A Christian Theology of Work & Business

March 15, 2005
S. Michael Craven
  

The last century has seen the gradual separation of theology and religion from the public arena and nowhere is this more apparent than in the arena of business.

This point was emphasized by Dorothy Sayers in 1942 in an address entitled “Why Work?” She said this:

“In nothing has the Church so lost her hold on reality as in her failure to understand and respect the secular vocation. She has allowed work and religion to become separate departments, and is astonished to find that, as a result, the secular work of the world is turned to purely selfish and destructive ends, and that the greater part of the world’s intelligent workers have become irreligious, or at least uninterested in religion. But is it astonishing? How can anyone remain interested in a religion which seems to have no concern with nine-tenths of his life?”^[1]

Even many Christians believe that these two spheres of work and faith are mutually exclusive; one (work) is a matter of practical reality having little to do with religion with the possible exception of some moral and ethical values while the other is simply a matter of private or personal belief.

This Platonic approach to faith and business is not only un-biblical it is actually detrimental to the work of the Kingdom and the advance of the Gospel. Given the fact that the average person living in the Western world spends 50 – 60% of their time working, this sub-biblical approach to the workplace only reinforces the false idea that Christianity is ultimately irrelevant to everyday real life. This false notion only further marginalizes Christianity and worse fails to press the Lordship of Christ into one of God’s most apparent arenas of creation.

God assigned vocational responsibilities to mankind at creation. First, God Himself is a worker, He created and continues working to sustain His creation and fulfill His plan. And since we are made in His image we too were made to work. Secondly, the Genesis account of creation reveals several important facts related to vocation.

Genesis 1:28, “And God blessed them; and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply; and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea, and the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

This is the first commandment given to men from God – what is often referred to as the “dominion mandate.” This mandate to “subdue” the earth is that which relates specifically to our vocations or work. God created us in His image and gave us authority over His creation. This responsibility extends to every area of creation including all aspects of human society and culture. The world of business, work or vocation is a necessary and God-honoring part of creation – a part of God’s original design. It is the means by which God gives mankind the ability to provide for his family and his community. It is the means by which mankind achieves social and cultural progress, scientific and medical discovery.

Vocational pursuits produce creative expressions of art, drama, and design. Mankind engaged in vocational endeavors is what creates civilizations and cultures, it is the means for producing any measure of control over the natural realm and it means by which humanity exercises its God-given stewardship over creation.

Genesis 2:5 further records that “No shrub of the field was yet in the earth and no plant of the field had yet sprouted, for the Lord God had not sent rain upon the earth; and there was no man to cultivate (or work) the ground.”  Verse 15 goes on to say following the creation of man, “Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the Garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it.” Clearly God is saying that his creation was designed with a requirement for ongoing maintenance and mankind would be the only created being given that responsibility.

So, your work does matter to God and it is an essential part of your spiritual life. There should be no separation between the two.

Now, when I say that your spiritual life should be integrated into your work, I mean more than just being outspoken about your faith in the workplace – this is a simplistic or reductionist approach to faith in the marketplace and frankly it falls short of bringing the arena of business under Christ’s Lordship. Ecclesiastes 5:9 – “After all, a king who cultivates the field is an advantage to the land.” God has designed man to work and blesses work that honors God.

The question then remains: What is the Christian worldview of work and how does it differ from the secular worldview of work?

First let’s look at the secular approach to work. (By secular I mean that which does NOT honor the Creator God.)

1. In the world’s view, the ultimate purpose of work is to fulfill yourself – to achieve some sort of purpose or meaning apart from the purpose of your life as designed and led by God and to find the meaning or significance in temporal things and not the eternal truth and plan of the living God.

This view is often characterized by certain common attitudes such as: “go for it!” Of course the “it” is always related to attempts to authenticate one’s self. This is mankind trying to find significance within himself and not true significance that comes from understanding that you are created in the image of God – it is the Creator that gives you significance and meaning.

For example: Take an object that is valuable to you, say a car…you clean this car, you add certain accessories, you maintain this car, it offers you freedom and mobility of your own choosing, etc…it has significance and meaning only because you have given it value. Apart for your assignment of value it is merely metal ultimately destined for the junk yard. It has no value apart from your desire for it and that which you have given it. The same is true for humanity. Apart from God, man is nothing, flesh and bone ultimately destined for dust. But, in relationship with God man has meaning, because God desires a relationship with man he has a purpose, and he has a hopeful eternal destiny.

Every attempt to “authenticate one’s self apart from God inevitably falls short. In addition, this view of work will always demand more of work and self than either can deliver.

First, efforts that seek to satisfy both body & soul through vocation defy man’s natural design which ultimately desires a relationship with his Creator. Secondly, self-fulfillment through career success sounds great in a prosperous economy but what happens when economies turn as they inevitably do? Third, a preoccupation with self-actualization through work makes a person less effective in contributing to life not more. Life is reduced to a particular vocational interest – in other words such persons have a myopic view of the world which begins and ends with themselves and everything revolves around their vocation and its ability to give their lives meaning.

The down side is that in the event of any career setback they are personally devastated. And in the pursuit of self-fulfillment through success they are vulnerable to moral compromise, because exaltation of self becomes their highest objective.

Lastly, such an approach to career and work will inevitably reveal the futility of self-fulfillment by the exclusive means of work. Unfortunately, this often comes later in life and gives one a profound sense that their lives have been wasted, which to some degree they have, and they are left hopeless and in despair.

2. Success in life is gauged exclusively by success in work. I would categorize this as “careerism.” Careerism has become the main work ethic of our times. Careerism is an attitude, a life orientation in which a person views career as the most important aim in life.^[2] This might also explain many peoples approach to education – the objective is not to become educated and knowledgeable about the world – the common objective of education today is to get a “degree” so one can get a good job. This, I would argue, does not make you educated.

The careerist often defines themselves by their vocation or career. Their first and ultimate question of others is “what do you do?” A common question in today’s culture, and although asking what a person does is not necessarily a bad thing it is flawed when it becomes the principal means by which you assess another person. You are assigning status based on vocation which is ultimately used to then determine their value. This is unbiblical and wrong!

This also leads to a materialistic view of life in which you live by the motto, “he who dies with the most toys wins.” Of course anyone experienced in the world knows that there are no winners in such a worldview. Howard Hughes, for example, at one time the wealthiest man in the world, was once asked “how much money does it take to be happy?” His reply reveals what many that pursue this path come to know, when he said “just a little bit more.” Material possessions come and go and in the end their satisfaction is temporary. A life built upon the pursuit of possessions is not only futile but pathetic.

In addition, this approach to vocation tends to make an idol of career in that it defines our self-worth, becomes the controlling center of everything we do, and is the last in a series of priorities to go.

3. You do whatever it takes to get the job done. Now, this in and of itself is not necessarily a bad thing, we should be determined and resolute in all that we do, however when this becomes the only value used in making business decisions it quickly shifts from honest determination to moral compromise.

Consider the scandals of Enron, Worldcom and Adelphia Cable (a cable company supposedly run by a Christian that lied to his investors and ultimately went to prison), or the deception on the part of the tobacco industry, Pharmaceutical companies that recently concealed certain risks about their products from the public, or the recent wave of athletes charged with taking performance enhancing drugs. In every instance, the decision makers made “doing whatever it takes” to succeed the only value they considered.

This prompted Malcolm Forbes to comment that “the hottest topic on Wall Street isn’t the spectacular climb of the Dow Jones Industrials. The most widespread concern about Wall Street is over its standards, ethics, and morality…”^[3]

Of course, when you remove Christianity from being relevant to the world of business what legitimate basis for morality and ethics are you left with? I would argue, ultimately none!

Secondly, the absence of Christian influence in the arena of business inevitably results in the opposite of the dominion mandate. Instead of subduing the earth by bringing order and moral harmony to society, men find that they themselves are subdued or overcome. At the beginning of creation, work may have started out in a Garden. But in our generation it has become a Jungle.

As a consequence work has become warlike, as workers and companies seek any and every competitive advantage over others. The prevailing message in business today is “kill or be killed.” Moral Darwinism has replaced Christian ethics and morality.

Unfortunately, the seeds of this same attitude can often be found prior to any introduction to business, through our approach to sports, even at the earliest ages and even in Christian schools. Success or victory is the ultimate objective and as such we rationalize every wrong decision, every moral compromise made on the way, because again the ultimate objective is the only one that matters – success.

This attitude is the central theme on The Apprentice. Participants are judged on their unbridled determination, their ruthless competitiveness and their cold calculation that places the business objective above every human need. And, Donald Trump is idolized for being the epitome of these virtues.

There is no place for mercy and compassion - there is no servant leadership that sees strength, not as an advantage but as a responsibility. The “idealized” business leader today is cold, ruthless, and cunning. However, this ideal is still not the most successful. The most successful leaders in business are those that build their companies with a vision that goes beyond just getting rich and work to inspire loyalty among their employees. They place their company and their employees ahead of themselves and carefully exercise stewardship over the responsibilities they feel they have been given. In these companies employees will always feel as if the company truly cares about them as people – and such people will always be the most productive and employee turnover will be the lowest.

Companies that value “doing whatever it takes to succeed” will never inspire loyalty because every employee knows that that they are ultimately viewed as nothing more than an expense item on a balance sheet.

The Darwinian approach to business and ultimately life inevitably destroys people and ironically often the very businesses that trust in such an approach.

4. A job is merely a means of earning a living. While this is an aspect of why we work it is not the only and ultimate reason why we work. If it is, then work is reduced to a sub-biblical level and remains nothing more than a self-directed activity with only a utilitarian purpose. This makes work dehumanizing reducing people to nothing more than machines in an economic engine.

All four of these secular perspectives of work include some good in them in that at least they affirm that work is indeed valuable but without a Christian worldview of work they fall short of God’s intention, remain man-centered, and ultimately suffer from sinful corruption.

Conversely there are those who instead of exalting work above everything else, or trying to remove God from the workplace altogether, they instead diminish work as being un-spiritual or “worldly” and therefore not worthy of consideration for the devoted Christian. This, I would argue, is equally un-biblical.

This approach creates a dualistic hierarchy in which the material world is seen as evil or bad and so-called spiritual things are the only worthy pursuit. But, this simply flies in the face of everything the Bible teaches. While it is true that the world in which we live is fallen and experiences the effects of sin in every area of life – the Christian is not called to resign himself to this condition but to resist it by the power of the Holy Spirit and work to bring all things under submission to Christ’s Lordship. And certainly this would include humanity’s vocational activities and the arenas of business and economics.

Work is not something we do apart from God as the secular world views it. Work is not something beneath God’s dignity or concern as the dualistic view holds, and let me also add that work is not merely a game we play with non-believers to accomplish evangelism.

Again, God has provided vocation as a means for provision, Ecclesiastes 3:13 – “Moreover, that every man who eats and drinks sees good in all his labor.” This raises another question for many Christians who feel conflicted in the area of vocational or material success. Many Christians regard the idea of making money or being wealthy as incompatible with devotion to God.

This too is unbiblical, Ecclesiastes 5:18 & 19 (written by perhaps the wealthiest man of all time) says this, “Here is what I have seen to be good and fitting: to eat, to drink and enjoy oneself in all one’s labor in which he toils under the sun during the few years of his life which God has given him; for this is his reward. Furthermore, as for every man to whom God has given riches and wealth, He has also empowered him to eat from them and receive his reward and rejoice in his labor; this is the gift of God.”

The Bible condemns the love of money not the possession of riches as the Bible also clearly teaches that wealth is a gift from God and that wealth comes from labor. What Christians need to guard against is the uncompassionate use of wealth.  It is the selfish and self-glorifying uses of wealth that the Bible condemns. The fact is we need Christians to produce wealth that is then used for Godly purposes – a society in which pagans make all the money will not be a God-honoring society.

Money, business, science, government, the arts, every aspect of creation is certainly corrupted by sin and the Fall but it also being redeemed and this is the work of the Church by the power of the Holy Spirit - to bring all things, every area of life into submission to Christ’s authority.

Again, Christians do not resign themselves to sin and its effects, no they work at redeeming those areas so affected by bringing biblical truth back into these arenas of God’s creation.

The fact is Kingdom work requires money. God does not need our money but He nonetheless has chosen to use the money we earn for His great purposes. In fact, God says that if you withhold your tithe, the firstfruits of your earnings, you are stealing from Him. So, God may not need your money but He clearly says that He wants your money.

Consider the money required to build and operate this (school or church). Money given for Kingdom purposes is as spiritual an act as praying or studying God’s word. This includes spending the money earned honestly from your vocation to provide for your family’s needs such as paying the electric bill. Consider 1 Timothy 5:8 – “But if anyone does provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith, and is worse than an unbeliever.”

So again it is through work and business that God provides humanity with the means of subduing the earth, bringing order to humanity through civilization, providing for individual and family needs and necessities, and financing the work of the Church through tithes and offerings.

Vocation, work, and business is a responsibility given to men by God as a means of fulfilling His first commandment therefore it is indeed a Holy calling and it remains so if Christians work as the Bible commands – as unto the Lord. It is God that you ultimately work for (assuming we are talking about legitimate work) whether it is flipping burgers at McDonalds or as a fulltime minister. The anointing may differ but the calling is equal in the sight of God.

The bible does not make any sacred / secular distinction. Everything created by God is sacred and the only issue is whether or not that aspect of creation has either been brought under submission to His authority or the unholy authority of men.

Lastly, when you work, and I would emphasize work well, you are actually loving God. Let me ask you some questions, Does God want people to have food and other necessities for life? Does God want you to provide for those less fortunate or those in material need? Does God want His Church to make a tangible difference in the world through acts of charity? Does God want people to work? So, by doing what God wants us to do and by doing it out of a sincere desire to please Him you are loving God.

The challenge for you is this, will you work for your own purposes, glory and satisfaction or will you work as unto the Lord, for His glory and purposes in all things?

© S. Michael Craven, 2005