Why Business Matters to God

(And What Still Needs to Be Fixed)

Jeff Van Duzer

• Publisher: IVP Academic
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9780830868223
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

Jeff Van Duzer grew up thinking business was the source of much damage and evil in the world, the work of greedy capitalists polluting the environment. Thirty years later he was dean of a business school. In the course of that remarkable transformation, Van Duzer found cause for both hope and concern. He discovered many business people achieving a great deal of good for society as well as a lot of illegal and unethical behavior. Along the way he found some who thought that merely being honest and kind was what made business Christian. Others said they'd never ask pastors for business advice because they had no interest or experience in their work. After all, wasn't "full-time Christian service" what the church was all about? This book explores the nature and meaning of doing business and finds it calls for much more than most think. Van Duzer presents a profoundly Christian approach that integrates biblical studies with the disciplines of business and economics. Looking beyond the place of ethical principles and the character of the individual, Van Duzer displays a vision of business that contributes to the very purposes of God.

1

In the Beginning

Consider an unfinished parable: Three students make appointments to ask a pastor for career advice. The first student explains that she is considering going to law school and asks the pastor why God might want a Christian to be a lawyer. After thinking about her question for a moment, the pastor answers that Christians in law make sense because God cares about justice. By becoming a lawyer she can help advance God’s desire for a just society. The second student explains that he is considering a career in medicine and asks why God might want Christians to serve as doctors or nurses. “That’s simple,” the pastor replies, “God cares about wholeness, and by pursuing a career in the medical field you can play a key part in God’s healing work in the world.” The last student arrives for her appointment and says she is considering a career in business. She asks the pastor why God might want her to pursue such a career.

At this point, however, the parable remains unfinished. How should the pastor respond? If law furthers God’s interest in justice and medicine furthers God’s interest in healing, what aspect of God’s work will a business career further? Or, put differently, from God’s perspective what is the purpose of business?

God’s Purpose for Business

Answering this question is not as simple as it may seem at first. Indeed, on closer examination, this one question raises three other preliminary questions.

First, does it even make sense to talk about God having a purpose for business? Or does God only have a purpose for people in business? Stated more generally, does God have purposes for institutions? Or is it better to understand institutions (such as corporations, economic systems, governments) as merely artificial human constructs that are in and of themselves inherently neutral—they can further or thwart God’s desires depending on the intentions and actions of the human beings within them, but as separate things they are of no account.

Second, setting aside for the moment the question of institutions, what do we mean when we ask about God’s purpose for people in business?[1] The Westminster Shorter Catechism (1674) begins this way:

Question 1. What is the chief end of man?

Answer. Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.

Is this all that we can say about God’s purpose for people active in business? Does God simply have a general purpose for men and women—to glorify and enjoy God—that they are to faithfully pursue across all of their activities? Or can we say something more? Are there any unique purposes that God would like to see accomplished through business activities?

And finally, assuming that God has unique purposes for people in business, are these purposes intrinsic to the actual business activity or only instrumental? For example, businesses can make money for their owners, who in turn can use that money to support mission activities. In this sense businesses could be said to serve God’s purposes instrumentally. They generate the funds necessary to sponsor God’s desired activity.

Businesses can also serve as a platform from which Christians can share their faith with others. Here too is a use for business. Instrumentally, it creates a forum for the sharing of the gospel. But still, this is not intrinsic to business itself. Christians are called on to “be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks” about their faith regardless of the setting (1 Peter 3:15). In the supermarket, on the sidelines of soccer fields, in PTSA meetings as well as in work settings, Christians are invited to share the good news sensitively with all who might be interested in hearing. This fact, however, does not tell us much about how God intends to use the practice of business itself.

Specifically, can we say that business activities—analyzing balance sheets, manufacturing products, marketing goods, providing performance reviews—in and of themselves further God’s kingdom?[2] Does business have an intrinsic as well as instrumental purpose?

The Search for Purpose

Searching for biblically based answers to these questions is not easy. In a narrow verse-by-verse sense there is not much to work with. One can find a handful of ethical admonitions such as the Old Testament’s prescription against using faulty scales to apportion out purchased grain (Proverbs 11:1) or the New Testament’s admonitions to pay a worker his or her just due (Luke 10:7). Unfortunately, even in the aggregate these prove to be fairly thin threads from which to weave a whole theology. While there is certainly a great deal of teaching in Scripture on economics and a regular call to fair dealing, there is very little written directly about the purpose of business activities, the appropriate limits of business and its role, if any, in God’s work in the world.

Consequently, rather than seeking to construct a theology of business from a handful of specific verses, I have found it more useful to build on what has sometimes been called the “grand narrative.” All of Scripture (through many writings and in many genres) tells one basic story—one basic story in four great movements.

In the beginning God created a world and placed human beings at its center (creation). It was God’s intent to enjoy creation and live in a loving intimacy with humankind forever. This initial intent, however, was thwarted by human disobedience (the Fall). All the rest of the story is about reconciliation. God seeks to reestablish the love relationship that was intended from the beginning (redemption). These efforts climax with God’s arrival in the person of Jesus Christ, who breaks down the wall of separation through his death and resurrection and inaugurates the new creation. The full implications of this victory are revealed in the last chapters of the story, the final conclusion (consummation).

The choice of a narrative hermeneutic and the identification of these four great movements of Scripture is certainly not the only option. Theology can be shaped in a number of crucibles. For example, many theologians work in fields of moral, historical or practical theologies. Even for those committed to a biblical theology, there can be many different organizing principles. And to make matters more complicated, even among those adopting a narrative approach to their biblical theologies, there are differences over how to divide the Scriptures into separate movements.[3]

My choice of narrative is partially tactical, as “story” seems to be one of the most effective means of communicating truth in our current cultural environment. Hopefully it is also an ecumenical approach. While the creation-fall-redemption-consummation framework is often associated with the Reformed tradition, as a basic outline of the biblical story it can be adopted by a wide variety of Christian faith traditions. Indeed down through the history of the church this has been a standard way to describe the Christian journey. The emphasis placed on each movement may differ slightly from tradition to tradition (and the implications that follow from these differing emphases may be nontrivial), but still as a basic outline of the overall biblical narrative, this approach should allow for different traditions to find common ground.[4]

In the context of this grand narrative, then, it makes sense to begin our search for purpose with a consideration of the creation movement. After all, the creation account describes the world as God originally intended it to be. While the Fall interfered with this plan (and will need to be considered separately), it is still useful to start by considering what God had in mind at the very beginning.

The Brevity of the Creation Account

When we think of the Scripture story as comprising four grand movements, it is remarkable that the description of the first two of the four movements is completed by the end of the third chapter of the first book. Creation is described in Genesis 1–2.[5] The Fall is described in Genesis 3. Everything else in Scripture—the remainder of Genesis, the remaining thirty-eight books in the Old Testament and all of the New Testament—is given over to the great third movement of redemption and the fourth movement of consummation.

For our purposes the very brevity of the creation account should serve as an important reminder. First, it reminds us that God is most fully known in redemptive activity. In some ways, virtually the entire Bible tells the story of God’s efforts to restore the relationships that God desired from the beginning. It is a story of love—a love that is expressed in a constant reaching out, a grace that seeks communion with a rebellious people, consistently offering them that which they do not deserve. A theology of business must be set, first and foremost, in the context of God’s desire to restore this loving relationship.

Second, as we turn to the “creation movement” itself, the sheer brevity of this section of Scripture must give us pause as we seek to draw conclusions about God’s original plan. Here we find only the slightest of hints, almost imperceptible nods toward various aspects of divine truth. On the one hand, this brevity invites us to speculate from the tiniest of clues. On the other hand, it reminds us that for the most part we are speculating. The terse account reinforces our need for humility, reminding us that we must wrap our conclusions in a cloak of tentativeness. Much of the meaning of the creation story will necessarily remain shrouded in mystery.

Observations from Creation

With these cautions in mind, then, let us consider what observations we might make from the account of creation.

1. The material world matters to God. The observation that the material world matters to God is so obvious that it would be easy to overlook. Throughout the Genesis account of creation God makes material things, and each is declared good. Clearly, the material world matters to God. When God conceives of human flourishing, it involves, in part, the satisfaction of the material needs and desires of men and women.[6] Food that nourishes, roofs that hold out the rain, shade that protects from the heat of the sun—these are all part of God’s good design. When businesses produce material things that enhance the welfare of the community, they are engaged in work that matters to God.

2. Human beings are called to steward God’s creation. The Genesis account reminds us that the world was made by God and remains God’s creation. God made the heavens and the earth. God turned on the lights. God parted the waters to bring forth the sky as well as dry land. God made plants and wildlife, and for a finale, made human beings.

Nowhere in the account is there any suggestion, however, that title to creation was somehow then transferred to Adam and Eve. The only things given to them outright were “seed-bearing plants” and “fruits with seeds,” and these were only made available to them as food (Genesis 1:29). By the double reference to “seeds,” the account suggests that even in this provision for them, God did not intend to relinquish the ongoing productive capacity of God’s creation to human beings. They could eat the fruit, and the plants would continue to grow more fruit. In effect, Adam and Eve were invited to enjoy the income from God’s trust without invading the principal. God remained the owner. As the psalmist reminds us:

The earth is the LORD’s, and everything in it,
the world, and all who live in it;

for he founded it upon the seas
and established it upon the waters. (Psalm 24:1-2)

This is not to say, however, that Adam and Eve were mere passive beneficiaries of God’s largesse. They were given a role to play. In a shorthand way we can identify this role as one of “stewards” or in more modern parlance “trustees.” A steward (or trustee) is “a person who manages another’s property or financial affairs; one who administers anything as the agent of another.”[7] Human beings were called to steward God’s creation on God’s behalf. “The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it” (Genesis 2:15).

For Christians in business, acknowledging their role as stewards is an important first step toward understanding God’s intentions for business. Implicit in this acknowledgment is the conviction that the business does not belong to them or to any other earthly owners. It belongs to God. This sets the frame through which any consideration of shareholder or stakeholder rights must be viewed.

Of course, this is not the end of the inquiry. It is not enough just to conclude that we act as stewards of God’s creation. This conclusion invites the next question: if we are to manage creation for God’s purposes, what end should we be pursuing? What does the owner want us to do with the “trust corpus”?

Consider, by analogy, a family trust established today. In law, the trustee who agrees to administer the trust for the family is bound to follow the instructions of the one who formed and funded the trust, the trust’s “settlor.” These instructions are usually set forth in a trust agreement. To the extent that the agreement is silent on certain points, the law will fill in the gaps by implying certain duties for the trustee. For example, by law a trustee owes the trust his or her undivided loyalty. All self-dealing with trust assets is strictly prohibited. The trustee may not favor one class of beneficiaries over another and must diversify the portfolio to avoid unreasonable risk and so on. Moreover, subject to all of these constraints, the trustee’s charge is clear: he or she is to maximize the return on trust assets for the benefit of the trust beneficiaries.

By analogy, then, for Christians it is not enough just to declare that we act as God’s stewards. It is an important first step but not the end of the discussion. As stewards/trustees we need to know what our goal in managing the “trust corpus” is and what constraints we need to abide by along the way. More specifically, as stewards of God’s businesses, we need to know what our goal (or purpose) is when managing the business and what limitations we need to observe to manage the business in accordance with God’s desires.[8]

3. Human beings are made in the image of God. On three separate occasions we are told that human beings are made in the image of God.

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness.” . . . So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:26-27)

What does this mean? In what sense are human beings stamped with God’s image?

This is a difficult question to answer and Scripture gives few clues. Theologians have debated the issue at length. The notion that we have been created in God’s image is not confined to the Genesis account but is repeated on a number of occasions throughout the Scriptures. Evidently it involves a close parallel between the original and the image; on two occasions—2 Corinthians 4:4; Colossians 1:15—Christ is said to be the “image” of God the Father. It suggests that the image-bearer plays a role in revealing the essence of the Other.

At a minimum, however, we should find in the Genesis use of “image” an intent to reflect those characteristics of God that have already been described in the Genesis account. Specifically, two such characteristics are im...