Mike's musings

Christ is my business

Someone said this to me recently, and it struck a cord. I'm involved in business, and I think that the work I do isn't anti-Christian, or unethical, and the colleagues with whom I work closely actually have a very strong ethical stance on many issues. In fact, I think that the work we do can do a great deal of good. But it's about generating profit, and wealth, and is that bad? This is a long, hard question, and a big question. Surely wealth creation allows society to pull itself up into a better (more technological?) position? The problem is that this is rather a second or third order derivative: where can we find a close action which is good, and clearly Christian?

Well, I'm employed, and I can keep my family in relative luxury. We (our company - but we, our family, in fact) employ other people. We allow them to create wealth (and keep their families in relative luxury, too). And our products keep other people employed. And they keep yet more people's data and money safer, too.

Those are all good things, but how do they sit alongside Christ's commandments on money and wealth? It's been pointed out (by Richard Harries and John Atherton among others) that the Old Testament is a lot more positive about profit and wealth creation than the New Testament is often read as being. I just don't know. I find myself worrying, often, whether I'm making excuses for making money and being rich. I don't love money, I really think I don't. And, over the last few years, have less and less interest in goods for their own sake. And that's despite being a gadget freak.

So, I guess part of the question is whether we're willing to accept those second and third order derivative Christian outcomes. And how much are we willing to stand up for the first order effects damage that our work can cause? I really believe that the first order damage for my work is minimal. But then there are issues such as power consumption, environmental effects, etc.

It never stops: you can keep chasing the guilt. One of the things that Alan (who said "Christ is my business", and didn't mean it in this way) said was that we can't allow guilt to rule our lives. We have to live out the good, and make the most of that. Wise words from a wise man.

Burn them

On a lighter note, I took a quiz on Facebook today, to find out how Calvinist I am: "How Reformed are you?". It turns out that I'm "Truly Reformed". The outcome of this seems that I should be out burning Arminians, which mainly means my Methodist friends. Oh, well.

Labels: christianity, humour, work