I learned from Daniel about how to work in an unGodly environment to His glory, I'll start us off by confessing those things I know I should be doing now...and those of you who I see/talk to on a regular basis better make sure I'm actually doing these things and not just blogging about them (and I'm going to be super-practical so I can't hide behind some lame, half-hearted effort):

Lessons from Daniel:
1) He made little decisions to the glory of God when under the authority of a non-believing boss (chose not to eat the food given by the king)
2) Distinguished himself and glorified God through the quality of his work (4 different kings appointed him to leadership positions because they could see God through Daniel's work...every boss and co-worker knew that Daniel worshipped God)
3) Lived above reproach (jealous co-workers couldn't find anything to accuse him of so they used his religion to trap him)
4) Unwavering commitment to prayer (the king signed a decree that all who pray to anyone but the king would be thrown to the lions and Daniel responded by praying to God...Daniel prayed with such regularity that the co-workers knew the time of day and location where he would be praying when they sought to trap him)
5) He spoke the truth regardless of the circumstances (God gave him words to speak and he shared them...and amazingly, while all he could expect was to be killed by the kings for bringing such news, each time he was rewarded)

The five ways I can start obeying God right now:
1) Refuse to start or join in conversation that demeans other team members...instead, I will advocate for them. I will also explain to my project managers why I can't/won't endorse recommendations that I believe contradict with God's design for business.
2) Be disciplined during the day to stay off of ESPN.com, Astros.com, and CNN.com to ensure I produce the highest quality work every day
3) Be honest with Erica and my close friends about my deeper struggles so they can be exposed and addressed before blowing up at work
4) Commit to daily prayer, even prayer throughout the day, about the people I work with and the decisions I make at work
5) Be honest in every way at work -- this includes talking more openly about Jesus (I often choose not to bring Him up when opportunities present themselves) and giving people direct, candid feedback

I do some of these five things OK, but others are huge struggles. The call to obey, to do good right where I am, is unavoidable.

Blogs have their limitations...and true, vulnerable community is not really easily attainable through this medium. And I don't think this is the place for deep, intimate community. But I hope we can use this blog to drive people into the streets, to take the stuff we talk about here and translate that into action.

What are the things you feel God is calling you to do that you have been ignoring/ avoiding/ procrastinating? How can you be the man God called you to be right where you are?

How can we mix vulnerability and leadership?

2006-11-06T00:44:00.000-06:00

The comments from last week's topic have challenged me to consider:

1) I am a bad listener. I think if I was more willing to listen to God rather that just talk at Him (or ignore Him altogether), I might realize that His call is much clearer than I want to admit. For example, I am currently wrestling with the decision of whether to look for/take a new job but if I would stop and listen, if I would be honest with myself, I think I would realize that God wants me to work on some heart issues (e.g., every day obedience, discipline, trusting Him, etc.) before changing circumstances. I wonder how true that is for the rest of us -- the clarity of God's call is not the question as much as "Are you willing to obey?"

2) The call to obey is very convicting. I talk all the time about how business should be done differently when God is more important than money, but I fail to act on that conviction right now, in my current situation. I look to a future job, a different situation in which obedience will be easier and rationalize today's decisions. What if I refused to make recommendations to clients when I believe they contradict the character of God? There are probably countless examples of ways I am ignoring His call to obey today, right where I am. We may talk more about this next week...

But the thing I want to talk about this week is related to The Dude's final comment about "the role of the church community in discerning God's call."

Unfortunately, I imagine most of you have seen the headlines from last week talking about how Ted Haggard, former president of the National Association of Evangelicals (30 million members) and former pastor of New Life Church (14,000 member mega-church in Colorado Springs) has been asked to step down from both positions as at least some of the allegations relating to a homosexual affair and drug use proved true. In a letter read during services at New Life Church yesterday, Pastor Haggard said, "There is part of my life that is so repulsive and dark that I've been warring against it all of my adult life."

While the effects of this scandal on individual lives and on the public perception of our God and our faith frustrate me, I am more concerned with the fact that we are all vulnerable to perpetrating this kind of deception. I imagine Pastor Haggard avoided discussing his sin primarily because of his position -- friends and family may have noticed signs, but how could they question the president of the National Association of Evangelicals? Surely he wasn't sinning.

Let's face it, we all have dark, repulsive sides to us we want no one to see. We are sinners and so are our pastors. And that is exactly why we need others in our lives to shine a light on the stuff we don't want to admit is there. Pastor Haggard said later in his letter, "When I stopped communicating about my problems, the darkness increased and finally dominated me."

A couple of verses/passages that come to mind with all of this:

James 5:16 -- "Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective."
1 Timothy 3:1-7 and Titus 1:5-11 -- characteristics of overseers/elders/deacons of the Church.

As individual men seeking to be Jesus' disciples, I think each of us has to examine whether we truly confess our sins to others. Are you in a small group where you can get so real that those guys know when you're hiding something? If you're not, you are opening yourself up to justifying one sin, and then another, and another until you find yourself in a place you never imagined possible.

As leaders in our churches, we have a responsibility to be the kind of men outlined in 1 Timothy and Titus. Leading the Church is not entirely the pastor's or church staff's job. We must support them in a number of different ways, one of which being the willingness to speak truth when truth needs to be spoken. We need to stop treating pastors like celebrities and recognize that they are sinners just like us. We need to fight for Church governance that recognizes weakness in every man and enables truth to be spoken freely. We need to make sure Jesus, not a pastor, is the always in His rightful place as head of the Church.

I want to be sure we are clear -- I do not want to discuss Ted Haggard this week. I want to discuss us. Most of us are young guys -- maybe you're not an elder, but what can you do right now as an individual or as a current/potential leader in the Church to fight sin as a community? What can we do to prepare to be a 1 Timothy/Titus kind of elder? What has been your experience with this kind of vulnerable community? How can we be effective leaders in our jobs and in our churches while struggling with our own hypocrisy? Business, much like today's Church, is built on perception -- we strive to maintain the best (or even a "perfect") public image...but at what cost? Can honesty and vulnerability exist in business? Shouldn't it exist in the Church?

How do we discern and follow God’s call?

2006-10-30T14:41:00.000-06:00

Last week we talked about how we found ourselves in our current jobs. Some of us picked our jobs because that’s what we are good at. Some of us picked our jobs because of what they would do for us (income, education, etc.). Some of us aren’t really sure how we got into our current job…it just fell into our laps. So how should we go about the process of figuring out where we should be, what we should do?

I think the way we look at “picking” a job changes significantly if we see work not as a choice or a career but as a “calling.” One serves us, the other serves God. And a calling from God certainly seems to limit the jobs that line up with His character.

Maybe we’re willing to do whatever God wants as long as it pays a certain salary. Maybe we’ll go wherever God leads after we make enough money to fund that next step or get enough education to enable it. Maybe we are content with starting a Bible study at a company that does unGodly work, justifying the things we do during the day so we can be a “light.”

As I have thought about this week’s question and discussed it with some of you, these scriptures have come to mind. I’m not 100% sure how they all intersect when it comes to discerning and following God’s call, but they should certainly inform our beliefs:

Genesis 22:1-18 – God tells Abraham to sacrifice his only son, the son he has longed for and that was finally given to him when he was 100. Abraham is clear on the what and how of God’s calling, but the why was not clear at all (at the time of the call)…in fact, it seems to contradict God’s character.
Matthew 14:22-33 – Peter walks on water out to Jesus. Peter initiated the call and Jesus responded, “Come.” The what and the why were clear (Peter just wanted to come to Jesus), but the how was not clear at all…there was absolutely no scientific explanation for the ability to walk on water and, as a fisherman, Peter had to know that the safest place in the middle of a storm was on a boat, not stepping out into the middle of the sea.
John 10:1-18 – Jesus talks about the sheep following the shepherd when he calls out to them because “they know his voice.” He also says the sheep will run away from strangers because they do not recognize the stranger’s voice. There certainly seems to be a relationship between discerning the voice of the shepherd and the action of following.
Matthew 25:14-30 – the parable of the talents. I’ve always been confused about whether it is just a coincidence that this ancient currency shares a name with our modern word for natural ability, but regardless, it seems to suggest we are to invest what God has given us for the purpose of bringing a return to Him.
Romans 12:3-8 – last week, JB talked about verses 1-2, seeing ourselves as living sacrifices to God. Verses 3-8 go on to say that we have to humble ourselves, realizing we are members in a body, each being gifted uniquely and having an individual role to play for the sake of something bigger than ourselves.

So do you need to be 100% certain of the what of God’s call before you act? How important are the why or the how?

Are you actively working to discern the Good Shepherd’s voice? How? Is it possible that He will lead you into an unGodly job to be a light or to learn or make money to provide for your family or support your local church? Is it possible that God is/has been calling you out of your current job because the work that you do is not Godly?

How important is it to understand what your talents are and to find a job that utilizes them?

What changes when you realize God does not exist for your glory but you for His? How do you follow God’s call knowing that you are but a member of a larger body and you may just be the toenail?

Feel free to comment on one or more of these questions – we’re not in a rush. If we need to keep talking about how to follow His call for a few more weeks, we’ll do that.

Why did you choose your current job?

2006-10-23T23:32:00.000-05:00

Hello all,
It has been a blessing to be a part of this online fellowship. Though I haven't contributed till now, I will assure you that the comments and discussion posted has intrigued many, reaching far past those visible on this blog.

Last week, Matt asked the question of how we can use creatively use business to do God's work. The story of Muhammad Yunus caught my eye that week as well. What a great living witness to our efforts here. To understand where he came from and what he has established for impoverished people throughout Bangladesh brings hope in my eyes to our efforts here.

The past few weeks we have discussed where we think we should be as Christian businessmen, as well as where we believe we can go (by Yunus' example). This week, I think it's important to discuss how we got here. As Christians, what inspired us to be where we are in the business world? Did we go directly into ministry in the traditional sense of the word? Or were we directed by what we can't seem to get a grasp on; the modern business/socio-economic culture that we were raised?

Last week, Matt brought up several points in which God seemed to directly appoint people to positions of servitude. Whether it be Adam tending the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2:15) or Paul as a tentmaker (Acts 18:2-4), we get the sense that these men were commissioned by God to perform these duties to glorify Him.

How do we translate that to today? Surely, I wasn't commissioned by God to be an accountant. Somewhere along the way, I felt purpose to provide for my future and put God on the back burner for the time being. Surely if I could only get into a position of influence, I could then instill God's will through as a witness to His glory. But is that really His will? At what point did each of you "decide" where and what would you do? Did you take the ultimate glorification of God into consideration when doing so? Did it concern you at all that your job might not serve God's will? I know for myself, I created a very bifurcated world in which how I made my living, would greatly differ from how I lived. What makes us do this?

Paul sheds a little light on this topic in Romans 12:1-8. He first and foremost urges the Roman people to offer themselves as spiritual sacrifices to God in view of His mercy. I know I've discussed this with Matt and KC at great length. To fully submit to God's will, you must offer your body as a holy sacrifice to Him to prepare your mind for what His will would be. For instance, if you are an accountant but feel God is pulling you elsewhere, you must first offer yourself to Him COMPLETELY before you can, in sound mind, accept what His will is for you. If it was God's will for you to remain in a job that you didn't particularly like but was where God's will is fulfilled, would you be willing to stay there?

I apologize for the length of this post. It's quite easy to get carried away. Hopefully this will be a good point to discern where we've come from to more clearly see where we can go. It is my hope that each of us would take an honest look at our own life and ask ourselves if we are living sacrifices for God.

What are ways we can creatively use business to do God's work?

2006-10-16T13:24:00.000-05:00

Last week, our discussion focused on one of the roles of work in Creation: to serve as a reflection of God's creativity. This week, I wonder if we can come up with some ideas as to how we can actually do this.

I saw an amazing example of this creativity at work last Thursday when Muhammad Yunus, an entrepreneur from Bangladesh, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for the success he has had in using business to pull people out of poverty.

Yunus got the idea when he saw 42 women struggling to live off of their meager wages so he loaned them $27 (yes, $0.64/each) to buy straw to start their own stool-making business. Soon after, Yunus started the Grameen Bank to offer these small loans (microcredit) to poor entrepreneurs in Bangladesh. (Link to the Washington Post article about Yunus and the Grameen Bank: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/13/AR2006101300211.html)

The Noble Committee's citation had some amazing quotes (link to full text: http://today.reuters.com/news/articleinvesting.aspx?type=bondsNews&storyID=2006-10-13T092143Z_01_L12831304_RTRIDST_0_NOBEL-PEACE-TEXT.XML) but the one that struck me most was: "Loans to poor people without any financial security had appeared to be an impossible idea..." And now: "Microcredit has proved to be an important liberating force in societies where women in particular have to struggle against repressive social and economic conditions."

This ought to be a quote we carry around with us for anyone who says Godly business is impossible. It appeared impossible but the Grameen Bank has successfully pulled thousands of people out of poverty and, by the way, it happens to be good business: the bank has 6.6 million customers and a 98% repayment rate.

I believe we have a responsibility as Christians to find ways to conduct business like this. But how?

It seems to me the first question we have to ask is "What is God's work?" Some answers to that might be serving the poor, caring for orphans and widows, and sharing the Gospel. Here are some examples of professions/jobs that seem to be Godly based on scripture:

1) Tending -- God has created some amazing systems that He asks us to tend. We can see this in Adam tending the Garden (Genesis 2:15), David tending his flock (1 Samuel 16:11), the Levites tending the tabernacle (Numbers 1:50-54), and Peter tending the Church (John 21:15-19).
2) Reaping -- the fishermen disciples (Matthew 4:18-20) simply reaped the bounty of God's creation.
3) Resolving -- We have created some real problems that now must be resolved. We can see an example of God commissioning Moses to resolve problems through Jethro in Exodus 18:19-23. The Bible also has countless passages encouraging us to serve the poor through work (Exodus 23:11; Leviticus 19:10, 23:22; Deuteronomy 15:11, 24:12-15; Proverbs 22; Luke 4:18, 14:13; etc.; etc.).
4) Teaching -- Moses was to teach the decrees and laws (Exodus 18:20), Belazel and Oholiab were to teach their skills in Exodus 35:34, and Aaron and the priests were called to teach in Leviticus 10:11.
5) Creating -- Both Jesus and Paul created goods, Jesus as a carpenter (Mark 6:3) and Paul as a tentmaker (Acts 18:2-4). God also commissioned "master craftsmen and designers" in Exodus 35:30-35.

I'm sure there are many more, so post them if you have them.

Now we have to realize that each of these can be done in a way that is not Godly. If we are not intentional about keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, we will create products that shouldn't exist, teach things that shouldn't be taught, and end up create more problems that need to be resolved.

So how do we do God's work in today's economy? I think we have to get creative.

Yunus was a finance guy -- he could have used his expertise to start a bank that offered traditional banking products like home equity loans to upper-middle class Americans. Instead, according to their website, "Grameen Bank has reversed conventional banking practice by removing the need for collateral and created a banking system based on mutual trust, accountability, participation and creativity."

An example of that creativity: "The Grameen Bank is based on the voluntary formation of small groups of five people to provide mutual, morally binding group guarantees in lieu of the collateral required by conventional banks. At first only two members of a group are allowed to apply for a loan. Depending on their performance in repayment the next two borrowers can then apply and, subsequently, the fifth member as well. The assumption is that if individual borrowers are given access to credit, they will be able to identify and engage in viable income-generating activities - simple processing such as paddy husking, lime-making, manufacturing such as pottery, weaving, and garment sewing, storage and marketing and transport services."

So what are ways you have or could creatively do God's work? How can we use business to serve the poor or protect/preserve the environment?

This isn't quite the philosophical discussion we've had over the past weeks (unless you want to chime in on the types of Godly work), but rather more of the practical application. Maybe it's starting a business like a coffee shop that uses the "community globalization" model discussed a couple of weeks ago to sell all fair-trade coffee and lift Guatemalan coffee farmers out of poverty. Maybe inventing something like a device that enables customers to recycle and reuse the plastic bags they get from the grocery store. Maybe it's getting your current employer to channel their expertise into the community to provide discounted or free products or services. What are some more ideas?

For more information on Yunus and the Grameen Bank:
http://www.grameenfoundation.org/welcome/muhammad_yunus/
http://www.grameen-info.org/

What is the purpose/role of work in Creation?

2006-10-09T01:53:00.000-05:00

Our last discussion brought up a lot of interesting issues and generated some ideas that we will continue to explore in the weeks to come. But last week definitely has not been resolved. Just because we talked about local economies and communities already doesn't mean that line of thought has no role or no voice in all conversations both now and the ones to come. My hope is that we will continue to look back to where we have come from to help us shape where we are going.
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What is the purpose or role of work in Creation? All of us must work, but how do we make decisions about what are we to do? if we can't answer why must we do what we are to do?

The idea of work is firmly rooted in the creation account from Genesis.

Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."

So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.

God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground. (Genesis 1:26-28)

From Genesis 2:15, "The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it."

Is there a connection between being made in the image of God and the fact that God put us in the garden to 'work it and take care of it'? Is the fact that we are put in the garden to work a part of being made in the image of God?

In Genesis 3 we even see God curse the ground because Adam ate the fruit which God commanded them not to eat. The obvious connection here is that work will now be hard(er?) for man.

So what are we do to with these texts (and many others) in 2006? Reading the Bible Christologically (Christ-centered) how are we to discern what it means to work? What is good work? Is there bad work? Why did God create work in the first place? What might it mean for us that we are created in the image of God as we discern what work we are to do?

To make sure we remember our roots, I will again (get used to it!) quote from the lovable Wendell Berry:

"Good human work honors God's work. Good work uses no thing without respect, both for what it is in itself and for its origin. It uses neither tool nor material that it does not respect and that it does not love. It honors Nature as a great mystery and power, as an indispensable teacher, and as the inescapable judge of all work of human hands. It does not dissociate life and work, or pleasure and work, or love and work, or usefulness and beauty. To work without pleasure or affection, to make a product that is not both useful and beautiful, is to dishonor God, nature, the thing that is made, and whomever it is made for. This is blasphemy: to make shoddy work of the work of God. And such blasphemy is not possible so long as the entire Creation is understood as holy, and so long as the works of God are understood as embodying and so revealing God's spirit."
"Christianity and the Survival of Creation," from Sex, Economy, Freedom, and Community.

What role does local community play in our pursuit of doing business as Christians?

2006-09-30T13:11:00.000-05:00

A community economy is not an economy in which well-placed persons can make a 'killing'. It is an economy whose aim is generosity and a well-distributed and safeguarded abundance. -- Wendell Berry

In our last discussion it was noted that "Jesus did not teach economies of scale. He taught intimacy and community." I have to agree with this. Before we start going off on the benefits of economies of scale and free market capitalism we need to start with where we are--literally--with place. We all find ourselves in local communities in which we are most likely mediocre participants. We think globally, buy globally, and work globally at the cost of disintegrating what is local. In fact, I would argue that we cannot see ourselves as members of a global community until we see ourselves as members of a local community. The implications for this are widespread as we go about discerning what it means to do business as a Christian.

We are all part of a community, but the difference between local and global cannot be understated. We are all connected in business but the more global, the more "economies of scale" we become, the more we lose sight of those connections with real people. Take, for example, coffee. Coffee farmers are often paid market price for their crops without concern to the well-being of the farmer. The wages these farmers make are often not enough to provide the basic needs for their families but we're OK with that because: 1) we get cheaper coffee and, 2) we don't actually know the men, women, and children bearing the brunt of this global model. Galatians 5:13-15 says, "For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another."

How can we practice "love your neighbor as yourself" (also in Leviticus 19:13-18, Matthew 22:36-40, Mark 12:29-31, Luke 10:27, Romans 13:8-10, James 2:8) in business?

Wendell Berry has described 17 rules for the preservations of local communities and economies which I would like to make the topic of discussion. I have taken this from his article entitled Conserving Communities, which you can read by following the link.

To find out more about Wendell Berry in order to have a better idea of where he is coming from this article and this webpage should be a good start. I also want to say that he is a committed Christian. Everything he says comes from a worldview that is distinctively shaped by the scriptures and a devotion to Jesus. So I urge you to read carefully some of the words from, as Eugene Peterson describes, "One of our country's wisest guides."

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...We must ask how a sustainable local community (which is to say a sustainable local economy) might function. I am going to suggest a set of rules that I think such a community would have to follow. And I hasten to say that I do not consider these rules to be predictions; I am not interested in foretelling the future. If these rules have any validity, that is because they apply now.

If the members of a local community want their community to cohere, to flourish, and to last, these are some things they would do:

Always ask of any proposed change or innovation: What will this do to our community? How will this affect our common wealth.
Always include local nature - the land, the water, the air, the native creatures - within the membership of the community.
Always ask how local needs might be supplied from local sources, including the mutual help of neighbours.
Always supply local needs first (and only then think of exporting products - first to nearby cities, then to others).
Understand the ultimate unsoundness of the industrial doctrine of 'labour saving' if that implies poor work, unemployment, or any kind of pollution or contamination.
Develop properly scaled value-adding industries for local products to ensure that the community does not become merely a colony of national or global economy.
Develop small-scale industries and businesses to support the local farm and/or forest economy.
Strive to supply as much of the community's own energy as possible.
Strive to increase earnings (in whatever form) within the community for as long as possible before they are paid out.
Make sure that money paid into the local economy circulates within the community and decrease expenditures outside the community.
Make the community able to invest in itself by maintaining its properties, keeping itself clean (without dirtying some other place), caring for its old people, and teaching its children.
See that the old and young take care of one another. The young must learn from the old, not necessarily, and not always in school. There must be no institutionalised childcare and no homes for the aged. The community knows and remembers itself by the association of old and young.
Account for costs now conventionally hidden or externalised. Whenever possible, these must be debited against monetary income.
Looks into the possible uses of local currency, community-funded loan programmes, systems of barter, and the like.
Always be aware of the economic value of neighbourly acts. In our time, the costs of living are greatly increased by the loss of neighbourhood, which leaves people to face their calamities alone.
A rural community should always be acquainted and interconnected with community-minded people in nearby towns and cities.
A sustainable rural economy will depend on urban consumers loyal to local products. Therefore, we are talking about an economy that will always be more cooperative than competitive.

These rules are derived from Western political and religious traditions, from the promptings of ecologists and certain agriculturalists and from common sense. They may seem radical, but only because the modern national and global economies have been formed in almost perfect disregard of community and ecological interests. - WB

Discuss away...

Intro - What does it mean to put the Church back in business?

2006-09-01T13:28:00.000-05:00

“Putting the Church back in business” is an intentional play on words with two distinct meanings. But before describing the solutions, I’ll present the two problems they are intended to address:

1) In my experience, Christian men often pursue one of two career paths. One is what we call “full-time ministry.” We’re all called to be full-time ministers, but there are men who get paid to do ministry. Peter was probably the first example of a man pursuing this kind of vocational ministry. 1 Corinthians 9:13-14 says, “Don’t you know that those who work in the temple get their food from the temple, and those who serve at the altar share in what is offered on the altar? In the same way, the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should receive their living from the gospel.”

The problem is, Peter had an important contemporary and American Christian men seem to have forgotten his example. Paul was a businessman. We don’t think of him that way because he was a follower of Jesus first and a businessman second. Paul continues in 1 Corinthians 9, “But I have not used any of these rights (receiving his living from the gospel)…I would rather die than have anyone deprive me of this boast…What then is my reward? Just this: that in preaching the gospel I may offer it free of charge…” (v. 15-18). Paul sold tents to provide for himself and his followers, not so they could rest in the wealth they had accumulated, but so they could preach a “no strings attached gospel.” It saddens my heart that people have rejected Jesus because the men teaching us about Him often have misrepresented His teachings on money.

So why is it that men, when selecting a career path, often feel as if they must choose between being a committed Christ-follower and entering vocational ministry or compromising their faith to work in the business world? Maybe it’s our fault for failing to remain singularly-focused, full-time ministers disguised as businessmen. Maybe it’s the business world’s fault for forcing compromise. I think it’s both.

When God set up society in ancient Israel, He set aside the Levites to “perform duties for Him and for the whole community at the Tent of Meeting by doing the work of the tabernacle” (Numbers 3:8). It’s interesting to note that the total number of Levites was 22,000 (Numbers 3:39) and only 8,580 were old enough to serve (chapter 4). If you take that number and add it to the total number of Israelites from the other 11 tribes old enough to serve in the army (603,500 – 1:46), the adult male population in Israel was 612,130. The “full-time ministers” accounted for a mere 1.4% of the population. I’m not suggesting that God desires a similar ratio today, but it’s a simple fact that 98.6% of the Israeli society was not to work in the Tent of Meeting. But God certainly intended for them to be committed followers. They had their role in this society centered on God. Someone had to raise the bulls that were sacrificed in worship and then used to feed the Levites. For the Peters of the world to get paid for ministry, there have to be Pauls willing to sell some tents.

But what constitutes Godly business? Are corporations Godly? Is it Godly to sell products like cigarettes or “soft core” pornography even if they’re legal? Is it Godly to pay “market wages” in third world countries if that wage isn’t enough to provide a sustainable living? Business is not inherently bad, but some business is. Where do we draw the line?

2) The Church (capital “C”) is failing to meet its potential in a colossal way. God doesn’t need our money but He commands us as believers to participate in His work. God could wipe out disease, crime, suffering, death and all of the other ills we introduced to the world through sin, but He hasn’t. Instead, He gave us a very simple system showing how the Church and business should interact while remaining focused on Him: generosity. The minimum standard for this generosity is a tithe of 10%. Unfortunately, in America, Christians give only about 2.6% of our income to the Church, drastically short of the Biblical minimum. Incredibly, if we all generously responded to Jesus to the point of giving 10%, an additional $139 billion would be available every year for God-fearing leaders of the Church to distribute as He directs. Some estimates say that just $5 billon could end preventable global deaths of children under the age of 5. Seven billion could provide primary education for every child in the world. Eighty billion could provide access to basic health and education services to all of the world’s poor. That amounts to $92 billion per year. What if we spent the remaining $47 billion on seeking to fulfill the Great Commission? Quite a leap from the $810 million churches currently spend on reaching unevangelized nations.

I look at these numbers and I don’t think it’s a huge leap to say that extreme poverty, preventable death and disease exist because of the lack of Christian generosity.

So what does it mean to put the Church back in business?

First, it means putting the Church, Jesus’ devoted followers, literally back in the business world. Or if we’re already there, we have to teach and practice Biblical business, not American business. Jesus didn’t teach “economies of scale,” He taught intimacy and community. He didn’t teach marketing, He taught unfiltered Truth. He didn’t teach the accumulation of wealth, He taught sacrificial generosity. Biblical business is business where God is God, not money.

Second, it means serving our role as Christian businessmen to give generously to the Church to provide for our pastors and reach out to the world. The result would be a hardly recognizable movement of compassion and humble service all in the Name of Jesus.

To begin this process, I hope to use this blog to simply get the conversation going. I’ll probably just post questions and we can discuss for a few days and then I’ll post another. Or if you have questions, I’ll post those.

Twelve apostles changed the world with their willingness to die for Jesus. We can do this.

Let’s ask questions, let’s share our thoughts, let’s think, let’s act. Let’s put the Church back in business.