Can a Businessman be a Christian?

"Welcome Home", bronze by Tim Holmes

I don't see how a Christian can be in business without giving up their faith. Those values systems are mutually exclusive. If you're a business person you can also be a Christian on the weekend, but no one can serve two masters.

Say you own a food store. The first person to steal an apple throws your whole soul into a contest between your career and your faith. Of course what we do in our culture is you call the police and arrest the guy because of our social contract which says that stealing or not paying your bill is illegal. So, leaning on the law, you can force collection or send the guy to jail without any hesitation, though clearly you did not feed the hungry.

In fact, this scenario comes perilously close to what the Mafia does if a guy doesn't pay a protection fee: take the guy's kneecaps off! Nowhere in our One Nation Under God, in whose currency we claim to trust, is there a Christian asterisk for the penal code: *except in cases of hardship, sickness or nakedness.

So if Christianity is not intended for the business world, for what alternative world is it intended? Some Sunday school planet filled with people already screened for purity? (This is exactly what some organized religions try to create inside their walls!) In the end is your faith really anything more than a lovely idea, a slogan on a Hallmark card? 

 

Love your God with all your might and your neighbor as yourself.

Let not the right hand know what the left hand is doing.

Feed my sheep.

 

The Christian call is bloody serious! Am I missing something? We are called to love our neighbors as ourselves, which means taking up a cross (that's an instument of torture, not a pretty piece of jewelry.) It's very clear! Either admit your faith is reduced to common courtesy, or abandon business as usual and become a Christian!