Business Education & Humanities Social Sciences Ministries CR3+ Conference 2014 Missional Business: More Than CSR Rod St Hill Academic Director and Dean, School of Business HIGHER EDUCATION

Structure Definition of CSR The church’s low opinion of business Emerging theologies of work and business The Business As Mission movement Missional business 2

Definition of CSR Balancing the interests of people (society), the planet (environment) and profit (owners) (Elkington (1998) ‘(W)orking with businesses, within the existing political and economic landscape, to make companies adopt ethical guidelines, incorporate stakeholder concerns, and more efficiently internalize the costs externalized onto the environment and society’ (Gill, 2008) 3

Sacred – secular divide Before the Reformation ‘Catholic distortion’ – 3 rd & 4 th Centuries Jerome: ‘A merchant can seldom if ever please God’ Augustine: ‘Business is in itself evil’ Eusebius: perfect vs permitted Christian life – 13 th Century Aquinas: vita contemplavia > vita activa But praised the work of merchants, farmers and craftsmen (cf Augustine, Aristotle) 4

The Reformation Luther – ‘(T)he works of monks and priests... differ no whit in the sight of God from the rustic toiling in the field’ Calvin – ‘(I)n following your proper calling, no work will be so mean and sordid as not to have splendour and value in the eye of God’ 5 Sacred = secular, but now sphere sovereignty ‘…unlawful to overleap the prescribed bounds’

‘God intends for business and the Church to be separate…’ (Quatro) The Puritans and Quakers ‘Protestant distortion’ – Puritans and Quakers furthered reformed thinking on vocation Kuyper ( ) – more spheres, incl business Quakers – Barclays Bank, Bethlehem Steel, Cadbury, Clarks, Huntley & Palmers, Rowntree Puritans merged spiritual and material calling. – Profit and piety no longer incompatible – Work is (sacred) duty rather than calling 6

The Problem Sayers (1947) – In nothing has the church so lost her hold on reality as in her failure to understand and respect the secular vocation. She has allowed work and religion to become separate departments, and is astonished to find that, as a result, the secular work of the world is turned to purely selfish and destructive ends… Carr (1968) Friedman (1970) 7

Theologies of Work and Business Beginning in the 1980s and growing in the 1990s and 2000s, both Catholics and Protestants developed theologies of work and business that dealt with both distortions – Paul Stevens (2006), Doing God’s Business – Tim Keller (2012), Every Good Endeavour – Jeff Van Duzer (2010), Why Business Matters to God – Kenman Wong & Scott Rae (2011), Business for the Common Good 8

Business and church are both called to ministry Cutting a Long Story Short When we work – We fulfill the creation mandate → stewardship and development – We cooperate with God and partner with nature to redeem all of creation When Adam (Heb adam) fell spiritually he took with him that to which he was joined, the earth (Heb adama) Business (and markets) are powers – Bring order where there would otherwise be chaos 9

Business As Mission (BAM) 10 BAM is: Profitable and sustainable Intentional about Kingdom of God purpose and impact on people and nations Focused on holistic transformation and the multiple bottom lines of economic, social, environmental and spiritual outcomes Concerned with the world’s poorest and least evangelised peoples

Missional Business 11

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