Christian business professionals have long had an uneasy relationship with the church. Not only does the church tend to privilege church and missionary service over business, but it often condemns business practices and implies the guilt of any participants. Yet there are signs that this dynamic is changing””not least because churches rely on the donations of business professionals.
Many pastors now visit their congregants at work to better understand their professional lives. Justin Buzzard, pastor of the Garden City Church in San Jose, Calif., wrote last year about ministering to professionals in his congregation. “It shows them that I care about their callings, how they spend 50-plus hours of their week.”
One hopes to see some striking evidence that this new “relationship” bears fruit in the business environment. If Christian business professionals have long had an uneasy relationship with the church, I wonder what churches they have been hanging around. In my experience, churches across denominations have eagerly sought out cozy relationships with businesses. As for condemning business practices and implying the guilt of participants, I have seen little evidence of that over the past forty years – save perhaps in the statements of bishops’ conferences and papal encyclicals, and those are casually dismissed by the WSJ and its allies as “naive” and “ignorant”.