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Seeing business through this lens of redemption enhances the Christian discipleship of business owners, as it affirms not only the instrumental but also the intrinsic value of business as a holy calling. The owner of a dry cleaner, a company engineer, a stock analyst, a grocer, or a chief financial officer can all recognize intrinsic value in their work as God-ordained activity.

A Christian "does not work simply to make money or to pay the bills," Sir Fred Catherwood once wrote. "He works because it is part of the divine order that he should work."

Business is indeed a sacred calling. In the provision of goods and services we encounter the sacred: people who exist in the image of God and the natural resources that belong to him. The Christians who operate Chick-fil-A, ServiceMaster, Interstate Batteries, R. W. Beckett Corp., and many other companies with godly values give on-the-ground expression to the sacredness of the calling.

Rather than being either ignorant of, or hostile to, the place of business in God's kingdom, we can both practice and preach a theology that reveals the glory of God in the rough and tumble of the marketplace.

Jeff Van Duzer is dean of Seattle Pacific University's School of Business and Economics. Tim Dearborn is the university's dean of the chapel and associate professor of theology.

Also appearing on our site today:

Bad Company Corrupts | Michael Novak, theological champion of the free market, reflects on what recent business scandals mean for church and state.

The February Christianity Today cover package looks at New Age spirituality in business. Articles include:

The Higher Self Gets Down to Business | An old movement appears anew—in the corporate world. (Jan. 24, 2002)

Utopia or Kingdom Come? | Discerning wheat from chaff in the new business spirituality. (Jan. 24, 2002)

Prosperity Consciousness | How the higher self gets down to business. (Jan. 24, 2002)

Christianity Today articles on ethics in business include:

The Wages of Secularism | New laws won't prevent another Enron. (June 4, 2002)

Morals for the Marketplace | A treasury of ethical capital for men and women in the world of business. (Feb. 3, 1997)

Holding Corporate America Accountable | Christians press for greater responsibility from businesses. (October 28, 1996)

For more articles, see Christianity Today'sMoney and Business archive.

Christianity Today sister publication Books & Culture recently examined the lessons of the Enron scandal.

In a Washington Post piece last summer, Prison Fellowship founder (and Christianity Today columnist) Charles Colson responded to the paper's editorial assertion that "it is naive to suppose that business can be regulated by some kind of national honor code." Colson also wrote on the need for more than just new laws in his regular CT column.

In August, Christian Science Monitor wrote on faith-based groups, like the Business Leadership and Spirituality Network and the Mockler Center for Faith and Ethics in the Workplace, who are working to close the gap between personal beliefs and corporate behavior

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February 2003, Vol. 47, No. 2