Editor’s note: Joe Johnson is editor-in-chief of Business Reform Magazine, the leading Christian business magazine with over 100,000 readers. Each issue features practical advice on operating successfully in business while glorifying God.
In an article published last week on the Gay Financial Network website, “The Next Frontier: Gay Shareholder Activism”, Shelley Alpern lays out a vision for how the GLBT community can have more of an influence in corporate and business culture. Her conclusion? Putting their mouths where their stock certificates are.
There’s been a disturbing trend over the past few years of corporate policies bending under the weight of the homosexual community’s demands. Companies like IBM, McDonalds, Johnson and Johnson, and DaimlerChrysler (and the list goes on) have taken steps to taper their benefit packages and policy structures to meet the supposed needs of their gay employees. Alpern, in this article, clamors for more of the same.
What most Christians seem to have forgotten?and what this article makes horribly apparent?is how integral business is to shaping not only the market itself, but also public morality in general. When businesses begin adopting policies that set a certain moral precedent, governmental policies soon follow. For example, New York City last spring implemented a policy that all organizations that contract with the city must offer benefits to unwed and gay partners of employees?a policy that followed closely behind (and, significantly, not before) corporate giants like IBM that took the same steps within their ranks.
Everything begins with business. Money has an amazing knack for changing minds. And it is high time that the Christian business community began using their investment dollars and stock options to stem the tide of dissident and immoral groups taking control of this country’s moral canvas.
The first step, of course, is within your own business. Align your company’s policies with Scripture and remain consistent. Hold to those principles and grow your wealth so that your dollars can support companies and organizations that are dedicated to God’s ways.
The second step: Do business with other Christians and those partners that share your worldview. Form strategic alliances with businesses that seek to better society by putting God back into the marketplace.
Thirdly, either don’t invest in companies that cater to immoral minorities, or invest heavily in these places and become very outspoken when it comes to the moral policies of those companies. Alpern’s whole strategy revolves around that idea that shareholders should submit shareholder proposals to company boards in order to change the corporate moral climate. Christians should be doing the same thing?with more efficiency and at a higher volume.
Business matters. It’s more than a question of dollars, cents, and a thriving economy. The morality of a country is directly related to what its business culture is promoting. It’s time for Christians in business to take a page out of the gay community’s book and begin to turn the tide back for the glory of God.
To read Joe’s article in the current issue of Business Reform Magazine, click here .
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