Gospel Coalition

It is wonderful to discover others who can say what you feel and believe better than you can. I had that experience in reading the Gospel Coalition foundational documents. They capture well the core of the gospel, and begin to spell out the implications for engagement in commerce. I highly recommend reading them.

I pledge allegiance to the firm

One of the reasons that I believe that Christians are called out of the rank and file workforce, and yet into the very same fields as entrepreneurs is the unrighteous allegiance that employers demand. On working for the public school system, I was required to sign a statement saying that I would not proselytize, as a condition of employment. When I worked for a financial services firm, there were similar restrictions.

I see only these alternatives for those who claim Jesus as King:

• Refuse to sign the non-proselytism form (and be terminated)
• Sign the form, and then break your word by sharing the Gospel
• Sign the form, and do not share the Good News
• Start businesses based on the Gospel that don't claim the supreme allegiance of employees, but instead allow them freedom of conscience - to share the Gospel

If we follow the first, the fourth will become a necessity. If we do the second (which I have done), we violate our integrity, and diminish the power of the witness we intend to convey. If we do the third, we ought not to call ourselves Christians, because we have turned our allegiance from Christ to "the Firm."

In a context that increasingly demands of employees that they not share the Good News of Christ, I see gospel entrepreneurship as a necessity of witness and of conscience. If we can serve within organizations without butchering our conscience, then the impetus to entrepreneurship is simply witness. However, if employers demand our allegiance above Christ, both conscience and witness are compelling forces to start businesses based on the Gospel.

John Bunyan was not required by his employer to refrain from evangelism; rather he was restrained by his government from preaching the Good News. He was offered release, if only he would consent not to preach. John Piper explains:

So for 12 years Bunyan chooses prison and a clear conscience over freedom and a conscience soiled by the agreement not to preach. He could have had his freedom when he wanted it. . . . When asked to recant and not to preach he said, "If nothing will do unless I make of my conscience a continual butchery and slaughter-shop, unless, putting out my own eyes, I commit me to the blind to lead me, as I doubt not is desired by some, I have determined, the Almighty God being my help and shield, yet to suffer, if frail life might continue so long, even till the moss shall grow on mine eye-brows, rather than thus to violate my faith and principles." (source)

Bunyan had a wife, and four children (one of whom was blind) for whom to care. Yet he realized that he could choose neither to consent truly, or by way of pretense, and remain faithful to Christ. (His wife Elizabeth was wholehearted in her agreement. Her defense of her husband reveals her astonishing courage in support of her husband's integrity.) This is the kind of courage and love that I believe must drive us to stop making of our consciences a continual butchery, and establish enterprises that conform to, and commend the Gospel.