Comparative Devotionalism: Hinduism and Christianity

I suspect that many people would feel very uncomfortable watching a religious person express devotional love to that person’s chosen deity in a very emotional and effusive manner. The sheer emotional intensity amid the dancing and chanting in a Hare Krishna temple can be daunting to a visitor. The phenomenon of what in Hinduism is called bhukti is hardly rare, and this begs the question of whether there is a human instinctual urge to feel and express even lifelong loving devotion to an entity that is not based in the created realm and thus cannot be realized and instantiated as another human being can be and is. Whether there is a phenomenon that is human, thus beyond the manifestations in various religions can go a long way in answering the question of whether an innate instinctual urge exists, even if it is more pressing in some people than in others. Some people, for instance, work their whole life in business, while other business practitioners reach a certain point in years when they “check out,” and head to a divinity school or seminary. Still other people assume religious vocations as young adults and spend the rest of their life ministering to people and officiating at religious rituals. Some people spend their entire life without feeling devotional love directed to a deity, while other people, such as the Hindu mystic, Ramakrishna, are utterly consumed by the inward fire of religious devotion. Was Ramakrishna’s devotion different in kind from a Christian’s intense love of Jesus, or is there what can be termed a human bhakti phenomenon, and if so, is it capable of breaking down religious barriers that can excite animosity and even hatred?

Jess Navarette, speaking at Harvard’s Bhakti Yoga conference in March, 2025, discussed comparative Bhakti by looking at Hindu and Christian parallels. Bhakti yoga is the practice of loving devotion. There is a coherent thread back to the Vedas, and devotion to Krishna is salient in several of the chapters of the Bhagavad-Gita. In chapter 7 alone, Krishna tells Arjuna, “Here (now), O son-of-Pritha, how, [with] the mind attached to Me, engaged in Yoga, [with] Me as refuge, you may know Me fully, without doubt.”[1] Taking refuge is other than epistemological (i.e., knowing), as dependence is involved. Furthermore, Krishna says that people who act meritoriously and for “whom evil has come to an end” are those who “worship” Krishna rather than the other deities.[2] Because the early-medieval Hindu theologian and philosopher Shankara claims that even in the Gita, achieving the realization that one’s self (atman) is identical to brahman, which is being itself and is conscious or aware, it is important to stress that Bhakti devotion to a deity involves more than just knowing the deity’s higher nature; loving devotion, such as is evinced in worshipping a deity, is the essence of bhakti.

Although it is problematic to apply the Hindu term bhakti to other religions, such as Christianity, just as applying the word “God” to brahman is also problematic, devotion to a deity is in other religions besides Hinduism, and by looking at the similarities, the phenomenon of religious devotion can be better understood because the artifacts of particular religions can be distinguished from the trans-religious phenomenon itself. This, by the way, is an excellent reason for studying comparative religion or theology, though such an orientation comes with the opportunity cost of the foregone benefits of specializing in one religion.

One such bhukti parallel pertains to Jesus washing the disciples’ feet[3] and Krishna washing Sudama’s feet.[4] Both Lord Jesus and Lord Krishna commend service by leading by example. Also, both highlight the closeness of God and the intimacy that is possible in loving devotion.  Finally, both passages imply the personal care and attention that the Son of God and Lord Krishna give to humans, who should thus be humble (and grateful) in return, for such care and attention is voluntary.

Another parallel of devotion to God pertains to Judaism and Christianity, and this similarity will lead us to back to making Hindu-Christian comparisons. Deuteronomy 6:5 says, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and strength” and Matthew 22:37-40 says, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.” Although the latter extends love to interpersonal relations, both passages are very direct in issuing the imperative that devotional love is to be directed to God. Of the thought of Gregory of Nyssa (4^th century), Navarette wrote, “The perfection of human nature consists in being united with God by a kind of devotion which leads the soul to love Him above all things.”  Furthermore, Francis of Assisi’s prayer includes “to be loved as to love.”

It may that in the Hindu Gita, love itself is not so explicitly mentioned by Krishna, whereas taking refuge in and worshiping Krishna are more explicitly demanded, yet this does not mean that devotional love is not much desired by Krishna in the Gita as by the Christian God. Rather, it may be the case that Christianity builds on the passage in Deuteronomy to be known as the religion of love, hence both Paul and Augustine wrote that God is love. Devotion is to be directed to pure (agape) love itself. Is this the epitome of bhukti, or is the Hindu articulation really all that different from being devoted to love personified (or as an entity, rather than impersonal), especially considering the example of Ramakrishna in the nineteenth century?  After all, as a Hindu devotee of Kali the goddess of death, Ramakrishna was so authentically and lovingly devoted to her that a brahmin priest let Ramakrishna speak extemporaneously during a ritual. His devotion to Kali was certainly no less than that of Thérèse of Lisieux and that of Gertrud of Helfta to the Christian Lord Jesus. Both women were cloistered Christian nuns; at the very least they had few distractions, so they could devote themselves entirely to being devoted in love to Jesus.

Taking refuge in Krishna is not so far off, and, as stated above, it is more emotional than knowing Krishna’s higher nature epistemologically. It may be that the intimacy itself (e.g., high trust) that is inherent in taking refuge in a deity is none other than love, as in the old expression, where there’s smoke, there’s fire; or, taking refuge could be in terms of ontological dependence that is a micro reflection of the fact that creation is dependent on Krishna’s creative force. Perhaps in teasing out the relationship between love and radical dependence, taking refuge in Krishna can be compared with the bridal imagery that has been so often appropriated by Christian mystics—nuns being known as brides of Christ. Certainly historically, there has been much interpersonal and societally-structured dependence in the marriage relationship between a husband and a wife; presumably love has existed in at least some of those relationships in spite of the dependence of (especially pregnant) wives on their respective “bread winners.”

Origen of Alexandria (185-254 CE) wrote on the Song of Songs of the Old Testament, treating the religious poem as an allegory of the relationship between the soul and God. According to Navarette, for Origin “the bride symbolizes the soul, while the bridegroom represents Christ”, and the objective is to “cultivate an intimate relationship with the Divine.”  In his presentation, Navarette also cited Bernard of Clairvaux, who, in his book, On Loving God, advances the idea that, according to Navarette, “besides reverence, there is the intimacy such that a bride has with her bridegroom.”  For Bonaventure too, “to attain God includes the imagery of a bride and bridegroom.” Similarly, Ramakrishna thought of himself as married to Kali, and to be married to the goddess of death is no small commitment. Moreover, how could any loving devotion of a creature such as Man not involve radical dependence, for neither in Hinduism nor in Christianity does a divinity need to create a world out of some kind of lack in the divine itself.

Even though Christianity’s core is that God itself is (selfless) love, love devoted to Krishna is certainly salient in the devotionalism. Even so, devotional love being directed to love itself (agape) does seem to be a good candidate to be known as the epitome of bhakti. This is not to say that Christian devotionalism is superior to Hindu bhakti; rather, it is to raise the thought, what if Krishna’s higher nature were exclusively love itself? Would that change how devotion to Krishna is to be interpreted in the Gita and practiced by bhukti practitioners?

In his presentation, Navarette discussed the work the scholar, Francis Clooney, who pioneered the field of comparative theology. Navarette cited Clooney’s contention that “even partial common ground can strengthen our own religious convictions.” Perhaps Krishna’s description of devotion to Him can be useful to a Christian who is trying to love Jesus better. Moreover, in Hindu God, Christian God, Clooney, according to Navarette, predicts that the “fixed boundaries separating religions become all the less plausible . . . because the theological insights arising in comparative study will push those boundaries.” For example, Clooney claims that a Christian could accept the virtues of Narayana, who is the protector of all who has supreme mercy.[5] Sounds a lot like Jesus, doesn’t it? Preaching God’s mercy instead of drumming divine wrath into everyone’s heads in the Gospel stories, Jesus can be seen as a reformer in Judaism. To be sure, unrepentant sinners, such as “Christian” clergy who rape children, deserve divine wrath, but this should not prevent other people from realizing that divine mercy opens up the possibility of love, which presumably includes that which a religious devotee directs to a deity. Given the ontological chasm between deities and the created realm, which includes us, mercy opening up a space for love can create the sort of intimacy that collapses distance, and this can apply not only vertically, but also as benevolentia universalis.

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1. Gita 7.1 in Georg and Brenda Feuerstein, The Bhagavad-Gita: A New Translation (Boston: Shambhala, 2011), p. 171.
2. Gita 7.28 in Ibid., p. 177.
3. John 13:1-17 (in The New Testament).
4. Bhagavata Purana, tenth canto 80:20-26.
5. Vedanta Desika, Rahasya Traya Saram (14^th century).

Hinduism Applied to Business

Applying a religion such as Hinduism to business is laudatory. Undercutting any benefits of doing so, however, is the advocation of religious principles that are so unrealistic in the business world that they undercut the credibility of the project itself. John D. Rockefeller was a Baptist who taught Sunday school at his church even as he pushed competitors out of business who refused to be bought out by Rockefeller’s refining monopoly, Standard Oil Company. To be sure, after retiring, he gave away about half of his $800 million (1913 dollars), but he did not claim that his personal generosity justified his earlier restraint of trade as a monopolist. Rather, he claimed to be more of a “Christ figure” as a monopolist than he was next as a philanthropist. In my study on Rockefeller, I concluded that he was delusional, yet to some extent well-intended, given the destructive competition that was ravaging small businesses in the refining industry during the 1860s. Rockefeller thought of his giant as saving the otherwise presumably drowning competitors, but Jesus in the Gospels does not drown people who are unwilling to be converted. Clearly, the application of religion to business can be abused, including in being much too idealistic, even utopian, and in being used to justify egregious economic tactics and even greed itself.

Although G.D. Birla, a Hindu industrialist when India was trying to achieve political and economic independence from Britain, sought to integrate religious principles both in the establishment and running of his steel company and his later philanthropy, whereas most Christian titans at the time in the West saw their religious principles as pertaining only to charitable giving after having become rich, the application of Vedic knowledge to business is not without its own drawbacks. Specifically, I contend that lofty sounding principles such as bhakti and dharma can sail right over the real world of business, the former being too high to make a dent in the latter. It does the profane no good if the sacred treats the profane as “fly-over territory” between two coasts.

Speaking at a Bhakti Yoga conference hosted by Harvard University in March, 2025, Rajeev Srivastava, a Hindu entrepreneur, advocated applying the Vedic teachings of being a custodian of wealth and giving back as a form of service, including in making donations to charities. That is, he was asserting that the Vedic teaching of trusteeship includes giving back to society as an integral part of business.  Doing business with a purpose that includes profit, but without greed, is key. Srivastava stressed having a spiritual teacher who can teach a business practitioner how to serve. Presumably serving enables a practitioner to include profitability in one’s business purposes and yet without being motivated by greed.

It is ironic, therefore, that business practitioners who can control pride and greed and are motivated by service to God and humanity and seek mentoring by spiritual teachers are, according to Srivastava, more likely to succeed in work tasks and to have profitable businesses. For example, demonstrating integrity and character facilitates raising capital from investors because it is important to them to be able to trust the people who manage their investments through business strategy and operations.  The following terms are relevant: loka-sangraham means having profit as an outcome but not as the purpose; loka-saudhnyam is wealth as entrusted (trustee-oriented); loka-saumitram is the establishment of relationships of love with all stakeholders; sakhya-priti is caring for stakeholders; and jaget-priti is caring for the planet (i.e., accepting the limits of finite natural resources). Admittedly, the notion that managers of a business would come to love stakeholders, which includes employee union heads and government regulators, as well as the media, is far-fetched.

Once in a business seminar on theory construction, I proposed a theory that includes love. Looking back on the assignment and my presentation years later, I felt utterly embarrassed for having come up with such a ridiculous theory of business; the marketing professor had been very charitable towards me in not checking me into a psyche ward so anti-psychotic medication could be applied. I doubt it would have helped. So, I have some “skin in the game” in being critical when religion applied to business goes too far, for I have committed that very sin.

In applying Hinduism, even jaget-priti seems utterly unrealistic. At the very least, even ethical managers of a business naturally are oriented to profitability; even those who are not greedy are oriented, or compartmentalized, to the practice of management, and thus to its mind-frame.  In fact, being oriented to a firm’s profitability is part of the fiduciary responsibility of a management. Of course, if a majority of the ownership of a business, whether private or publicly-owned, wants to use its wealth to care for, and even love stakeholders, fiduciary duty (assuming the rights of minority stockholders are not impaired) can include diverting resources, attention, and even profits to stakeholder groups. In short, applying religion to the business world should not be so unrealistic that the only real application is for marketing purposes. The term, servant leadership, is commonly bandied about for just such a purpose, as is corporate “social responsibility.”

Also speaking at the Bhakti Yoga conference, Prakash Govindan discussed the application of the business jargon, servant leadership, to Hinduism. He said that three terms apply. Dama is the finding inner balance (emotional mastery, inner resources are infinite); daya refers to the mood of compassion (ontological humility); and dana is the joy of giving. Finding inner balance is more realistic than loving and caring for stakeholders, and finding inner peace may actually result in greater compassion if inner security and stability naturally enable a person to feel compassion deeper and more often. Applying Bhakti Yoga to business practitioners, including CEOs, Govindan said that because “the material world and material life [which includes business] is like banging your head against the wall,” he tried silent meditation focused on his heartbeat. Out of that came an orientation to serve, in part to stay humble and not get entitled. It’s not about how much is given; rather, it is the intention that counts.

In Spiritual Leadership in Business (2017), I argue that by engaging in a regime of regular religious experience, whether in prayer, liturgy, or meditation, a manager may be more inclined to be compassionate at work, even in leading an organization. I reason that the enhanced sensitivity to the world, including suffering, happens naturally from engaging in prayer or meditation because yearning experientially in transcendence beyond the limits of human cognition, perception, and emotionality (sensibility) involves enhanced sensitivity. Even just the residue of it can stay with a person back in the world, meaning that one’s sensitivity generally, and including to other living beings, is greater than without having experienced religious transcendence. This application of spirituality (being practiced regularly) to business is much preferable to dogmatic preaching of religious tenets. In fact, regular religious experience may naturally result in that which the tenets intentionally prescribe. What happens automatically is, I submit, more reliable than what depends on intention. This is not to say, however, that regular religious practice will cause business managers to love stakeholders, but relations could improve by being naturally more sensitive to the other. Smoothing the rough edges rather than turning things upside-down in attempting to instill a utopian dream may be how religion can be relevant in the world of business. For to simply whitewash the profane with the sacred would make heaven a tautology.

Is Greed Implicit in Christian Theology?

In Business Ethics for Dummies (p. 123), greed is defined as a basic desire for more. The authors posit a “reasonable greed,” which in business “fuels growth,” which in turn “creates jobs and adds value to a society [and] economy” (p. 124). The authors conclude that “in terms of this social and economic growth at least, greed is a good thing” (p. 124). This sounds like a partial affirmation of Gordon Gekko’s claim that “greed, for lack of a better word, is good” (Wall Street). As long as greed proffers good consequences—the greatest good for the greatest number—the desire for more is ethical, or “reasonable.”

In terms of Christianity even where the religious thought has allowed for profit-seeking and the holding of wealth (e.g., for the virtues of liberality and magnificence), greed itself has been excoriated as sin. That is to say, even though Christianity contains different takes on the relationship between wealth and greed, the religion has never approved of the desire for more.

Theologians have typically assumed that the fundamental desire for more is for lower goods, such as wealth, rather than for higher ones, such as God. Greed thus represents misordered concupiscence: the placing of a lower good over a higher one. Such greed is thus desire in excess to what the object deserves. According to Business Ethics for Dummies, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines greed as “a selfish and excessive desire for more of something than is needed” (p. 316). The desire is thus sordid in that it is selfish and excessive, regardless of the object being desired or any beneficial consequences for others.

Undoubtedly, the basic desire for more can be directed to many objects. According to Business Ethics for Dummies, people can be greedy “for power, status, influence, or anything else they desire in excess” (p. 316). One might ask whether a desire for God can possibly be selfish and in excess.

Augustine, for instance, writes of his yearning for God as though a lover pining after a beloved. His language evinces an obsession of sorts, hence possibly capable of excess. “You are my God, and I sigh for you day and night,” Augustine declares in Confessions (7.10.171). “You have sent forth fragrance, and I have drawn in my breath, and I pant after you. I have tasted you and I hunger and I thirst for you. You have touched me and I have burned for your peace” (Confessions, 10.27.254-55). If it is the limitless nature of the desire for more that is responsible for Christianity’s long-held aversion to greed, then what of Augustine’s sighing and burning for God?  If Augustine’s higher passion is akin to lust, is not selfishness and excess possible? Augustine’s more may be higher, but it is still more, and he wants the object without limit.

To be sure, God is without limit, being omnipotent and omniscient as well as omnipresent, so it could be argued that a desire for God can be unlimited without being excessive (given the nature of the object). If so, Augustine’s sublimated eros being directed to God can be carved out as an exception and labeled as “holy greed” to distinguish it from the commercial “reasonable greed” that issues in economic growth and jobs. The nature of the object and beneficial consequences are the respective justifiers of these two manifestations of greed. However, this path of carving out exceptions can lead to greed itself being deemed good in itself.

I contend that the desire for more is troubling even if the desire evinces a proclivity to vindicate more and more of itself. In being selfish and subject to excess, the desire for more can be said to resemble an addiction, regardless of the object and unintentional beneficial impacts on others.

In terms of excess, the desire innately sets aside any possible restraints such as a desire for equilibrium (e.g., “enough is enough!”). Furthermore, in being self-centered, the desire warps one’s perception to enable still more. For instance, something just ascertained is suddenly viewed as a given, and thus to be augmented rather than accepted as sufficient. If the amount gained had been a good deal, this is taken for granted as an even better deal is sought. Hence, the desire does not diminish out of a sense that enough has been gained. Lest a declining marginal utility arrest the desire in terms of consumption, still more is desired in terms of savings either because 1) you can never be certain that you won’t be able to use the still more or 2) the addiction to more is too captivating. The question is perhaps whether the human desire for more is itself subject to declining marginal utility as a motivation.  Does one become tired of feeling it or is it self-perpetuating?

Even though the desire is innate and self-perpetuating, it need not dominate a person’s motivation and behavior. I suspect that the key to setting aside the desire for still more is seeing it for what it is—that is, being able to recognize it as one is in its grip. A person noticing the cycle can instantly see that the good deal one has just achieved as sufficient. In other words, once the desire is recognized, a bracketing counter-motive can be applied. The promise of freedom from the otherwise all-consuming desire for more is superior to even “reasonable” and “holy” greed.  

Source:

Norman Bowie and Meg Schneider, Business Ethics for Dummies (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2011).

Related book: God's Gold  The text goes through the history of Christian thought on how greed is related to wealth and profit-seeking, and proffers an explanation for why the historical shift was from anti-wealth to a pro-wealth dominant stance. 

An Interfaith Declaration of Business (Ethics)

Released in 1994, “An Interfaith Declaration: A Code of Ethics on International Business for Christians, Muslims, and Jews” is comprised of two parts: principles and guidelines. The four principles (justice, mutual respect/love, stewardship and honesty) are described predominantly in religious terms, devoid of any connection to business. In contrast, the guidelines invoke the principles in their ethical sense, devoid of any religious connotation. The disconnect in applying religious ethics to business is not merely in books; the heavenly and earthly cities are as though separated by a great ocean of time.

 Are these religions applicable to business?    Wikipedia

The full essay is at "An Interfaith Declaration of Business."

Source:

An Interfaith Declaration: A Code of Ethics on International Business for Christians, Muslims, and Jews.

Related paper: "Religion in Strategic Leadership: A Positivistic, Normative/Theological and Strategic Analysis," Journal of Business Ethics (2005) 57: 221-239.

Related book: God's Gold  The text goes through the history of Christian thought on how greed is related to wealth and profit-seeking, and proffers an explanation for why the historical shift was from anti-wealth to a pro-wealth dominant stance. 

On the Place of Religion in Business: Refusing to Serve Gays

The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in December 2017 in a case on whether a baker in Colorado had been justified in refusing to sell a wedding cake to a same-sex couple. He claimed that his Christian faith forbid him from making wedding cakes for gay couples. “I follow Jesus Christ,” he declared when interviewed at his store. The Gospels are silent on the issue of homosexuality—it being said to be a sin only in the Old Testament—so the inference that following Jesus requires opposition to gay marriage (not to mention that homosexuality is an important issue in following Jesus) can be questioned. If the inference is tenuous, then it is the baker’s ideological stance that was actually at issue before the court. More broadly, is religion vulnerable to acting as a subterfuge, or cover, for what are really personal prejudices?

In terms of constitutional law, the baker contended that the First Amendment, “whose guarantees of free speech and religious exercise supersede any state law, exempts him from [Colorado’s] antidiscrimination act,” which has covered sexual orientation since 2007.[1] The question, I submit, is whether free speech and religious exercise are salient in a business context. 

The full essay is at "Refusing to Serve Gays."

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[1] Jess Bravin, “Supreme Court Set to Hear Gay-Rights Case,” The Wall Street Journal, December 4, 2017.

On the Arrogance of False Entitlement: A Nietzschean Critique of Business Ethics and Management

Nietzsche is perhaps most stunning in his eviscerating critiques of modern morality and, relatedly, Christianity. His pessimistic attitude toward modern management is less flashy, but no less radical, for the business world would look very different were it populated by Nietzschean strength rather than so much weakness that in spite of which—and because of which, seeks to dominate even and especially people who are stronger. Accordingly, this book provides formidably severe critiques of both business ethics and management and sketches Nietzsche’s notion of strength as an alternative basis for both. Nietzsche’s notion of the ascetic priest as a bird of prey with an overwhelming urge to dominate eerily similar to both the business manager and the ethicist. Therefore, the last two chapters are on Nietzsche’s unique take on Christianity, and John D. Rockefeller, a devout Baptist ostensibly compatible even with being an acidic monopolist. 

On the Arrogance of False Entitlement: A Nietzschean Critique of Business Ethics and Management is available in print and as an ebook at Amazon. 

Spiritual Leadership in Business: Transcending the Ethical

In this essay, I provide a synopsis of my booklet on spiritual leadership in business. In the text, I suggest that while it may convenient in the business world to conceptualize spiritual leadership as being essentially ethical in nature, this convenient tactic does not do justice to the distinctly religious basis and connotations of spirituality. By religion, I do not mean only theism, or even just organized religion (i.e., religious organizations); rather, I have in mind religious experience—whether through prayer, meditation, worship, or another means that is oriented to yearning beyond the limits of cognition, sentiment, and perception—as if an inherently limited human brain were nonetheless “hard-wired” for beyondness itself whether or not a transcendent religious object (e.g., a deity) exists. Rather than expunging spiritual from its native terrain and reconfiguring it to fit within a secular context as ethics, we can relate the religious sense of spirituality to the secular world of business with due deference to their respective natures rather than muddling them into something murky.[1]

The full essay is at "Spiritual Leadership in Business."

The booklet, Spiritual Leadership in Business: Transcending the Ethical, is available at Amazon in print and as an ebook.

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1. By analogy, the notion that Jesus Christ is fully human and fully divine—a theory coined at the Council of Nicea in 325 C.E.—involves taking the human as human and the divine as divine rather than reconfiguring one term to suit the other. Just as one essence, or ousia, has a human element and a divine element, spiritual leadership can be reckoned as having a religious and a secular element. One essence can contain a notion of spirituality that is religious in nature and a theory of leadership that is been derived in a secular context. 

Spirituality as Distinctively Religious

To be at its fullest, the notion of spiritual leadership applied to business should not shirk the religious basis of spirituality to make it somehow more fitting to business-or a certain rendition of business. Many of Gilbert Fairholm’s descriptions of spirituality risk embalming spirituality in a secular tomb in keeping with the bias typically found in the business world against anything religious. Fortunately, some of his other characterizations of the term provide an alternative basis for an invigorated notion of spiritual leadership applied even in the business world.

Material from this essay has been incorporated into Spiritual Leadership in Business: Transcending the Ethical, which is available at Amazon in print and as an ebook. 

See The Essence of Leadership, which is available at Amazon in print and as an ebook. Taoist, Buddhist, and Judeo-Christian principles relevant to leadership comprise part two of the book. 

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1. Gilbert W. Fairholm, Capturing the Heart of Leadership: Spirituality and Community in the New American Workplace (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1997).

Biblically-Based Investment Funds: A Matter of Priorities

Is it biblical to say a Christian can serve both God and money? In the Gospels, Jesus speaks to this point directly; it is not possible. In early 2017, Inspire Investing established two new exchange-traded funds having a “biblically responsible” approach to investing—meaning that they would avoid buying shares in companies that have “any degree of participation in activities that do not align with biblical values.”[1] That such activities include even tolerance for gay employees raises the question of just how practical an evangelical investment strategy is after the U.S. Supreme Court made gay marriage legal in all of the 50 republics making up the U.S.

The full essay is at "Biblically-Based Investment Funds."

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1. Liz Moyer, “Alongside Faith in Investing, Funds Offer Investment Rooted in Faith,” The New York Times, February 28, 2017.

Pope Francis on the World’s Economy Idolizing Profit: A Theological Self-Idolatry

During his trip to South America in July 2015, Pope Francis appealed to world leaders to seek a new economic model to help the poor, and to shun policies that "sacrifice human lives on the altar of money and profit."[1] This line reminds me of the ancient Greco-Roman religious practice of sacrificing animals on altars just outside temples dedicated to particular deities. Doubtless no thought went into the animals’ suffering. In the Jewish Bible, God spares Isaac just before Abraham implements Yahweh’s command to sacrifice Isaac. Like the ancient Greeks and Romans, Abraham constructs an altar for the purpose. In Christianity, Jesus Christ is sacrificed on an altar, which typically doubles as a table given the institution of the Eucharist in the Last Supper. This sacrificed lamb personifies God as agape, or selfless divine love, which manifests as benevolentia universalis, or neighbor-love. Sacrificing the needs of others is antipodal to serving them; hence the Roman Catholic pope’s preachment. Missing, however, was the subtle bias within Christian theology ironically in favor of money. 

To be sure, the pope criticized "the idolatry of money and the dictatorship of an impersonal economy lacking a truly human purpose."[2] Idolatry is a strong word; it implies that something or someone in Creation is being worshipped—which is to say, being treated as if it were God. According to the second-century Platonic philosopher Plotinus, the nature of God lies beyond the limits of human perception and conception (even as God is immanent in Creation). Hence God is mysterium.[3] This transcendent essential quality of God is not in my view metaphysical, for otherwise theology would simply be philosophy and the sui generis (i.e., of its own genus, or type) “native ground” of religion would be as void as outer space (although even space presumably contains dark matter). At any rate, to treat anything or anyone on Earth as an idol is to overstate the object’s religious significance. Such an object need not be corporeal in nature; an idea or ideology, for instance, is not beyond the limits of human cognition.

In his The Natural History of Religion, David Hume takes an expanded view of historical religions and finds what he takes to be a natural tendency in the human mind to successively render that which is worshipped in more familiar (i.e., “earthly”) terms. Our brains have trouble holding on to a pure notion of divinity as simple and invisible, so we tend to cloth it with stuff from our world (i.e., not transcendent). By analogy, or Christmas trees become so littered with artifacts that we come to appreciate, even worship, them rather than upholding the tree as it would exist naked and natural. In other words, we fashion God increasingly in terms of our world—the world we know and experience—because it is so difficult for our minds to grasp eternity. The earthly garb can obviously be idolized, and from that it is a slippery slope to treating stuff like money as an idol.

In my view, a way out of the cycle of increasing idolatry is to shift the focus from the nature of the divine as an object to the nature of the sui generis religious experience. In other words, God as love—Augustine’s key phrase—can be taken to refer to the experience rather than to God as an object. Such loving would be transcendental rather than emotional (or eros) in nature. In his Confessions, Augustine’s love for God is sublimated lust—I pine for your scent—and is thus human, all too human.[4] Loving the transcendent is, I submit, a qualitatively different (i.e., unique) kind of love—a different kind of yearning. I further submit that such yearning naturally (i.e., automatically, without intention) renders a person more sensitive to others (i.e., compassionate), and thus more inclined to serve rather than exploit them. As Kant posits, it is ethical to treat other people as ends in themselves rather than only as means.[5]

Treated as an end in itself, economic gain functions like heroin or alcohol to an addict, who finds it easy to dismiss the needs of other people and violate their personal boundaries and even dignity. The addict treats other people as means, hence without having boundaries worthy of respect or even acknowledgement. The malignant narcissism is in Scott Peck’s view a defense mechanism that stems from an inner sense of void, or emptiness, at the person’s core. Like Aquinas and Leibniz, Peck takes the lack of being as evil—God being perfect being. Hence we are worthy of compassion, including benevolentia universalis, because we have some being. Sadly, some people feel they have none deep inside. I submit that such people are particularly inclined to treat money as an idol.

In my view, the idolatry of money reduces to idolatry of self, or self-idolatry because economic gain is none other than the person gaining, or expanding his or her reach and thus being. That is, increasing wealth is a sort of expansiveness of the self and its power. The malignant narcissism wants everything for itself—everything under its control. To treat an object within the sphere of our experience as a religious idol is convenient from this standpoint, as such an object can be controlled.

In God’s Gold, I argue that Christian thought on how greed is related to wealth (money) shifted through the centuries from the dominance of anti-wealth stances to that of the pro-wealth stances. In this shift, the sin of greed became decoupled from profit-seeking and wealth, so the latter two could be deemed even salubrious (i.e., without the taint of greed and in fact good!). I suggest that this shift completed in the Renaissance, and that the major Reformers failed to hold back the momentum of the pro-wealth theological attitude (and values). To explain all this, I posit a theological bias, which is rooted in self-idolatry, subtly fueled the shift “from within” the religion. After all, both Luther and Calvin lived in the same commercialized Europe of the sixteenth century.

Therefore, whereas the pope was pointing to profits as the idol, I contend that the idol behind the idol is self-idolatry. He would doubtless agree. However, he would not likely see a bias toward it nestled in Christian theology itself. In other words, the pope may unwittingly have been facing a headwind from both the pro-wealth stance being dominant in Christianity at the time and the underlying theological bias in favor of the corporeal, or earthly, of which wealth is a species.

Turning now to a solution to the culture of greed and the related idolatry of money, the pope was cognizant of his limitations. In place of unbridled capitalism, he called for a new economic system that puts wealth in service to humanity rather than vice versa. “Human beings and nature must not be at the service of money.”[6] “Let us say no to an economy of exclusion and inequality, where money rules, rather than service. That economy kills. That economy excludes. That economy destroys Mother Earth.”[7] Faced with this daunting problem, the pope was realistic concerning himself and his Church. “Don’t expect a recipe from this pope. Neither the pope nor the church [has] a monopoly on the interpretation of social reality or the proposal of solution to contemporary issues. I dare say no recipe exists.”[8] That is to say, humanity had become so inured to serving as the instruments of profits that scarcely any ideas existed at the time to turn the arrow around.

The reference to social reality is interesting, for the Catholic Church historically had hardly been silent in furnishing one. For instance, people were to view themselves as the center of the universe—the Earth lying at the center. Furthermore, slave-owners could cite Paul’s dictum that slaves should obey their masters. The more a religious functionary focuses on social reality, the less he or she is oriented to the transcendental experience—and thus the less he or she is naturally apt to be compassionate. Abstractly speaking, reality is metaphysical rather than religious, and the social dimension of human experience is hardly transcendent, even if regular transcendental experience, or yearning, naturally stimulates compassion as a by-product.

Regarding the reference to Mother Earth, the pope meant that humanity had no idea as to a global system compatible with solving the climate-change problem. So used are we to the international geo-political system of sovereign nation-states that even the design of a global governance infrastructure capable of enforcing reductions in CO2 emissions eludes our intellectual grasp—to say nothing of how such a system could be implemented.

In short, the pope was calling for a new world order welling up from those people whom Jesus had paid particular attention to—the poor. In the contemporary context, the people to whom the pope was addressing were much broader than the poor; he was addressing the 99 percent and asking us why we passively stand by as an evil system built around the idolatry of money, and ultimately of self, spreads around the world, taking from us the very air that we breathe. Besides people coming up with ideas and becoming politically active, Christian leaders and laity alike could take a look at how Christian theology subtly enables the idolatry of greed manifesting in money or wealth as an end in itself that encompasses not only Creation, but lends transcendent purpose as well.

caritas naturalis seu benevolentia universalis

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[1] Philip Pullella and Daniela Desantis, “Pope Francis Condemns Corruption and ‘Unbridled Capitalism,’ in South America,” Reuters, July 12, 2015.

[2] Ibid.

[3] See Rudolf Otto’s book, Idea of the Holy.

[4] Augustine draws on Plato’s Symposium wherein sublimated lust is directed to love of the eternal moral verities. Augustine replaces them with God. I am suggesting that such love, or caritas, is too much of our world and experience to serve us in a transcendent capacity. Calvin is similarly critical of caritas.

[5] This version of Kant’s categorical imperative is known as the kingdom of ends. It is typically likened to the Golden Rule. See Kant’s Practical Critique of Reason.

[6] Jim Yardley and William Neuman, “In Bolivia, Pope Apologizes for Church’s ‘Grave Sins’,” The New York Times, July 10, 2015.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Ibid.

Pope Francis: A Poor Church Rich in Humility

Fifty years after the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), Pope Francis set about implementing the spirit of the letter after the two last popes had concentrated on holding the Roman Catholic Church in check lest it lose itself in accommodating itself too much to the modern world. I submit that the pope's primary objective was to change a problematic clerical attitude rather than to rid the Church of its wealth or drastically change the Church's moral stances.

On the surface, the pope’s “vision of Vatican II has translated into a dramatic shift in priorities, with an emphasis on social justice over controversial moral teachings” such as on abortion and gay marriage.[1] Calling out the clerical obsession on the “social issues,” the pope sought as he assumed the papacy to provide his colleagues with a dose of perspective. To be sure, the pope did not alter the Church’s position on those issues or on whether divorced Catholics should be allowed to take Communion. Nor did he act on his demand for a “poor church for the poor.”[2] Rather, his main concern was directed against the “theological narcissism,” as he put it, that imposes rather than proposes to the larger secular society.[3] 

Perhaps then a poor church would be one that is humble, rather than necessarily without wealth. This would dovetail with Clement of Alexandria’s “Sermon on the Rich Man,” in which the early theologian claims that a rich Christian can indeed get into heaven as long as one does not desire more than necessities (and that which is to be given to the poor).[4] What is important, that is, is which master the rich man serves—God or money. Indeed, Hermas and John Chrysostom emphasized the value of charity as a good use of wealth, and the Church could not give what it does not have.

So the poverty that the pope might have had in mind could be that of humility in spirit. As one bishop put it, the pope “is saying, ‘We have the revelation, but we don’t have the application for all times; don’t presume that we know everything and that we have every answer.”[5] Hence the pope called the Synod of Bishops to debate how the Church should regard divorced, remarried, and gay Catholics. From the pope’s point of view, being against divorce, for example, does not preempt being welcoming toward Catholics who have divorced. After all, it is difficult to imagine Jesus slamming the door on them even if he did not approve of divorce. Compassion particularly to those people who are regarded as impure was Jesus’s strong suit. Indeed, this put him on a collision course with the Jewish authorities in Jerusalem. Pope Francis’s agenda can be characterized in such terms, wherein attitude ideally checks ego at the door even among priests and bishops, for nothing is worse for a religious institution than the veneer of hypocrisy.

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[1] Francis X. Bocca, “The New Rome,” The Wall Street Journal, April 4-5, 2015.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Skip Worden, God’s Gold: Beneath the Shifting Sands of Christian Thought on Profit-Seeking and Wealth.

[5] Ibid.

Religion and Business Clash at a Church’s Food Pantry

The sacred and the profane are like oil and water—oil for anointing and water for cleaning. The viability or value of the sacred does not depend on denigrating that which is exogenous to it. In other words, praising the sacred does not require trashing the world. Being in the world but not of it does not imply that the world is necessarily bad. From this perspective, the sacred and profane can both be viewed as viable in their own rights, respectively. The inevitable distance that distinguishes them so starkly is breached only with great difficulty, even if pressed out of sheer practicality. For example, a theological interpretation undergirding a religious organization’s food pantry can clash with a business calculus such as would be held by an auditor pouring over the numbers and procedures. As theology and business enjoy their own, sui generis (i.e., of its own genus or type) bases of justifications or rationales, unraveling a clash can be notoriously difficult for want of a common denominator.

The full essay is at "Religion and Business Clash."

Steward Leadership: Duty-Based Fidelity

In the ancient Middle East, “steward” (oikonomos) most often applied to the position of household manager.[1] Economics in the ancient context, such as is described in Aristotle’s Oeconomica, concerned the household, which extended beyond familial relations, as the unit of production and managed by the head of household. According to Higginson, Jesus had this role in mind.[2] “Steward” may thus apply in a Christian sense more appropriately to managers than leaders, and more particularly to ethical leaders.

The full essay is at “Steward Leadership”

[1] Richard Higginson, Transforming Leadership: A Christian Approach to Management (SPEK: London, 1996), p. 50.

[2] Ibid.

Shepherd Leadership: Protective Caring Beyond Profit

Unlike the word servant, which has been so much applied to business leadership, shepherd is used in the New Testament exclusively in reference to leaders.[1]  Jesus is described as both “the great shepherd” and “the good shepherd.”[2] This is not to say that the analogy applied only to Jesus himself. After his resurrection, for example, Jesus tells Peter to do the work of a shepherd.[3] Peter in turn urges church elders to be shepherds of God’s flock.[4] So too does Paul at Ephesus.[5] Can a Christian CEO apply the attributes of being a shepherd to leading a business organization? I contend that such a fit can indeed be made.

The complete essay is at “Shepherd Leadership.”

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[1] Richard Higginson, Transforming Leadership: A Christian Approach to Management (SPEK: London, 1996), p. 48.

[2] Hebrews 13:20; John 10:11.

[3] John 21:15-19.

[4] 1 Peter 5:2.

[5] Acts 20:28; See Higginson, Transforming Leadership, p. 48.

Servant Leadership Christianized

Although servanthood is a very important biblical concept for leadership, according to Richard Higginson, the role of servant “is not reserved only for those who are leaders. Christians in general are “servants of God” and are expected to serve other people.”[1] Moreover, to be ethical in a servant style is not distinctly Christian; leaders who are not Christian can nonetheless operate as servants. The term servant does not in itself have a religious connotation. Yet under theological auspices, a distinctly theological sense of servant leadership can be understood and practiced. I contend that such servant leadership is something more than the notion that has been popularized.

The complete essay is at “Servant Leadership Christianized”

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[1] Richard Higginson, Transforming Leadership: A Christian Approach to Management (SPEK: London, 1996), p. 48.

Hobby Lobby: On the Significance of the Case

For all the controversy stirred up by the case of Hobby Lobby v. Sebelius on whether an employer must comply with the mandate for contraceptives coverage in the Affordable Care Act, the significance of the decision handed down in a 5-4 majority opinion by the U.S. Supreme Court may be less than some commentators were predicting.

The full essay is at "Hobby Lobby"

“Right Use” of a Business in Church: Incorporating Corporate Social Responsibility

The ends–justifying-the-means rationale is a tricky business, justifying historically a myriad of offensive practices including torture. On the other hand, “good use” has been deemed a legitimate rationale for acquiring wealth under Christian auspices—the obstacle of the proverbial camel squeezing through the eye of the needle being assuaged by good intentions. Generally speaking, the “right use” rationale gained currency through the centuries of Christianity, leading to the Prosperity Gospel , which maintains that right belief rather than right use is all a believer needs to justify  acquiring and amassing wealth without being thereby excluded from the Kingdom of God. That Gospel, by the way, comes out of the Hebrew Bible, or “Old Testament.”  In this essay, I analyze the “good use” rationale in the context of incorporating businesses inside a church—a trend well-underway in the evangelical  Christian mega-churches as of 2014. Can the rationale survive the baleful implications of the proverbial camel Biblical passage? Further, what of Jesus’s over-turning of the sellers’s tables in the Temple?

Particularly vulnerable to the business v. Jesus dichotomy, many mega-churches own and manage (or franchise) coffee shops, pouring the profits into the general operating budget. Although increasing fellowship is often cited as the end served by the means here, the “right use” is so broad (including the use of the profits) that the ends-justifying-the-means rationale may be tenuous. That is to say, the actual motive in setting up and maintaining the business could very easily become gain itself, which has consistently counted as greed in the history of Christian thought.

Would it be ethical in either business or religious terms for a church coffee shop to expand its hours and use its cost advantage to undercut Starbucks? Would it make a difference how the profits are being used? (Image Source: frtim.wordpress.com)

Less vulnerable is the strategy of opening a business that is dedicated to a particular religious purpose, such as missions. Less vulnerable still, some churches have tied a non-religious social responsible use to a particular religious use. An “input/output” distinction is useful here. Organizations such as Zoe Internatioal, FashionABLE, Sak Saum, and Fight For Them Jewelry provide businesses with products made by people vulnerable to or rehabilitating from the human sex trade. At least one, Sak Saum, fuses its social responsibility mission with ministry by following a model of “self-sustaining ministry.” As for the mega-churches that create businesses that sell the wares from these networks, the corporate social responsibility aim goes back to the suppliers, who get a cut of the revenue. The distinctly religious use lies with the use of the profits. For example, a church might use its profits from the business to fund missions work. In this way, corporate social responsibility and Christianity can both be in the mix without necessarily sacrificing the integrity of either vantage point.

In conclusion, I have laid out a spectrum of religio-business models to suggest that the “right use” justification is not monolithic, and can thus have more or less sway in assuaging any theological discomfort from having businesses literally within a church—even just steps away from a sanctuary. To be sure, the justification can easily become a slippery slope, particularly as the “right use” gets increasingly generalized or vague. Also, if the end being served is itself a sort of gain, even if in terms of souls or membership, greed may run through the means-end continuum itself, thereby compromising the entire “good use” rationale. It is perhaps human, all too human, to get caught up in our enterprises and miss the whisper passing by the mountain. Even the fellowship in a coffee shop carries with it the opportunity cost in terms of missed worship in the sanctuary across the hall. In short, the “good use” justification is treacherous, given the human proclivity to love gain and that which it brings, whether spiritual or material.