To live for something definite

"For the secret of man's being is not only to live . . . but to live for something definite. Without a firm notion of what he is living for, man will not accept life and will rather destroy himself than remain on earth." Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Entrepreneurs of Life p14)

Man without purpose

"The man without a purpose is like a ship without a rudder - a waif, a nothing, a no-man."

Thomas Carlyle (Entrepreneurs of Life p14)

Aligning interests

How do you know to what extent it is right to ask God to bless the work of your hands? This prayer is the measure:

To the degree that my work brings You glory, pour out Your blessing.

Aligning Interests
Praying like this aligns our interests. It says, "Inasmuch as I am seeking first your kingdom and righteousness, would you add all these other things that you've promised?" And implicitly it acknowledges that if our work does not glorify Him, that we dare not ask for blessing.

Any good business aligns the interests of the involved parties. For example, when I worked in the financial services, there was a major shift from commission revenue to fee-based revenue. The concept was simple. The broker should be paid for adding value - not for moving money around. When the investment grows, the broker gets paid more; he doesn't just get paid for buying and selling.

I would suggest that gospel entrepreneurship is simply that venture of creating value in the world that not only aligns the client/vendor/employee/owner relationships, but also aligns itself with the interests of the King and His Kingdom.

The duty to ask

"It is the duty of the church to ask what those beliefs and commitments [of the 'secular' state] are and to expose them to the light of the gospel. There is no genuinely missionary encounter of the gospel with our culture unless this happens." (Lesslie Newbigin, Foolishness to the Greeks p132)

I just wrote a post on closing the achievement gap that attempts to call precisely this question. As I wrote it, I realized just how often this needs to happen in our public discourse, and not just in conversations with those who already share our assumptions.

What is repentance?

In Peter's famous Pentecost sermon, the crowds were cut to the heart and asked him, "What shall we do?" and he replied, "Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins . . ." (Acts 3:38). From that time forward, the Church has called all people everywhere to repentance, faith and baptism. Yet the question must be asked, What is repentance?

John Piper, in a recent post, answered it well in a single sentence:

There is no clear dividing line between biblical repentance and Christ-exalting civic engagement.

In other words, the repentance required is to be lived out in the daily realities of families, vocation, communities and nations. It entails supreme allegiance to Jesus as King, not just as a theological doctrine, but in practical obedience. Hence Jesus' command, "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's," and John the Baptist's eminently practical counsel to those who asked what it meant to bear fruit in keeping with repentance:

And the crowds asked him, “What then shall we do?” And he answered them, “Whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise.” Tax collectors also came to be baptized and said to him, “Teacher, what shall we do?” And he said to them, “Collect no more than you are authorized to do.” Soldiers also asked him, “And we, what shall we do?” And he said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or by false accusation, and be content with your wages.” (Luke 3:10-14)

For those of us who have inherited a 'separation of church and state' mentality, this is itself a call to repentance. An essential step in repentance is to recognize and repent of this assumption that the gospel is a private, personal, inward matter of faith in Christ, and not a public repentance in our civic engagement.

The way gospel entrepreneurs spread hope

At the Entrepreurship Forum this year I saw the relationship between hope, glory, and entrepreneurship in a way that I had never seen it before. Two texts came together in a remarkable way. First, Romans 5:2,

". . . we rejoice in hope of the glory of God."

That sounds very spiritual and otherworldly. It doesn't sound like the kind of thing that calls us to engage diligently in the daily responsibilities of life. How does that translate into life here and now?

"And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord,are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another" (2 Cor 3:18).

Our business as entrepreneurs is to gaze on the glory of God in the face of Christ day after day, such that we rejoice in the hope of its fullness, we reflect to the world in our countenance the glory of God, and we sustain no illusions that what we see here is all there is.

A radically different vision

The power of a human mind to think rationally is only developed in a tradition which itself depends on the experience of previous generations. This is obviously true of the vast edifice of modern science sustained by the scientific community. The definition of what is reasonable and what is not will be conditioned by the tradition within which the matter is being discussed. . .

It is no secret, indeed it has been affirmed from the beginning, that the gospel gives rise to a new plausibility structure, a radically different vision of things from those that shape all human cultures apart from the gospel. The Church, therefore, as the bearer of the gospel, inhabits a plausibility structure that is at variance with, and which calls in question, those that govern all human cultures without exception. (Gospel in a Pluralist Society p9)

The business of gospel entrepreneurship is to create ventures that embody this vision, and call into question the cultures around them.

The necessity of assumptions

"No coherent thought is possible without taking some things as given. It is not difficult to show, in respect of every branch of knowledge as it is taught in schools and colleges, that there are things taken for granted and not questioned, things which could be questioned. No coherent thought is possible without presuppositions. What is required for honest thinking is that one should be as explicit as possible about what these presuppositions are. The presupposition of all valid and coherent Christian thinking is that God has acted to reveal and effect his purpose for the world in the manner made known in the Bible. " (Gospel in a Pluralist Society p8)

To elucidate these assumptions, I have found few more helpful questions than those Andy Crouch offers in Culture Making:

1. What does this cultural good assume about the way the world is?
2. What does this cultural good assume about the way the world ought to be?

In creating new opportunities that announce and embody the good news of Christ, we need questions like this to help us examine our assumptions so that we may do honest, faithful Christian thinking . . . and action. In so doing, our actions ought to call into question all aspects of culture that are gospel-rejecting.

Gospel: the foundation of all knowing and doing

I have been re-reading The Gospel in a Pluralist Society and can't help sharing some of the many gems:

"Something radically new has been given, something which cannot be derived from rational reflection on the experiences available to all people. It is a new fact, to be received in faith as a gift of grace. And what is thus given claims to be the truth, not just a possible opinion. It is the rock which must either become the foundation of all knowing and doing, or else the stone on which one stumbles and falls to disaster. Those who, through no wit or wisdom or godliness of their own, have been entrusted with this message can in no way demonstrate the truth on the basis of some other alleged certainties: they can only live by it and announce it. " (p6)

That is the business of gospel entrepreneurship - in new economic enterprises to live by and announce this message of the gospel that is foolishness to those who are perishing, and a rock of offense to those who do not believe, in the hope that through the foolishness of what we live and speak, God will save those who believe.

Acknowledging that others have different assumptions

In my experience, many Christians (myself included) often assume that their listeners share assumptions about the existence and nature of God, and the authority of the Bible. I don't want to fall into those assumptions; I need to remind myself that my friends and acquaintances have diverse theistic, atheistic, agnostic and humanist assumptions. So if I use the word 'God' without explaining what I mean, my listeners may take a very different meaning.

Positively, here is how I think the issues of parenting (which is both my responsibility, and connected to my vocation) open the door for sharing the gospel and respectfully challenging the assumptions of others:

When disciplining a child, every parent knows that something has gone wrong. But many of us have been taught that discipline is simply adjusting the rewards and punishments to manipulate a child's behavior. The thought is that if we sufficiently balance the incentives and consequences, our children's behavior will be effectively modified. But is this a satisfying answer? Do we like it as adults when others try to manipulate our behavior using the carrot and stick? Or do our hearts still yearn to be treated as responsible, moral people who can and should make right decisions? If we simply try to manipulate our children's behavior, will they be left with the same frustration and longing to be treated as responsible human beings? Moreover, how do we decide what is best for our children? How do we know what to encourage, and what to reprove? Ultimately, if our children see that the expectations of them are not rooted in a true vision of the way things really are, they'll see through our hypocrisy and go their own way. We can't simply prop up a set of family ethics that is useful for keeping the peace, but doesn't fit with the world in which we really live.

I believe that the purpose of human existence - which defines what is good and worthy, and what is wrong and shameful - has been revealed in the Bible by the one true God who created all things. This God created humanity for true relatedness to Himself and to one another. In our frequent wrongs, we disfigure those relationships and corrupt our hearts in such a way that we need both forgiveness and help. In the person of Jesus Christ, God has provided forgiveness for those who will trust Him; furthermore, by trusting Jesus, He gives frail, broken people the power to live in restored relationship with Him, and with other people.

As parents, that means that we don't address merely our children's behavior in discipline. We address their hearts, and their relationships. Our discipline must seek to restore the broken relationships through confession, forgiveness, repentance, and when necessary, restitution. It must also address the child's heart that has chosen a wrong and unwise path. In discipline, it is the responsibility of the parents to teach the child to be responsible: to admit what was wrong, to recognize the occasion of their fault, to consider possible wise alternatives, to seek forgiveness from those they have wronged, and to seek help from God in changing.

Parenting provides a unique insight into our own need, and our quest for meaning. It creates the opportunity for us to ask good questions, and to testify to the truth we have experienced.

Spending or investing?

In common use, English speakers often say that they spend time. "I spent the past week with my in-laws." It is indeed monetary language, which acknowledges that time is precious. To use time is to spend it. And how we use our time is eminently important, because no person has more time than any other. To each person is allotted the same 24 hours in each day.

Not long ago, I was describing to a friend my time at home with my daughter during my wife's pediatric residency. It occurred to me that it was much more true to say that I had invested three years in nurturing and raising my daughter, than to say I had spent that time.

That realization caused me to ponder: how do we invest our time? Where are we looking for interest and dividends? A great many people invest an inordinate amount of time in work. So it is fair to ask them: Do you expect to still be part this company or organization in 20 years? Compare that to your relationships. Are you married? Do you expect to be married in 20 years? Do you have children? Do you expect to still be in relationship with them in 20 years?

Where are you investing your time?

Gross National Virtue

We need a new language for a new economy. For too long we have measured economies in terms of goods produced rather than good done. And it is quite understandable; goods are far more easily quantified than good. Yet it is a fatal flaw.

The primary measure of an economy is justice, not productivity. As we are witnessing, productivity can very quickly ebb and flow. Justice however, forms the condition under which humanity can flourish. Whether the market is up or down, and the GNP is skyrocketing or tanking, the most important measure is the justice of the economy.

We need to begin to assess our gross national virtue instead of our gross national product. When we do, we will be ashamed of where we are, but will be in the only point from which a healthy economy can be established: from confession and repentance.

Concentration of Risk

When I talk with people about the economy, I often end up saying the same thing: Concentration of control or capital is concentration of risk. I take that as a basic assumption about economics of scale.

I was pleased to see that Peter Bregman from the Harvard Business Review agrees. In Why Small Companies Will Win in this Economy, Bregman points back to the fundamentals:

Small companies with low overhead, reliable owners, a small number of committed employees, personal client relationships, and sustainable business models that drive a reasonable profit are the great opportunity of our time.

Small is the new big. Sustainable is the new growth. Trust is the new competitive advantage.

The fact is that these are not just the great opportunity of our time; they are the fundamentals of any time. Small businesses allow for a level of trust and personal connection - among employees, and between employees and clients - that are difficult, if not impossible, for large entities to match.

Why is this so? The gospel tells us that we were made for true relatedness - with God and one another. The only way that trust and true mutual relatedness grow is in real relationships. And these thrive, not in big groups, but small. This is one of the many ways that gospel entrepreneurs can embody and offer hope in a famine of hope.

Evil in the economy

Yesterday I saw this headline in Business Week: Wall Street's Economic Crimes Against Humanity. In the article, Shoshana Zuboff assails the moral judgment of the suit and tie folks who work on Wall Street in the 'banality of evil' in which they indulged. In shocking terms for a major article in Business Week, she pounds and the personal responsibility of those involved, and not merely of the gigantic entities for which they worked. For the first time in a long time, the word evil has entered the vocabulary of capitalism. It recalled to me this insightful section from Lesslie Newbigin:

"But to say that capitalism requires a certain kind of moral foundation is to say that capitalism cannot survive permanently in a purely secular society. To quote a recent writer, 'The disinterested devotion which was vital to the creation of the capitalist world order and to the public life of industrial nations and which rested on a religious idea-system appears to be a type of moral capital debt which is no longer being serviced.' but this means that capitalism cannot be a self-sustaining system. It depends on the moral-cultural system and cannot be separated from it. But moral imperatives cannot operate merely as useful props for a profitable economic order. If they are not rooted in some belief about how the universe is in fact ordered, they collapse; and if they are so rooted, then the economic order cannot be isolated from their jurisdiction. If capitalism depends on the insights of a moral conscience, then that conscience has to have authority over the working of capitalist economics. (Foolishness to the Greeks p112).

Why is it that those whom Zuboff condemns so strongly were unaware of their banal evil? It certainly has to do with the mediation which Zuboff identifies in shielding them from those whom they exploited. But far more profoundly, the story that they had embraced - the story of limitless growth - was separated from the moral-cultural system which it rejected.

If there is to be real reform now, moral imperatives cannot be used merely as 'props for a profitable economic order.' They must be rooted in reality - which is precisely why Christians must engage in the public discourse about the purpose of society and economies. We testify to the One for whom, and by whom all things exist.

Exposing assumptions

Today I received an email from Avaaz, an activist organization, calling on me to petition the Pope to change his position on condoms:

This week, on his first visit to Africa, Pope Benedict said that "[AIDS] cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which even aggravates the problems".

The Pope's statement is at odds with the research on AIDS prevention, and a setback to decades of hard work on AIDS education and awareness. With powerful moral influence over more than 1.1 billion Catholics in the world, and 22 million HIV positive Africans, these words could dramatically affect the AIDS pandemic and put millions of lives at risk. Worldwide concern is starting to show results and a willingness by the Vatican to revise the statement - sign our urgent petition asking the Pope to take care not to undermine proven AIDS prevention strategies:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/pope_benedict_petition

The personal beliefs of Catholics and all people should be respected, and the Pope does advocate for other AIDS prevention methods such as abstinence and fidelity that can be effective when combined with condom use. The Catholic Church engages in a vast amount of social service work, including the care of those living with AIDS. But the Pope's claim that condom distribution is not an effective AIDS prevention mechanism is not supported by research. It's untrue, and if it diminishes condom use, it will be deadly.

To expose assumptions, it is helpful to use Andy Crouch's questions:

1. What does this email assume about the way the world is?
   It assumes that the "personal beliefs" of Catholics and all people should be treated as private beliefs. It further assumes that the Pope's support for abstinence and fidelity is ineffective without condom use.
2. What does this email assume about the way the world should be?
   It assumes that people should be able to have sexual intercourse without accepting the consequences of those actions.

Why does this matter for gospel entrepreneurship?
Entrepreneurs are those who see a social problem and address it in a way that creates wealth and opportunity. HIV/AIDS is clearly a social problem. And there are hundreds of organizations devoted to addressing the problem.

How is gospel entrepreneurship here different from social entrepreneurship?
The good news of Christ says that the baseline state of humanity is rebellion against the one true God, who made us for Himself. The good news does not offer freedom for license, but forgiveness through Christ and freedom to live in the way we were created to live.

What the Pope is doing is simply restating the injunction of Hebrews 13:4, "Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled . . ."

Consider for a moment what would happen if these two rules were upheld. First, the primary means of HIV transmission (promiscuous sexual activity) would be eradicated. Second, the single best predictor of child poverty (being born out of wedlock) would be eliminated. The impact for education and healthcare is similarly staggering.

So why is Avaaz up in arms? It comes down to the assumptions defined above. Christians have good reason for heeding the first half of Hebrews 13:4, because the second half reads, " . . . for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous." Our convictions are grounded in a view of reality that is fundamentally different from Avaaz. Avaaz cares deeply about current human suffering, but does not see a connection between human responsibility and current - and final, eternal - suffering.

What to do?
Emails like this provide the occasion for meaningful interaction about assumptions - and about the gospel. We can easily become distracted by discussing conclusions: whether or not we should encourage condom use. But the reason we arrive at different conclusions is because we start in fundamentally different places. The pope, and Christians everywhere, now have a great opportunity to share the hope that we have - the gospel that is our starting place. Christian organizations that engage these issues need not be ashamed of their position, but have ample opportunity to explain their assumptions.

Investing time

It is often said that the one thing of which everyone has an equal amount is time. The rich have no more than the poor in a day. On this footing, at least, we are equal.

Jesus often told stories that emphasized our role as stewards, those who care for something that belongs to one greater than us. So it is worth considering our stewardship of time. Each of us is given the same amount with which to honor the Master. Do we invest that time? Or hoard it? Or squander it?

Not long ago I was writing a blurb for a piece on Tumblon explaining my decision to leave teaching in order to provide full-time care to my daughter while my wife completed her pediatric residency. I discovered that the most helpful expression to describe what I had done was this: I took a child care leave to invest three years in my relationship with my daughter. It was a calculated investment. The return on that time spent loving and nurturing my child was far greater than what I could have "earned" as a teacher.

That experience has led me to ask more often: How am I investing my time?