Peter Thiel's brilliant interview question

Peter Thiel has a question that he likes to ask in interview settings: Tell me something that is true that very few people agree with you on. He explains:

The business version of this question is what great business is nobody building? And these questions turn out to be quite hard to answer for two somewhat different reasons. One of them is it's always hard to come up with new truths that people have not yet understood. Secondly, it also requires a bit of courage because you often have to go against social convention in pursuing certain lines of business. People discourage you from doing things that are strange and new.

It turns out that what defines entrepreneurial brilliance is also the mark of true Christians. What do we hold to be true that very few people agree on? Jesus is Lord.

Sure, we're allowed to have that as a "personal religious belief," but not to believe that it is actually true, and true for everyone (whether they know or accept it or not) and that He is actually making all things new. That is the scandal and the glory of Christian faith.

Thiel is absolutely right. It takes courage to affirm unaccepted truth in public. It takes wisdom and perseverance to act on that truth when very few others can see it. This is true in entrepreneurship. Steve Wozniak believed that a personal computers could be useful and ubiquitous. It is true at the leading edge of science. Copernicus made claims that contradicted what had been the established scientific consensus for centuries.

Contrary to the conventions of our culture since the Enlightenment, religious faith is not a distinct and inferior class of knowledge. It too, makes public claims of truth that contradict prevailing assumptions. It is news. It is good news.

So consider this scenario. You're a bright young entrepreneur, invited to visit Peter Thiel, who is interested in investing in you and your venture. And he asks you: Tell me something that is true that very few people agree with you on. Do you have the courage and confidence to say to one of the most clever and accomplished entrepreneurs and investors, "Jesus is Lord"?

Honestly, it is a whole lot easier for me to come up with a half dozen heretical business ideas. Thiel's question has forced me to look squarely at the truth of the Gospel and the courage it takes to affirm it in public.

Thank you, Peter.

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 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.