Mark D. Roberts: Why Don't We Pray for Business? Part 1
A few days ago, I commented on a feature of the National Day of Prayer that was mostly overlooked by the mainstream media: an encouragement for churches to pray on the Sunday prior to the official National Day of Prayer. Churches were urged by the National Day of Prayer Task Force, an evangelical group, to pray for seven centers of influence: government, military, media, business, education, church, and family.
As I reflected on this request, it occurred to me that Christians often pray for most of these centers. At least that has been true of my experience in church. When I was pastor of Irvine Presbyterian Church, for example, we regularly prayed in worship services for government, military, education, church, and family. But we rarely, if ever, prayed for media and business.
That got me thinking. Why had we – had I – been so selective in praying for certain institutions but not others? I particular, I began to wonder why we neglected to pray for business?
New York Stock Exchange I've been participating in church worship services for fifty years. I've heard or offered thousands of prayers in the context of congregational worship. Yet I cannot remember either hearing or offering a prayer that focused on – or even mentioned – business. In my pastoral prayers at Irvine Pres, I would regularly intercede on behalf of government officials, members of the military, teachers, police officers, firefighters, parents, grandparents, pastors, churches, and mission partners. But I cannot remember offering prayers for bankers, lawyers, realtors, salespeople, and the like. Nor can I recall praying for business institutions: banks, law firms, corporations, small business, brokerage firms, etc. This seems especially odd to me now, given the fact that the majority of working people in my church were in business settings such as those I just mentioned. Why didn't I pray for them in the activity that took up so much of their time and meant so much to their lives? Why didn't I pray for the companies they worked for or, in many cases, owned? (Photo: The New York Stock Exchange. Now there's a business institution that could use a little prayer, don't you think?) …
Here is a comment I posted in response to the post:
"I think a major reason is that most pastors, the people who write the prayers, have no education in economics/business and what education they do have tends to be highly distorted.
Until the past couple of centuries, ethical reflection on economics has largely been about consumption and distribution. Production was perceived as an unalterable reality. Each person had the same number of hours in a day. The only way to alter production was to have more people. A very limited amount of goods and services could be produced. As a result, economic life was perceived as a zero-sum game … it was about cutting portions from a pie. If my cut gets larger, then someone else's must get smaller. Consequently, justice was about reduced consumption and generosity. This was the world of the Bible and the world of all humanity until very recently.
But over the past two or three centuries, three things converged that allowed us to alter productivity radically: Specialization of labor, expanded trade, and technological innovation. Individuals are many times more productive (and continue to become more so) than people in the past could have ever dreamed. Production is no longer a fixed value. The pie can be grown much bigger. This doesn't eliminate concerns about consumption and generosity, but improving people's lives through productivity becomes enormously important.
Businesspeople appreciate this. They see their participation in the economy as additive. Their work produces useful goods and services; it provides employment, expands opportunities, gives outlets for God-given gifts, and creates resources for other purposes, including generosity toward others. The marketplace is generally a place of win-win exchanges, with each party to a transaction exchanging something of value for something they value more.
Pastors generally do not appreciate this. Their mindset is the zero-sum game of the biblical world. They believe capitalism and the market economy are based on greed, selfishness, and hoarding. They are ambivalent toward businesspeople because they see the marketplace as unseemly. Thus, when business is mentioned in corporate prayers, it is almost exclusively in restraint, circumscribing bad behavior, and repentance. We are all called to repent from greed and be generous. The enormous additive contribution of business is not in view.
It is ironic that pastors who can readily appreciate how recent experience has reshaped our ethical understanding to embrace the inclusion of women in leadership or biological evolution continue to hold to pre-Nineteenth Century views on business and economics."
Leave a Reply to PamBGCancel reply