How to Keep the Faith in the Competitive World of Business

¶ … Christian Faith

If a person is a devout Christian, who practices his faith in all aspects of his life, how does his belief -- his doctrine -- allow him to interact in the secular world of business? I plan a career in business and I do not expect to be preaching to others at work or to become an evangelist or a missionary, and yet I hope to be a witness for my Christian faith without being intrusive into others' beliefs. This paper delves into the ways in which a Christian will keep his faith in a capitalistic world where money is often the only "god" that people seek.

How I will keep the faith in the vocation of my choice -- business

Harold L. Johnson explains an important point in the Harvard Business Review: "There are no blueprints, no simple rules to go by," when it comes to keeping the Christian faith in an often dog-eat-dog business world, Johnson writes. For the Christian, God is a "personal, transcendent Being whose nature is revealed" to the world through the life and times of Jesus Christ (Johnson, 1957). This concept is the necessarily belief for a Christian, but how does a person who sees God as a personal, transcendent -- a God who has created humans in his own image -- deal with the crassness and profit-motive obsessions in many business environments?

First of all, for the Christian businessman engaged in working towards goals that include profits, God should always be the "Absolute" power, shining brightly for those who know Him no matter where they work or what they do. In Mark 10:27, the Scripture explains that "With men it is impossible, but not with God; for all things are possible with God" (Johnson, 69). What this Scripture is saying, Johnson explains, is that all things that have to do with business (including marketing, bookkeeping, HR, training staff, globalization and developing strategies) takes place "under the rule of God," and under the "judgment" of God (69).

But Johnson warns that some businessmen put man's values ahead of Christianity, and in effect the corporation replaces God in the mind of many businessmen. But the Scripture clearly states, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me" (70). Hence, the first doctrine that has been referenced in this paper is that notwithstanding how important corporations are (in particular, to the millions of families whose income depends on successful business dealings); the people that make the corporation successful are made in the image of God. Mankind was created by God to "exert & #8230;force in the universe," and was given the "physical, intellectual, and moral capacities" for solving problems (Johnson, 71).

This next passage is very pertinent: "What is man that thou art mindful of him…yet thou hast made him little less than God, and dost crown him with glory and honor. Thou hast given him dominion over the works of thy hand" (Johnson, p. 71, quoting from Psalms 8:3-6). So doing well in business is solving problems, which is what God wants humans to do.

An article in the Journal of Business Ethics points out that there must be "spirituality" before one can truly embrace religion. Of course I am a religious person, and Christianity is the faith I practice. And in addition to my Christian faith (and the dogma I follow) I have always had a sense of spirituality -- the quest for meaning notwithstanding the great mysteries of God and the Universe. Since the authors in this scholarly piece assert that "…spiritually is the narrow band of searching for meaning" before one grabs on to "any particular beliefs, practices, or structures," I believe I was spiritual before accepting Christ as my Savior (Lynn, et al., 2009).

Looking back on my original spirituality, as a child moving into adolescence, I believe I followed what Lynn writes on page 229: the transcendent character of God and His universe led me to embrace a kind of spirituality that had a "mystical dimension" (Lynn, 229). I wasn't yet old enough or intellectual enough to understand that my spirituality was really just a young person seeking wisdom and meaning through my own secular experiences. I will have those secular experiences in my business vocation too, but they will be smooth for me because of my faith in Christianity. Examining my spirituality and my Christian faith I see, after carefully studying this peer-reviewed article, that you can't have one without the other. Indeed, "religion without spirituality denies the search for the divine," the authors explain, and for me as a person going into business, the search for the divine is a never-ending quest, not to be interrupted by profit and loss statements or HR manuals that need updating (229).

The authors also note that scholars tend to approach religion in the workplace with three distinct approaches: a) work and religion are "conceptually disconnected"; b) religion serves a "therapeutic or ethical role in work"; and c) religion offers a "lens through which all work and life are seen" (Lynn, 228)).

Of those three approaches, in my vocation after college I believe the last two will be the most appropriate and worthy: Christianity can be "therapeutic" and can lead me to follow a strict path of ethics; and Christianity offers me that lens through which my work and my life are in good focus.