Russell Media - Mark

When Laurie and I were about to get married, we were finishing up grad school and we decided to pack up and move to Portland, Oregon. We drove from Chicago to Atlanta for our wedding. The day before the ceremony we went to the courthouse to make arrangements. The lady asked me where we lived. Being in transition we had no address to give her and I just told her so. She then asked me where we worked and I told her again we were in transition and we’d be getting jobs. She said, “I know how it is.” And looked at me wide eyed. I had no idea what she was getting at.

When we got our paperwork back it said that we were homeless and unemployed. We laughed at how silly that was. We were not worried about that, but it turned out to be something of a prophetic statement. After several weeks of searching for a job in Portland, I applied for a job to work the midnight shift at a convenience store in a bad part of town. I remember praying that God would give me that job and I remember Laurie begging me not to apply. It was a tough time.

I financed our honeymoon by allowing a large pharmaceutical company to lock me up in their facilities for two weeks, telling me when and what I could eat and testing antibiotics on me. On the second day one of the other participants broke out in a rash that covered his entire body. On the last day they drew blood from me every 30 minutes for 24 hours. Like I said it was a tough time.

Thankfully, the current economic crisis has not been as tough for us, but I know it has been for others. Religious ministers and people of faith have been quick, over the centuries, to talk negatively about money. But the simple fact exists that we need it. When we don’t happen, it’s, well…tough.

Genesis starts off with God working and calling Adam and Eve to work. We were created to work and money is like air; we need it to breathe. We need money to survive. This is most recognized by those who are unemployed. And unemployment has other problems which need to be offset which we will explore in a following post.

When one thinks of human rights, rarely does one associate that with the economy. Yet, when you look closely many human rights are violated as an indirect result of economic conditions. When people are poor or financially pressured they become more open to corruption, abusing others for financial gain, etc…This has been recognized by others from time to time.

However, what is rarely acknowledged is the direct result of a poor economy. There is an old saying "When the U.S. sneezes, the world catches a cold"? Recently a friend of mine, a community development consultant, met with a head of the Central Bank of Congo. This is what the bank head said:

4 million Congolese have died during more than a decade of war. Goma was buried in lava from a volcanic eruption. Many of our poorest lost their money – more than $10 million total - to pyramid schemes. We were engulfed by a million Rwandan genocide refugees.... We've buried hundreds of thousands of AIDS victims... but NOTHING HAS DONE MORE DAMAGE THAN THE PAST YEAR"S DRYING UP OF EXPORT MARKETS FOR OUR MINERALS -due to the international financial crisis. That's been the fatal blow."

In the past year I have traveled to several African and Asian countries visiting entrepreneurs at the bottom of the pyramid. Even though I have experienced first hand the drying up of the global, financial markets and seen the effect it has had on these people, I am still a bit stunned by the bluntness of the above quote. Nevertheless, I’m not sure I can dispute it.

When it comes to the current economic crisis, it is, first, worth recognizing that it is far worse for residents in poorer countries. Second, we should realize that a good functioning economy contributes to the common good. That’s not to say that a good economy does all it can for the common good. But a good economy can do more for the common good and the poorest of the poor than a bad economy can. This is why I think it is a part of our spiritual mission to re-build a strong, flourishing and just global economy.

Sound bites, political slogans and Internet-produced information overload have all combined to create a paradoxical situation: We perceive the need to have an opinion on just about everything, yet we are deeply knowledgeable on almost nothing.

This phenomenon pulsates through churches across the country. We have no problem giving quick responses to particular socio-political issues. However, when the discussion goes beyond the surface level, it doesn’t plow deeper; rather it grinds to a halt.

The odds are quite high that we have an emotional opinion on something like stem cell research, and yet are not really familiar with the intricacies of the various arguments. The chance that we have never engaged in thoughtful conversation with someone of the opposing view is even greater.

The media and the press use emotional terms and tactics to draw in viewers and readers to their for-profit endeavors. While this may strengthen the bottom line, it is not the best way to determine productive responses to complex situations. 

Remember when you were a kid and the doctor would take out that small hammer looking instrument? The good doc would hit you just below your knee and your foot would pop out. You would laugh and your mom would smile. But doctors don’t do that to grown ups. There is no need for us to show our reflexes. Nevertheless, many adults continue to reveal their reflexes through their charged reactions to controversial issues.

Our current cultural climate conditions us to be reflexive instead of reflective. Just like getting hit with the doctor’s tool, certain views provoke an emotional response. It’s a reflex. Some views can cause our foot to pop right into our mouth.

Being reflective is an essential part of being a fully functional human being. Without thinking reflectively we cannot be sure if we are a counterculture, a part of the culture, or an entirely different culture. We will not be able to determine what the common good is or what it will take to accomplish it. Our culture is reflexive. We don’t have to be. We can choose to be reflective.

The other day my wife saw a sign in a hair salon. It said,

Big people talk about ideas.
Normal people talk about things.
Small people talk about other people.

To be a reflective people, we need to talk and think about the big ideas of the day. We have to be bigger than the small people and beyond the normal ones. We have to care enough about the common good that we do not unthinkingly follow or react to the masses.

Recently we returned to the States after spending several years abroad. Initially the things people concerned themselves with and the casualness they gave to big issues bewildered me. This nonchalant reality was disguised with strong, emotion-laden statements but it was there. After a few months I thought back to my initial reaction and realized that I had started talking and thinking about the same things in the same way everyone else had been doing.

Without flopping out of a lake, fish never realize the role of water in their life. Likewise, sometimes we never realize how much the culture pressures us to process vast amounts of information and pushes us to pretend we know what we are talking about. We have been hijacked by the “must have an answer” fixation.

Advertising jingles and news blurbs are an inevitable consequence of a convenience-oriented culture without enough time in the day. We simply do not have enough time to know it all. Our rescue in this regard is to simply decide that we do not need to know or have an opinion on everything.

In an age of uncertainty, we derive security by simplifying the world. When there is a perceived need to have a certain view on an issue but not sufficient knowledge to justify it, people bolster their position through the use of strong feelings. The gap between true knowledge and the level of expectation to know is filled with raw emotion. However, we must resist this temptation and acknowledge the inherent complexities of our current reality. We should replace our frustrations of not knowing everything with faith in the One who does.

When we do need to have a view on an issue, then it needs to be a thoughtful, well processed, informed one. We have to develop the ability to look at things from a detached, objective, non-emotional standpoint.

A positive way to do this is to engage in conversation with someone who has a view on an issue with which we are inclined to disagree. Throughout the conversation we should seek to truly understand. We can verify whether we have understood by repeating what has been said in such a way that our conversation partner is pleased. Then we should say what is good about their argument. Surely there is something! After all of this, if the need still exists, we are well equipped to critique.

By going through such a methodical process, we will not only avoid the temptation to be an average reflexive person, often we will learn that our ideological enemy is more of a friend than we thought. We will be liberated from the need to have an answer for everything. We will be free to be sojourners on a journey. We will have the liberty to simply love our neighbors rather than objectify them by their views on some cutting edge political issue.

By repeating this process of conversation we will condition ourselves to think before we speak, act and develop opinions. When we have become reflexively reflective, then we will know we have become a counterculture for the common good.

Laurie and I lived in Munich, Germany for several years. When we got there we discovered that Germans, by and large, do not have built-in closets. In place of closets they use schranks, large pieces of furniture that function like a closet, something like an armoir, only a lot bigger.

They are huge pieces of furniture and for novices, as we were, they are quite complex to assemble. After spending hours putting ours together we realized we had made several mistakes. Thankfully, however, the schrank was functional. Breaking it down and putting it back together again was just out of the question. It would be just too much work. But over time the imperfections of our assembly job became annoying. It didn’t look right and the doors were awkward.

A year later, for a wide variety of reasons, we had to move. Moving is always a lot of work and presents many challenges. But we were excited for one reason, we had a strategic opportunity to re-build the schrank the way it should have been in the first place.

Right now, our world is facing a global economic crisis. This is a strategic opportunity to re-build the economy the way it should have been in the first place.

To re-build the economy in the right way, we need to think through four important questions:

I. What is the significance of work?

What did God do in the beginning? He created the world and that was work. This is stated explicitly in Genesis 2:3. The word used for work here for God is the same word used for humans elsewhere in the Old Testament.

After doing the work of creation, God creates humans in his image in Genesis 1:26-27. Theologians have debated the meaning of being created in God’s image. But it essentially comes down to the fact that an image is a reflection or a mirror. Put another way, we can imitate God.

After creating humans in his image, God then commissions humans to work (Gen 1:28). So the Bible starts with God working, creating humans to imitate him then directly commissioning them to work.

When Christians talk about work they tend to do so in what I call as reflecting “instrumental” value. That is work serves as an instrument to good things such as providing for one’s family, giving to the church, etc…But work has “fundamental” value because it is a part of our original created design and a part of our “fundamental” purpose on earth.

Work is something we do in partnership with God. Genesis 2:19 shows Adam working with God. God brings him animals. Adam names them. God did not stop working. He simply stopped working by himself. Now, He chooses to work with us.

Consider that God created humans by himself but then commissioned humans to create other humans (Gen. 1:28). Any spiritually minded parent knows that God created their children. But parents also know that their children would not exist if were not for them. Work is the same. Just like we partner with God to create humans, we partner with God to sustain and promote His creation.

II. What is the purpose of business?

Milton Friedman said the purpose of business is to maximize financial profits for shareholders. Ever since, business schools and the business media have pretty much followed this logic.

Money is important. I’m suspicious of people who “do not care” about money. We need money to survive and it also enables us to enjoy some of the good things. But making money is not the sole purpose of business.

Money is like air. We need it to survive. But if you are living to breathe, you do not understand the purpose of life? If you are working for money then you do not understand the purpose of working.

Rather than saying that the purpose of business is to maximize profits for shareholders, perhaps we should say its purpose is to maximize value for society.

III. How is American culture a unique contributor to this crisis?

People who work in the field of intercultural studies typically use14 cultural lenses to analyze a culture. One of those lenses is to determine a culture’s time orientation as either short-term or long-term. What do you think America is? Consider the following:

Savings: From 2002-2007 American homeowners took out $1.7 trillion more in home loans than they spent on their homes or home improvements. This was above and beyond our earned income. According to Economist magazine per capita average savings during this time period was 0%.

Treatment of the Environment: Humans created on sixth day in Gen. 1:26-27. However, in Gen. 1:22 we read the first blessing in the Bible from God is to non-human creation, plants, fish and birds…It is a blessing for God and for their multiplication and increase.

We are facing an environmental sub-prime crisis, because we have not considered the welfare of non-human creation in many of our decisions. Recently, I was at a business conference and heard an executive for a well-known chocolate company. There was nothing about his presentation that suggested he was particularly socially or environmentaly conscious. However, he noted that they were having tremendous challenges getting cocoa for their chocolate. He said they’d had the problem before but could always get it from other countries in Africa. Now, he said now they are having problems locating a new country to get the chocolate we need.

IV. Who are the poor?

The final question we need to ask ourselves as we build up a new economic system is who is poor? If you have a family of four and have an annual household income of $36,000 you probably think of yourself as poor but you are in the wealthiest 1% of people in the world.

Wealth produces the desire for more wealth. This is why Americans burned through our earned income and $1.7 trillion in home equity without saving a dime. There is no end to the desire for wealth. Recently, I asked an entrepreneur whose net worth is in the nine figures, if he thought greed or pride was a greater problem. He said greed has no end and that he knows people who are unhappy with their private gulfstream jet because they have friends whose jets are slightly better.

The fact is we don’t remember the truly poor in good times or bad. In the 90’s as our economy expanded exponentially, the poorest 25% of Africa got 20% poorer.

I once visited a microfinance loan group in Manila. These people were poor. We were in a one-room house. It was raining and water was pouring down the wall and flowing across the floor. At the end of the meeting, they took up an offering for “the poor in their community.” The total was $2.80. They made a vat of porridge, took it to the center of the slum and within minutes children were emerging to eat. Several were obviously malnourished.

We are in a global economic crisis because of this: The rich see the very rich and want to live like them. The poor see the very poor and want to help them.

Moving forward, we need to all ask ourselves, 1) what is the significance of work? 2) what is the purpose of business?, 3) how can we be more long-term oriented?, and 4) how can we remember the poor?

There is that old phrase, “Today is the first day of the rest of your life.” That phrase is always true but it becomes more true (if such a thing is possible) at particular junctions in life.

It has become quite true for Laurie and me recently as we have chosen to move full-time with our new venture, Russell Media, which combines our passion for creating content and changing the world through causes we care about.

Our first project is the Our Souls at Work book which emerged out of the Believers in Business conferences at Yale University in February, 2007, 2008 and 2009.

I am so proud of this book and believe it has the impact to really expand people’s vision of how business can be a force for good and is a vital part of God’s mission. It is something we really need to think about in these times of economic duress and questioning.

The list of people who helped this book come together is quite long and I’m humbled by the opportunity to have worked with them.

We are hard at work on future projects which we believe will significantly improve lives, including our own.

Our goal is to help other people succeed. As we work on our new venture, we encourage you to tour our website, look for emerging projects and resources, and sign up to follow our blog to stay up on the latest trends and insights and occasional wonderings of Laurie and me.