If there is anything we Americans hold in common this Christmas, it is fear.

I felt it creeping up my neck four weeks ago when my dad called me on the way to work. “Did you hear about San Bernardino?” I confessed I was behind on the news. “The Islamic State is here.”

That same day my wife stopped in to buy jeans at the Gap. A Muslim man was buying a jacket for his wife who was draped in an all-black hijab, showing only her eyes. My wife felt guilty for saying it, but she said what so many of us feel: “Jeff, I was a afraid.”

As Christmas approaches, the thorns of fear quietly infest American soil.

Yet my wife and I hold something in common with many Muslims today. They too are afraid. Since San Bernardino, many American Muslims have feared a backlash. And should they not be afraid? Donald Trump vows to expel Muslims from America, and has even hinted at creating internment camps. Ted Cruz has threatened to carpet bomb Raqqa, an ISIS stronghold in Syria, with little regard for innocent life.

Such indiscriminate fury shows that Pulitzer prize winner author Marilynne Robinson is right: “Contemporary America is full of fear.”

Yet American fear is not just directed toward Islamic jihadists.

I remember the day last year when Mozilla CEO Brandon Eich was forced to resign when news was published about his support of California’s Proposition 8, which sought to define marriage as between a man and a woman. The social media firestorm culminated in a message from OKCupid: “Those who seek to deny love and instead enforce misery, shame, and frustration are our enemies.”

I hold a traditional view of marriage. When I read those words, I remember thinking, “Could I, too, be sacked for my views of marriage?” I shut my office door. For the first time in my adult life, I felt fear living in America as a person of faith.

Yet again, I share this fear with many in the LGBT community. Many gays fear revealing their sexuality to co-workers will make them a target for exclusion. It’s even harder to be a transgender teen. Though I may disagree with the practice of gay marriage, I share something in common with many in the gay community: a fear of persecution.

Fear has even seeped into race relations. Ta-Nehisi’s heart-breaking letter to his son laments America’s heritage of violence toward African-Americans. Hopelessness among many blacks flows from Ferguson to Fergus Falls.

Conversely, many police officers in racially diverse neighborhoods fear increasing public criticism, wondering if they, too, are now becoming targets.

The ghost of Jacob Marley is roaming through American cities this Christmas, binding us with the chains of suspicion

But we can do something, right? We can be compassionate and show love. We can be different, right?

Over a month ago, I sent an impassioned plea to my congressman, begging him—for the love of God—to allow more refugees to enter the United States. The next day I received an official email reply: “I voted yes on H.R. 4038, the American Security Against Foreign Enemies (SAFE) Act.” Translation: keep out your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. We want safety. We are…afraid.

In the past month, I’ve felt a sense of desperation, perhaps best expressed by the atheist philosopher Bertrand Russell: “Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate this evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.”

As the fog of fear clouds American life, I’m reminded of a 12th century carol of longing: “O come, O come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel.” Who of us haven’t felt this captivity? Who of us haven’t longed for someone to “disperse the gloomy clouds of night, and put death’s dark shadows to flight?”

Many Americans will wander into Christmas eve services this year and hear the familiar story of a pregnant Jewish teenager, a nervous father, a baby laying in a feeding trough. And at the center of the story is an angelic announcement: “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people (Luke 2:10).”

Do not be afraid? Great joy? How could shepherds – working class and socially marginalized – embrace such a pronouncement? How could Jews, living under Roman oppression, dance again?

The Christmas story suggests there’s only one to antidote to fear: an unexpected gift.

The only way to cut through the uncertainty and anxiety of fear is to meet your enemy not with plans to defend ourselves, but with a particular sign of generous love.

Can we drive back the cloud of American fear? Yes. But not through higher walls, larger defense budgets, or by “taking back America” from them – whoever they are. The path forward is to move from hostility to hospitality. The path forward is to welcome the stranger into our homes, neighborhoods and workplaces.

Fear in American life is real. But grace drives out fear. Fear is crushed through generosity; it is dissolved through fellowship. Thorns may infest the ground from New York to Los Angeles, but “he comes to make his blessings flow, as far as the curse is found.”

To be a Christian in a time of dread means to direct all our hope toward a baby laying in a manger, of whom John the apostle would lone day write, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

Jeff Haanen is the executive director of Denver Institute for Faith & Work. Connect with him on Twitter @JeffHaanen.

A version of this essay first appeared on the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission website.

Culture Theology Work

What Greg Thompson Can Teach Us About Living as Christians in Cities

December 11, 2015

Occasionally you meet somebody that shines with such virtue that you are, perhaps for the first time, made aware of your own poverty of spirit.

When I met Greg Thompson during our Thriving Cities symposium in late October, I almost immediately felt the weight of his glory. Before speaking to the crowd, he almost desperately asked me to let him know if there was anybody I knew at the event who had a particular hurt or pain that he could pray for. Unlike my concerns (Will the event be a success? Will people “like” the evening?), it seemed to me that his vision for the renewal of cities was almost completely driven by an other-worldly love.

It’s rare that I go back over a talk that a DIFW speaker has given several times to take notes, underline, and to pray. But when Greg spoke about our “shared wound and shared calling” to reimagine what a virtuous civic life might look like, it was not just my mind, but through sitting under his teaching, quietly my heart was drawn to the beauty of his vision.

Here are six movements Greg Thompson encouraged us to make as Christian people living in cities today. ‎

1. We need to move from a posture of victimhood to servanthood.

“It’s true, of course, that [Christians] are in fact an increasingly marginal people, a trend that looks to continue for a really long while — like a hundred years probably. And it is true that simply by virtue of having moral norms that we cling to, we can be seen as a moral threat to the aspirations of our nation. But it’s also true that Christ is risen, and that while we may be marginalized, we can never be victimized, for heaven’s sake. And to the contrary, we don’t live in this world either as masters or as victims but as servants.”

Fear is rampant in American culture, says Pulitzer-Prize winning author Marilynne Robinson. And I’ve felt this fear too. Just saying you’re a Christian can be a recipe for career sabotage or becoming socially ostracized.

But fear is not a Christian habit of mind — love is. Even as Christians are losing public influence and public voice, Greg reminded me that night at the event that we may be pushed to the margins, but we need never adopt a mentality of victimhood. We are here neither as “culture-shapers” (masters) nor culture-defenders (victims) — we are simply servants. Those who have a deep, abiding hope in the risen Christ, and a enduring reason to love those with whom we live.

2. We need to move from hostility to hospitality.

“One of the most painfully evident aspects of the Church’s life — at least in public — is our fear and our contempt of those who differ from us. It is true that we do have and we must have deep differences with our neighbors. That’s what it means to have convictions in a pluralist age. And it is true that some of our neighbors are going to be hostile to us because we’re Christians… But it’s also true that God loved you and me while we were enemies. Our neighbors, every single one of them, is made in his image and they have an irreducible dignity. And we have to be the people — the poets — who can recognize the beauty where it is and welcome them in.”

As Greg said this, I was convicted. Do I assume that I’ll be persecuted for my faith in a secular city, and is that why I’m always defending myself before a conversation has ever begun? Why is it that as a shrinking minority I feel the need to assert my “rights” to live a Christian? How might I simply open my workplace, my office, my dining room table and share my life with those that disagree with me? This is what Christ has first done for me — yet what I also find so uncomfortable in the reality of my Tuesday mornings — and Saturday evenings.

Yet inviting in the stranger is perhaps one of the most powerful things people of Christian faith can do in this pluralistic age.

3. We need to move from competition to collaboration.

“One of the most disappointing afflictions in contemporary Christianity is the way that we seem more eager to build a brand for ourselves than to build a common good for us all…

“It is actually as we join together that we grow up into what [Paul] calls the full stature of mature, Christian personhood. And because of this, we’re called to labor diligently to situate our gifts not simply in relationship to our own personal sense of calling, but to our brothers and sisters — to not simply get up in the morning and ask ‘What do I want to do?’ but ask ‘What needs to be done?’ ‘Who’s doing it?’ and ‘How can I join them?’”

I’m guilty of this. We all are. Brands must be built — it’s the only way we can market our products in a noisy world. I get this. But can the boundaries between brands and competitors melt a bit? Can we find ways to work together with rival schools, rival tech companies, rival businesses — even “rival” churches — for the good of all? (Could we even find ways to bless our competitors?)

Finding a way to live in distinctive conviction yet humble collaboration is a huge challenge for the church today. And for me personally as I try to walk the narrow path of both conviction and compassion.

4. We need to move from an emphasis on the individual to the institutional.

“Social healing in a disintegrated age cannot — it literally cannot — be a product of focusing on individuals, or even of focusing on individuals in aggregate and hoping by some math it will add up to a transformed society. It doesn’t work that way.

“We have to have an institutional horizon to our love. And the reason for this is because the social order that we inhabit and all the individual lives that we have are inescapably institutional in nature. We are formed by institutions at every point, and so if we’re going to be a people who reimagine a civic ecology, we’re going to have to take institutions very serious and learn that it’s not unspiritual to do that.”

Government employees, professional service providers, waitresses, nurses, engineers and even pastors are formed not only by individuals, but by the shared values, ethos and pathos that grow up in groups of people. Renewed cities require renewed institutions. Perhaps if we begin the counter-cultural work of thinking institutionally, our witness and service to the city start to take hold.

5. We need to move from the merely political to the public.

“Politics does not in fact create [culture change], but actually expresses a larger cultural system of which it is a part. And so politics emerges out of this larger network of interpenetrating institutions that I’m calling the ‘public,’ or economics and politics and art and medicine and religion. All of these things together are forming an ecology. And because of this, we have to renounce our obsession with merely political change, because that is not how social healing works.”

Politics is downstream from culture. Because this is true, efforts to change the culture through electing the right officials will nearly always fail. Instead, culture springs up from an ecosystem of work — oil & gas, health care, finance, education, religion, restaurants and hotels.

Politics is important. It always has been for people of Christian faith. But being people of Christian faith in cities does not start in Washington D.C. It starts at work.

6. We need to move from a focus on cultural triumph to a focus on the common good.

“One of the saddest features of our current cultural setting, which is definitely on grim display during the political season, is our tendency to think of the goal of all of our labors is actually the goal of conquest. To think that we’re trying to win. This aspiration is to defeat our neighbors in a high-stakes culture war…

“But listen: It is true that we serve a king — King Jesus — who right now is enthroned on heaven. Right now. Ruling all things. And as an expression of his reign sends light and wind on the righteous and on the wicked alike. He’s giving gifts to people who are opposed to him.

“And what that means is, if that’s true of him, if we seek to inhabit his kingdom, where we seek the good not simply of ourselves, but of our neighbors… We are not trying to win; we are trying to love. Because of this, as we think about what it means to engage the city and to reimagine a civic ecology, we have to remember that our goal is not cultural conquest; it is to seek the common good.”

“We are not trying to win; we are trying to love.” This is what I meant earlier by the beauty of Greg’s vision. He’s on to something — a way of civic responsibility, yet also one of deep peace and deep joy.

In the end, the way of love is the path toward a renewed city.

This post first appeared on denverinstitute.org.

Nonprofit Work

Stories of Hope: A Reason to Be Generous

December 8, 2015

Today is Colorado Gives Day, Colorado’s biggest one-day event to give to your favorite nonprofit. As I take a look at the past year, I can see all kinds of reasons to give to Denver Institute for Faith & Work (but hey, since I’m the Executive Director, I’m biased!). But perhaps one of the best reasons to give is the stories of hope we’ve told this past year.

As you give today to your favorite charities, enjoy these stories of men and women in Colorado being a cultural witness to the “good news of great joy” (Luke 2:10) through their work. Merry Christmas!

Jim DeWeese, Owner of Trademark Electric, shares about his calling to hire a man from transitional housing and the satisfaction he finds in being a part of “God’s redemptive story” as an electrician.

Jim DeWeese – Trademark Electric from Denver Institute on Vimeo.

Ellen Snyder, a 91 year old volunteer, shares about her calling to serve at the St. Francis Center and live a more redemptive retirement.

Ellen Snyder – Saint Francis Center from Denver Institute on Vimeo.

Trevor Lee, pastor at Trailhead Church in Littleton, shares about his calling to pastoral ministry, and why he’s found joy in helping other men and women find their callings.

Trevor Lee – Trailhead Church from Denver Institute on Vimeo.

Matt Turner, CFO at MorningStar Senior Living, shares about how his company serves seniors and gives them a chance to live out their own callings in the last third of life.

Helen Hayes, a mother and former investment manager, shares about her struggle to balance work and family – and the joy of knowing she lives ultimately for an “Audience of One.”

Culture Work

An Open Letter to Howard Schultz: Why I Love the Red Starbucks Christmas Cups

December 7, 2015

Dear Howard,

Right now I’m at a Starbucks in Littleton, Colorado, sipping a double shot Americano, using your WiFi, and listening to Christmas music. I also noticed what fine, festive cups you’ve chosen to adorn your stores across the land.

As I admired their white, green and red simplicity, I also thought of all the flak you’ve received from Christians who apparently don’t like your red cups. I’m sorry about this. They don’t speak for all of us.

Let me give you the top ten reasons why I appreciate the red Starbucks Christmas cups:

10. They hold delicious beverages that I purchase several times a week.

9. They allow nearly 191,000 employees to serve their customers worldwide – and provide for their own livelihood as well.

8. They have a sticker with my name and drink order on it because of the highly efficient system you and your team have created to get my drink order right nearly every time I’ve ever been to a Starbucks.

7. They’re made from 10% post consumer recycled fiber, which makes me thankful you care about God’s good world.

6. They have a warning on them about not burning my tongue. How thoughtful.

5. They match the shimmering red and green bags of coffee beans for sale, not to mention the tinsel, holiday gift cards, and holly-adorned windows that decorate your store.

4. Their plastic tops have a slight hole next to my nose, which allows me to not spill my Americano all over my Macbook. Again, awfully thoughtful.

3. They also match the array of other Christmas products you offer, like ornaments, Advent calendars, Christmas cards, Christmas CDs and Christmas cookies. Feliz Navidad to you, Howard.

2. They’re also providing work for coffee farmers, plastic manufacturers, paper manufactures, drivers, and countless other people who depend on Starbucks to feed their families.

1. They remind me of the blood of Jesus.

Again, sorry so many Christians have given you a hard time. They’re my brothers and sisters – even the noisy ones who can be tough to get along with. But hey, we’re family. So I’ll stick with them even when they say ridiculous things.

All that to say Merry Christmas! May the “good news of great joy” (Luke 2:10) fill you – and all your employees – with delight and hope this holiday season.

Your customer,
Jeff Haanen

Littleton, Colorado

Craftsmanship & Manual Labor Economy

Consumerism: What Do People Really Want?

November 23, 2015

Editors’ Note: This article is part of the Patheos Public Square on Consumerism Gone Wild. It was first published on patheos.com.

Perhaps the best response to wealth disparity in America today can be summarized in two words: Karla Nugent.

Karla Nugent Karla is the Chief Business Development Officer at Weifield Group Electrical Contracting in Denver. In 2014, she won the Denver Business Journal’s 2014 Corporate Citizen of the year award. Why? Denver’s economy is booming, and as the economy has required more skilled laborers, Weifield has hired more electricians. In the building boom, Karla saw a chance to serve.

Behind Karla’s leadership, Weifield opened up a philanthropic arm that donates to four communities: women & children, head of household, military and “less fortunate.” But they also brought the needs of the community right into their company. She created an apprentice program in partnership with Denver Rescue Mission, Stout Street, and Peer One – local nonprofits that work with the homeless, formerly incarcerated and other at-risk communities.

Weifield hires people coming out of homeless or other at-risk situations to work in a pre-fabrication process. If new trainees can complete the process, Weifield will pay for 100% of their education to become fully certified electricians. Thus far, 43 out of 45 apprentices have made it through the program. Many have gone from homelessness to making an average of $50,000/yr.

After an in-house graduation ceremony for new electricians, a mother approached Karla in tears and said, “Everybody had given up on my son. But you believed in him. You gave him a new life. Thank you.”

Fury or Faithfulness?

Debates of wealth disparity in modern American life can generate a lot of fury.

There’s fury over the 1 percenters. How can CEOs make so much money while the wages of lower and middle class Americans stagnate? Isn’t capital bound to accumulate in the 21st century – unless we levy steep taxes on the wealthy?

There’s fury over plans to redistribute wealth. Haven’t government schemes to redistribute wealth trapped people in the welfare system – and been even less effective when given as aid to developing nations? Who is the government play Robin Hood – stealing from the rich and giving to the poor? Doesn’t it do more harm than good?

There’s fury over wasteful consumption. How can we pay so much for new houses, cars, cable TV plans, and trips to Cancun — while racking up ever more debt? Doesn’t our uncontrolled spending ignore the plight of the poor farmer in Nicaragua or the working single mother in Detroit, just looking for a chance to “make it?”

Much of this fury is understandable. I’ve felt it too. But is there a better way to heal the growing economic divide?

After observing people like Karla, I’ve decided to ask a different question: what do my low-income brothers and sisters really want? When we actually ask the poor what they really need, the answer is resoundingly clear: “We want a good job.”

Jim Clifton, the president of Gallup, says in The Coming Jobs War: “Of the 7 billion people in the world, there are 5 billion adults aged 15 and older. Of these 5 billion, 3 billion tell Gallup they desire a full-time job. Only 1.3 billion actually have a good job” (Gallup defines a good job as one with 30+ hours of work a week with a consistent paycheck from an employer.) Which means that 1.7 billion people are just looking for a good job to support their families.

When it comes to wealth disparity, the biblical testimony clearly has a central role for generosity (Mk. 12:41-44, Js 1.5, Matt. 5: 45, 7:11; Eph. 5:1, 1 Tim 6:6). God himself is generous. He gives freely to us, and we are to imitate his generosity with our time, skills and financial capital.

But the Bible also places an emphasis on allowing the poor the dignity of working to provide for their own needs.

Take the Old Testament practice of gleaning (Lev. 19:9-10). First, land owners were to leave the margins of their field unharvested. Second, they were not to pick up whatever fell to the ground. And third, they were to harvest their fields only once. Why? To allow the poor and resident aliens (immigrants) the chance to provide for their families through working the field and collecting enough food to support themselves.

It is not only through charity, but through work, that God had always intended to heal the inequalities of society and provide for the needs of the world.

So what would it look like to do this in modern American life? Let me suggest three ideas:

1. Create space for both generosity and gleaning in your company. Give generously of your profits. All mature Christian business owners I know do this. But also consider a program like Weifield Group’s apprentice program – whereby you reserve a portion of total new hires for the difficult-to-employ. My friend Wes Gardner also does this at Prime Trailer leasing – to the benefit of both the new employees and existing employees, who are energized by a renewed social mission of their company.

2. Teach, trust, give time. This the mantra of Julius Walls, former CEO of Greyston Bakery. Greyston provides the fudge brownies for Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream and also practices “open hiring.” Applying the concept of the biblical jubilee, Walls’ employees can be hired no matter their background. How can this work to hire ex-cons and former alcoholics? Teach, trust, give time. Teach them to do the job well; trust that they can do it; and give them time. Trust is key. Walls found that he was often the first person to have ever really trusted them. And the results were transformative.

3. Think big. John Coors was born wealthy. Heir to the Coors beer fortune, John has often felt a deep obligation to care for the poor, widow, orphan and foreigner (he has 10 kids , 6 adopted.) After seeing many donation-based schemes to help Africa’s poor collapse, he created 1001 Voices, a private equity fund in South Africa investing in high growth potential businesses in South Africa. Their first investment was in RedSun, a South-African raising processing business. It’s expected to create 3,700 jobs in 18 months, and provide workers with an average salary of $4,916/yr, in a municipality where the average household income per year is $2,625.

I can understand all the fury around modern wealth disparities. But instead of stirring up more online ruckus and partisan blame, let’s ask a different question. What would it look like to follow Karla’s lead and give to others the same gift God has given to us: the gift of work?

Culture Work

A Gift to the World

November 11, 2015

Several weeks ago, I sat down to share about the DIFW vision with a prospective donor. As I began to explain our mission, I could tell there was a mental obstacle.

“So, you can’t evangelize in schools or business or the government,” he said. “So what it is exactly you’re trying to accomplish?”

Before I could reply, the conversation moved to Chick-Fil-A and Hobby Lobby, and the contentious religious liberty issues surrounding the overt faith of their founders. Though I’m personally encouraged by the Cathy and Green families, I could tell that our organization was being sucked into a culture war, one that tends to see the Church as almost a drain on a liberal, pluralist society – one that impinges on the rights of the individual.

But instead of getting drawn into the culture wars, I instead decided to say what has been true for millennia: the church is a gift to the world. There’s a reason why we chose the title “A Gift to the City” for our recently release 2015 Impact Report. It’s worth remembering that for centuries, Christian men and women have seen their work as an opportunity to bring life to society. The Church has long been a blessing to all – both Christians and people of other faiths (or none at all).

How has the church been a gift to the world? A few examples come to mind:

1. The Church gave us the first universities. The University of Bologna (1088), the University of Paris (1150) and the University of Oxford (1167) all were born out of Christian cathedral schools and monastic schools, dedicated to not only training clergy, but also learning about law, astronomy, medicine, music, math, and the “trivium” – grammar, logic and rhetoric. Say what you will about the drawbacks of medieval Europe: all modern institutions of higher education have a historical debt to Christians believing that investigating God’s world could benefit society at large.

2. The Church gave us the foundations for capitalism. No, it didn’t start with Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations. Nor was it due to the Protestant work ethic. Rodney Stark has convincingly made the case in The Victory of Reason that the free market enterprise system was flowering in 12th century Italy. The supposed “dark ages” bloomed with inventions like the water wheel, horseshoes, fish farming, the three-field system of agriculture, eyeglasses and clocks. Why? There’s a good reason that capitalism didn’t arise in China, Islam, or the global south. Stark explains, “All of these remarkable developments can be traced to the unique Christian conviction that progress was a God-given obligation, entailed in the gift of reason.” Innovation, the power of reason, and the moral underpinning of capitalism (of which trust is the most important) all flowed not from either Roman law nor Greek idealism – but from Christianity.

3. The Church gave us the framework for human rights and democracy. Christianity offered to the world a doctrine which would forever reshape our political life: all people are made in the image of God. Everyone. Though a form of democracy did start in ancient Greece, we see in Plato’s Republic that his version of democracy is one we wouldn’t want to see anywhere today: a republic where only property owners could vote, where women and slaves were property, and where philosopher kings ruled. There was voting, for sure. But certainly not a government of the people, by the people and for the people.

The roots of democracy we enjoy today come principally from the Magna Carta, composed in the Christian West. (Which is one reason why today’s Chinese Communist Party leadership doesn’t want it touring around their neighborhood.) First drafted by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Magna Carta (1215) originally limited the rights of kings, but was later used in the Glorious Revolution and the American Revolution as precedent for protecting the rights of all people. Though nearly all societies have, at times, had their leaders approved by the people, the theological doctrine that all people are made in the image of God was the original source of one’s human rights – far before secular versions arose in the Enlightenment (See Terry Eagleton’s Reason, Faith and Revolution). Though the Church has also been guilty of violating human rights (i.e., The Inquisition), it has also been the source of the protections and rights we enjoy today in a liberal democracy. (If you need more convincing here, read Marcelo Pera’s Why We Should Call Ourselves Christians. It’s stunning.)

4. The Church gave us the birth of science. Isaac Newton did more theology than science, and Francis Bacon not only gave us the empirical method, but also worried that his methodology would be used by demons to distort its good intention. Sounds weird, but they lived in both the worlds of Christian theology and scientific inquiry. Talk of investigating the “book of nature” was a Christian idea – that we could see who God was both through Scripture and in his creation (Ps. 19, Rom. 1).

Often we only hear half of the story – that the Church opposed Copernicus’ heliocentric universe and persecuted Galileo, the “father of physics” and observational astronomy. But truth be told: Galileo’s run in with Pope Gregory XIII was more political than scientific (the Inquisition thought his biblical interpretation looked Protestant). His insights were initially adopted by Pope Gregory and used to revise the church calendar in 1582. Galileo himself believed that God had given us reason, senses and intellect and expected us to use them as tools to interpret Scripture. Galileo writes, “For since every truth is in agreement with all other truth, the truth of Holy Writ cannot be contrary to the solid reasons and experiences of human knowledge.” Generations of scientists, from Blaise Pascal to George Washington Carver (including a large number of prominent scientists today, like Francis Collins), are motivated by their faith to do science. Again, Stark makes the case that it’s the doctrine that God, the Logos, is a God of reason that led to science erupting not in China, Islam, India, or the Americas – but in the Christian West. Controversial thesis, I know. But hard to ignore the civilization in which the scientific revolution took place.

5. The Church gave us the art of Michelangelo and the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel is perhaps history’s greatest work of art. And Johann Sebastian Bach would often sign his symphonies Soli Deo Gloria (to God alone be the glory), one of the five “solas” of the reformation. Handel would often do the same. Artists for generations have drawn fuel from their faith – from Leonardo Davinci’s The Last Supper to contemporary artists like Makoto Fujimara. Bono isn’t half bad either.

6. The Church gave us the Civil Rights Movement. It also bears mentioning the Martin Luther King Jr was a Baptist preacher. The fundamental drive for Dr. King’s leadership in a nonviolent movement to correct “America’s original sin” (slavery, and hence racial discrimination) was a Christian notion of love – even love for one’s enemy. This was first and foremost a movement of churches – and only secondarily was it political. The Civil Rights Movement would have been impossible without the Church.

We could go on and speak of the monks in Ireland washing the feet of travelers and setting the precedent for modern hotels, or Basil of Caesarea creating arguably one of the first hospitals (at a time when many Romans abandoned the sick or dying in plague ridden cities – see Stark’s The Rise of Christianity), or heroines like Florence Nightingale who essentially founded the profession of nursing out of a sense of duty from God’s call.

Though any Christian would be quick to confess that we’ve sinned deeply in the past (the Thirty Years Wars comes to mind) and today as well (the tragic segregation that remains in our churches), we can’t forget: the church has long been a gift to the world.

So, with that, the question of the Church’s role in the world need not focus on fear-based arguing about losing a position of relative influence in the now post-Christian West. Instead, as those inspired most fundamentally by the grace of God (grace=gift), we can instead ask, What has God put in my hands that I might give to another? Instead of just going to church to get “filled up” by worship music and a sermon, might the Triune God actually use the Church to be the conduit of his abundant life to the entire human family (John 10:10b)?

Featured Photo: Christ Feeding the 5000

Economy World

Obsessed With Work – or Just Bored?: Bringing the Conversation About Work Across Acoma Street

October 27, 2015

It’s well past 1pm. Across Acoma Street, I see a woman in her early 20s, baggy sweat pants and cigarette hanging out her mouth, tossing an empty Mountain Dew bottle in a dumpster that’s been parked in her driveway for months. She squints at the sun, as if it’s an unwelcome guest disturbing her slumber.

Next door is a man, mid forties, sitting on his porch. Can of Coors Light in hand, he chats with his cat, as if expecting to hear a punch line to a joke. A broken beer bottle shimmers on his sidewalk.

Of course, being the upper white middle class office dweller that I am, I type emails furiously at my computer, staring at them both, wondering why they aren’t working. But maybe I shouldn’t be so shocked.

Some argue that our culture is obsessed with work. But is that really true?

To be fair, yes, it’s true for a narrow slice of the population. The top 10% define themselves – find their deepest worth and value – by their achievement. David Brooks describes them well. They’re often raised by “Uber moms” who give their kids Mandarin lessons at age 4, are playing Bach symphonies by 6, and refuse to eat anything other than Whole Foods veggie booty by age 8. These kids, says Brooks, “turn into the junior workaholics of America…By the time they’ve applied to schools, they’ve started six companies, cured three formerly fatal diseases, played obscure sports like Frisbee golf. When I ask my students what you are doing spring break, it’s like ‘You know I am unicycling across Thailand while reading to lepers.’”

The upper crust, many of whom are left-leaning, Ive League educated, urban and areligious, are often workaholics. And though I’m none of those, I too can make work an idol.

But truth be told, this is the minority of the American population. The majority of Americans view work as a disagreeable necessity to be avoided at all costs.

Though I’d rather not believe it, the statistics are convincing.

Each year, Gallup does a poll on workplace engagement. Over 70% of Americans are either “not-engaged” from their work or “disengaged,” meaning that over half of Americans are either just punching in and punching out, bored with their day-to-day tasks, or are actually so disgruntled they’re actually working against their boss’s agendas.

Cross reference that poll with worker “satisfaction.” By this count, a majority of employed Americans are ‘satisfied’ with their work. Not jazzed, but embracing a it-could-be-worse attitude.

But the most disturbing labor force trend has nothing to do with either engagement or mild satisfaction. It’s the labor participation rate. Today America has a 62.6% labor participation rate, the lowest rate in nearly four decades. Though we often pat ourselves on the dropping unemployment rate, that doesn’t count those who’ve stopped looking for work. (It only counts those who want to find work but can’t.)

I have several friends who own businesses in the trades. Everyone of the them is currently looking to fill positions for middle skilled and high skilled labor. And everyone of them says nearly the same thing: “We simply can’t find enough people who want to work hard.” High pay or not, taking a look at the American workforce today, you’d think the Protestant work ethic is a relic of the past.

Often we have an image of the hard working American that’s just trying to get by if only they could get a lucky break. Unfortunately, this is largely a fiction. Charles Murray’s book Coming Apart: The State of White America from 1960-2010 illustrates what our real blue collar America looks like. Consider Murray’s “Fishtown,” a statistical construct of white, blue collar America. Instead of the hard-working, industrious and virtuous American small town, today Fishtown is inhabited by women who routinely have children out of wedlock; less than a third of kids grow up with both biological parents; churchgoing rates have plummeted; and men “claim physical disability at astounding rates are are less likely to hold down jobs than in the past.”

But if this is broadly true – that the majority of America would rather not be working – we have a big problem on our hands. Why? Consider the warning about those not wanting to work in the book of Proverbs:

“I passed by the field of the sluggard
And by the vineyard of the man lacking sense,
And behold, it was completely overgrown with thistles;
Its surface was covered with nettles,
And its stone wall was broken down.
When I saw, I reflected upon it;
I looked, and received instruction.
“A little sleep, a little slumber,
A little folding of the hands to rest,”
Then your poverty will come as a robber
And your want like an armed man.”

(Proverbs 24:30-34)

Poverty is often a direct result of not working. Work produces wealth; laziness (by and large) produces destitution.

(I want to acknowledge that a good number of those living in poverty in the US are indeed working, but can’t afford to pay the bills on the wages they make. For these people, I’ve made the case publicly that we need to create good jobs for these people.)

But contrast that dire warning again laziness with the promise connected to those who do their work well:

“Do you see a man skilled in his work? He will stand before kings; He will not stand before obscure men.”

(Proverbs 22:29)

Work was meant to be an outlet for human creativity, a contribution to the well-being of our neighbors, the way we build a robust economy and human civilization. If a growing percentage of America sees work instead as a mere exchange of hours for dollars, a way to extract value from a community for personal gain, the entire system of our shared human civilization begins to deteriorate.

For a long time, those who’ve spoken about “faith and work” have primarily been that top 10% – those already inclined to see the value of work because they were raised with that ethic by successful parents.

But the real challenge moving forward to is begin conversations with our neighbors who live on the other side of Acoma Street. The opportunity here is to find a shared vision for work which crowns rich and poor alike with dignity, as all have been given unique skills that can be put to use to enliven families, communities and organizations.

The right view toward work can offer individuals not only a means of financial support, but a valued role in the community. Neither apathy nor idolatry need guide our view of work. Instead, a renewed emphasis on vocation, which is a life of service to God and man, can infuse our culture and economy with hope.

At minimum, it should make me quit typing and walk across the street and meet those who are not quite as “obsessed” with work as I am.

This post first appeared on denverinstitute.org.

Work

3 Signs We’ve Made Work an Idol

October 14, 2015

I think we were arguing about asparagus.

I had just sat down to dinner with my wife and three daughters (soon to be four), and amidst that cacophony of noise and food flying to plates, I started to eat. I love asparagus. I really do. But when I waited until half way through the meal to put in on my plate, my wife made a comment, I retorted, and before I knew it, we were arguing about asparagus.

She went downstairs and I started clearing the table, bewildered at what just had happened. My three girls were silent. So, in a vain attempt at humble confession, I said to our 6 year-old, “Sierra, there’s sin in the world. One day Jesus will come and wipe away all of our sin. You know what sin is, right Sierra?”

She replied. “Oh yeah dad. Like when you put Denver Institute in the place of God.”

I froze. What did she say? We had made no mention of work all night. And whether she hit it on the nail or God did it through here, the message was receive loud and clear: I was making my work an idol.

I thought about the prior weeks, and my work had started to become all-consuming. I couldn’t get it out of my mind on the weekends. I’d fall asleep at 8:30pm on the couch utterly exhausted. Patience was running slim with my family. Work had ceased to become a good gift from God’s hands. Instead it started to eat me.

As I reflect on the build up to that moment, I think there are at least three signs we can see in our lives when we make work an idol.

3 Signs We’ve Made Work an Idol

1. Exhaustion.

Always busy, and always tired. That’s the way many Americans live out their lives. Often, I’m the worst offender. Do one more text in the car (at a stoplight, of course); get in one more email; go in early; stay late. Squeeze in a bit more on the weekends.

Inevitably, exhaustion floods in. And as I started to hack out exercise and hobbies, I also started to become more irritable with everyone around me.

Oddly enough, I think this is as true for the over scheduled 2nd grader as it is for the mom juggling two part-time jobs, house cleaning, entertaining guests, and decorating a new shanty chic kitchen.

The late Dallas Willard used to start all his spiritual formation retreats with making people sleep until 9am. Their souls were as exhausted as their bodies. The reason? Work had become all consuming.

2. Fear.

What will happen if we don’t get more donors? What will happen if not enough people come to the next event? What will happen if my pitch gets rejected? What if? What if? What if?

Fear often drives us to overwork. What will happen if I don’t succeed? So we adopt the spirit of the rugged American individualist: “If it’s going to be, it’s up to me.”But underneath is the worry that I won’t have, I won’t succeed, I won’t (fill in the blank).

Jesus says, “Why do you worry about what you will eat or drink? Don’t you know your Father knows what you need?” At the heart of this fear is a deep loneliness. “I’m all alone in the world,” we whisper to ourselves, “and I have to do this by myself.

Praying and trusting God will provide –well, for a 21st century materialist, that’s a long shot, right?

No, I need to work harder. More. For salvation surely will come from the work of my own hands…

3. Pride.

Tim Keller once said, “Many modern people seek a kind of salvation – self-esteem and self-worth – from career success. This leads us to seek only high-paying, high-status jobs, and to ‘worship’ them in perverse ways.”

For so many, work is not just a job. It’s the chance to prove myself. My worth and value. Why is “busy” the #1 American answer to “How are you?” It’s because we want people to know just how important we are. It’s the heart’s never-ending quest for self-justification.

For many, work is how we centrally define ourselves in modern society, the way we measure our worth and success. When we do this, we no longer see work as worship – instead, we worship work.

Hush.

If you’ve ever seen these symptoms in your life, then what can me done? The biblical answer is rest.

“You shall work 6 days, but the 7th is to be a Sabbath to the Lord.” Why in the heck was breaking Sabbath punishable by death in the Old Testament? It’s because when we don’t rest, we make work an idol. And it violates the first command: You shall have no other gods before me. The very center of biblical faith is to love God will all you heart, mind, soul and strength. But when work supplants God, it immediately become destructive, just as all idols leave a trail of tears in their wake.

Sabbath reminds us that it’s not all up to us, but that God is our Provider. Sabbath reminds us that our identity comes from Him, not from our jobs. Sabbath brings a quiet rest to our soul.

Augustine recalls one of the final moments with his mother Monica that describes this kind of deep, inner peace. He says, “The tumult of the flesh was hushed. The water in the air was hushed. All dreams and shallow visions were hushed. The tongues were hushed. Everything that passes away was hushed. Self was hushed. And they moved into a sort of silence.”

It’s as if only in Sabbath can we hear that our very life (and work) is a gift from God. It is from Him that we have every good and perfect gift. And it’s from Him that we receive the peace that Jesus gave to his disciples (John 14:27). A peace that can them accompany our work days, uncertain as our jobs and professions may be.

The day after the Triune God spoke through my six year old to me after dinner, I took a long lunch. I swam a few laps at the pool. I then sat with my coffee at my office before I began to work, and said quietly to myself, “Jesus is Lord. ‘Be still. Know that I am God.’”

Economy Politics Work World

Let Them Eat Chicken: Religious Intolerance Is Bad for Business

September 24, 2015

by Chris Horst and Jeff Haanen

Denver is on the rise. Construction cranes line the streets around Union Station. New residents arrive faster than we can house them. But as Denver surges, will our city be a place where religious people are permitted to live and work? Given the recent news, it’s a fair question to ask.

Last month, a Denver federal appeals court ruled against Little Sisters of the Poor, a Catholic ministry serving low-income elderly and dying people in Colorado and around the world. The nuns believe new federal health care requirements force them to violate their faith by mandating they pay for abortion-inducing drugs for employees. Sister Loraine Marie Maguire, one of the nuns serving at Little Sisters of the Poor, said, “We… simply cannot choose between our care for the elderly poor and our faith.”

Then, last month, the Denver City Council impeded the approval of a new restaurant lease at Denver International Airport (DIA). The “normally routine” approval process met a roadblock when several members of the Council decided the religious and political views of the restaurant’s owner — Dan Cathy, founder of Chick-fil-A — did not meet their approval. To our knowledge, the Council has not interrogated the religious views of any other entrepreneur attempting to do business in Denver, nor has it defined which religious views are permissible.

Councilman Jolon Clark said Denver “can do better” than working with Chick-fil-A. Councilman Paul Lopez said his opposition to Cathy’s religious views is “really, truly a moral issue on the city.”

These two events illustrate a new hostility some Colorado lawmakers have toward religious expression. It’s important to clarify exactly what these lawmakers find inappropriate.

The Little Sisters of the Poor operate dozens of nursing homes worldwide for “the neediest elderly of every race and religion.” They do not discriminate in who they serve and only ask our government to allow them to provide health care plans to their employees that do not violate their most deeply held beliefs.

Chick-fil-A is in the restaurant business and is rated America’s favorite fast food. The Denver City Council has chosen to hold hostage the popular restaurant’s entrance into DIA not because the company has a history of discrimination towards its employees or customers. Consistently, Chick-fil-A outperforms its peers in these areas. It is solely because of the religious beliefs expressed by the company’s owner in 2012.

A year later, LGBT activist Shane Windmeye publically defended Cathy and Chick-fil-A in a Huffington Post article that described their friendship. Recently, The Denver Post Editorial Board rightly criticized the Council’s decision, asking, “Are corporate executives supposed to muzzle all opinion, or make sure their views mesh with the predominant outlook of politicians in cities where they’d like to do business?”

Denver celebrates its inclusiveness. But does our inclusiveness have room for religious people? To be clear, we do not believe these actions by the Council are akin to religious persecution, but we do believe they are unwise if we want our state to be hospitable to people of all religious perspectives — including views that differ from those of Little Sisters of the Poor and Cathy.

In 2007, anti-Muslim sentiment lead to the beating and robbery of an Iranian-American salon owner in Long Island. Her attackers said, “Your kind isn’t welcome here. You don’t belong here.” Colorado should continue to be a place where all people feel welcome. We want Colorado to live up to the sentiment captured by acclaimed writer Marilynne Robinson:

“Democracy, in its essence and genius, is imaginative love for and identification with a community with which, much of the time and in many ways, one may be in profound disagreement.”

The American experiment hinges on this very definition of democracy, on our ability to live peacefully with our neighbors with whom we hold divergent views. If the recent actions of our lawmakers are any indication, our inclusiveness only has room for views approved by whomever currently holds office.

Colorado has long been a beacon of freedom for people of diverse ethnicities, creeds and religious traditions. For now, the spirit of the West lives on. Two weeks after the Council’s initial delay of Chick-fil-A’s airport lease, a committee unanimously approved it. The construction crews are busy at work in Denver for now, but unchecked intolerance toward people of faith will not keep them here for long. It’s bad for business and bad for Colorado.

This post first appeared on denverinstitute.org.

Jeff Haanen is the executive director of Denver Institute for Faith & Work (@jeffhaanen). Chris Horst is the author of Mission Drift and vice president of development at HOPE International (@chrishorst).

Featured photo of the Denver City & County building by Boston Public Library on Flickr, used under this Creative Commons license.

Nonprofit

“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams”: An Interview with Randy Samelson

September 15, 2015

“I have a dream!” It wasn’t only Martin Luther King, Jr. who said those words. Every entrepreneur – whether in a business or a nonprofit – has dreamed of building a great organization and accomplishing an inspiring vision.

But most of those dreams hit a few speed bumps on the way. And too many dreams are often left to “someday,” and never see the light of day. Randon (Randy) Samelson, the founder of Counsel & Capital, has spent a lifetime around Christian leaders. His new book, Breakthrough: Unleashing the Power of a Proven Plan, was written for dreamers who want to actually see their aspirations accomplished. In this interview, Samelson shares about his career as an investor, a strategy for accomplishing any vision, and why King David’s own plan to build the temple should guide those who still dream today.

What in your personal work experience motivated you to write Breakthrough?

I’ve spent much of my life surrounded by Christian leaders, visionaries, and entrepreneurs. Almost all have had great and noble dreams. But at some point, all of them have been “stuck.” They have a goal, but they can’t seem to reach it. I’ve seen this with my friends and my children too, and even I have experienced the frustration of feeling “stuck.”

Some years ago, I read the Bible story of King David and Solomon. David had a dream of building a great Temple. I noticed that he followed a simple, six-step sequence to complete it, and along the way, he never seemed to get “stuck.” I was stunned when I realized that those same six-steps are where most people I’ve ever known have tripped up and become “stuck.”

So I decided to write Breakthrough to demonstrate how relevant the Bible is today, and how the story of David and Solomon can help people become unstuck. The more I’ve studied that story, and the more I’ve helped people who feel “stuck,” the more I’ve realized that following those six-steps can greatly enhance your ability to achieve your dream. I’ve realized that the Bible contains a perfect blueprint for turning dreams into realities.

Can you further explain the gap you often find between ‘right-brained’ ministry leaders and ‘left-brained’ business leaders?

The human brain has two hemispheres – the “left brain,” which is largely analytical and sequential, and the “right brain,” which is largely intuitive. In each person, one side usually dominates (sometimes a little, sometimes a lot) and this affects how he or she processes and responds to information.

Not surprisingly, many “left-brainers” pursue professions that complement their method of thinking: bankers, scientists, lawyers, accountants, and so on. Similarly, many “right-brainers” find themselves best suited for more creative endeavors: artists, writers, counselors, etc. This isn’t the rule, of course, but it’s often the norm.

I’ve seen this pattern in the Christian community. Very often, ministries are led by creative, passionate “right-brainers,” but their major donors are very often “lefties.” I regularly have ministry leader’s call to say, “We have great ideas, but we don’t have enough money,” while at the same time, wealthy donors call to say, “I have money and a desire to give, but I lack confidence in most nonprofits.” There’s a gap separating both groups, and it’s often because each side speaks a slightly different language based on right or left-brain thinking.

Thus, I believe the biggest opportunity is building bridges of confidence between these left-brain donors and ministries, while still maintaining their effective outreach to right-brain donors.

What can King David and his calling to build the Temple teach nonprofit executives about accomplishing their mission?

First, rely on the wisdom found in the Bible. King David had a dream that was an enormous and remarkable undertaking for his time. Not only did he achieve his dream, but his Temple remains a wonder of the ancient world, and still sits in the center stage of human history. King David followed six simple steps to turn his dream into a reality. Your dream may not be to build a Temple, but it’s still worthwhile to study the sequence David followed. No matter how big your dream, you can (and should) follow the same six steps:

An Inspiring Vision
A Credible Plan
The Right Leader
Initial Funding
Going Public
Sharing Credit

Breakthrough walks readers through these steps in detail, but anyone can start by reading the full story in 1 Chronicles 28-29. Understanding and applying this simple process will change your life and empower you to turn your dream into reality.

How does the model you laid out influence the strategy of Counsel and Capital?

First, we apply the six-step strategy to ourselves, and then we advocate it for others. We always start by asking our “key log” question, a concept we picked up from the logging industry. A long time ago, loggers discovered that the easiest way to transport felled trees is to put them in rivers and float them downstream. This is usually an efficient and effective method, but logjams inevitably occur somewhere. Instead of tackling the whole mess, the workers instead hunt for the “key log” – that one log causing the problem that, once removed, untangles the logjam.

We apply the same concept to individuals and ministries who are stuck or trapped in their own version of a logjam. So we ask them, “What one opportunity or obstacle, if captured or removed, would most advance your vision?” Usually, “money” is somewhere in the answer. But money is rarely the real problem.

So we work through the same six-step sequence until we find a problem or deficiency. Almost always, we find that the “key log” is in one of those six steps. And once that key log is identified and addressed, most ministries experience bursts of progress that get them back on track and out of their original logjam.

What practical advice would you give either business leaders or nonprofit leaders who have a dream they want to accomplish?

Read our book Breakthrough – Unleashing the Power of a Proven Plan. The single best piece of advice I can offer anyone with a dream is to follow David’s six-step sequence, in order. Start with a personal, inspiring, clear, and measurable vision. Follow that with a detailed, credible plan. Then, make sure your dream has the right leader. Secure initial funding first, and only then go public. Finally, share credit with those who helped you along the way. David followed the same six steps, in order, when he pursued his dream of building the Temple. If you have a dream, start by following the same sequence.

Beyond this, let me offer a few final pieces of advice. As hard as it may be, don’t jump from your vision or dream right to broad, public fundraising. I know that impatience is difficult to tackle, but planning is absolutely critical. Don’t make the mistake of skipping or skimping on your plan, and always put your plan in writing. If planning isn’t your strong suit, ask for help from someone who knows how to do it.

Finally, stay focused. Don’t chase the latest trends or hottest fundraising need. Build no more than three operating “silos” for your nonprofit. Know exactly what you want to do and then, to quote Henry David Thoreau, “Go confidently in the direction of your dreams.”