In his classic book Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer asks the critical question for the Christian life in today’s world: “What could the call to follow Jesus mean today for the worker, the businessman, the farmer, or the soldier?” This question is a corollary of another, more basic, question: “Who is Jesus Christ for us today?” If Christ is Lord, then what does his lordship mean for the lives of his followers?

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I am attending the Next Steps conference hosted by Indiana Wesleyan University and organized by IWU Students for BAM. This is their first annual conference. Acton Institute is sponsoring this conference as a part of our evangelical network building work. As I have opportunity, I will post blogs including highlights of the plenary and workshop sessions.

Read more on Next Steps Conference – Business As Mission…

Picking up on the theme of my commentary and blog posts from a few weeks ago, I note (via Carpe Diem) that St. Paul, Minnesota will be welcoming “a new entry coming soon to the food truck scene in downtown St. Paul. Tot Boss will be the city’s first truck specializing in Tater Tots.”

Read more on Food Truck Follow-Up…

Calvin Coolidge quipped shortly before his death, “I feel I no longer fit in with these times.” The words came not long before FDR’s ascendency to the presidency and not long after the upsurge of government activism that started in the Herbert Hoover administration. Coolidge, even for his time, was seen as old fashioned, a throw back to simpler values, ethics, and principles. Coolidge cut the name tags out of his suits when he asked his wife to resale them, so not to profit from his name and position. He was lampooned for his hands off approach to the presidency. Ronald Reagan was even teased by the Washington Press Corps for hanging up a portrait of Coolidge in the White House. By many academics today, Coolidge is chiefly mischaracterized as a simpleton largely from quotes like “The chief business of the American people is business.” In that speech in 1925 delivered to newspaper editors, Coolidge also went on to say, “Of course the accumulation of wealth cannot be justified as the chief end of existence.”

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A recent study by Millennial Branding reveals that

“Owner” is the fifth most popular job title [listed on Facebook] for Gen-Y [i.e., Millennials] because they are an entrepreneurial generation. Even though most of their companies won’t succeed, they are demonstrating an unprecedented entrepreneurial spirit.

The study does not speculate on the causes of this upsurge in enterprise and creativity among 18-29 year-olds, but no doubt “Mother Necessity” has her hand in it somewhere. Our country and world are facing serious financial crises and offering us little assurance of any positive resolution before we are handed the reins of the world. This last summer’s gridlock in Congress over our looming default was a case-in-point, and the Eurozone crisis continues to cast a gloomy shadow on our economic future.

Read more on Millennials Embrace the Entrepreneurial Vocation…

In last week’s Acton Commentary, “Food Fights and Free Enterprise,” I take a look at the food truck phenomenon in US cities, sometimes called a “craze.”

In the companion blog post, “Food Trucks and First Steps,” I refer to Milton Friedman’s observation that there is a difference between being pro-market and pro-business. Art Carden has more on this over at Forbes.

Read more on Faith and Food Trucks…

Customers standing beside the food truck operated by Fojol Brothers of Merlindia, a theatrical, mobile Indian restaurant, serving food at various locations throughout Washington, D.C

In this week’s Acton Commentary, “Food Fights and Free Enterprise,” I take a look at the increasing popularity of food trucks in urban settings within the context of Milton Friedman’s observation that “it’s always been true that business is not a friend of a free market.”

Read more on Food Trucks and First Steps…

The Detroit News ran my piece on Christians, churches, and the Occupy movement today, “Protests, pews not always linked.” One of the reactions to the piece rightly noted that I did not fill out in detail what “the moral and spiritual formation necessary to be faithful followers of Christ every day in their productive service to others” looks like. Another comment at Patheos worries that my advice might leave Christians “complicit with structural injustice.”

One of the important implications of the Christian imperative to occupy the world in all its various calling is the necessity to engage institutions critically and constructively. This is what I was driving at in juxtaposing the views of Chaplin and Fujimura, for instance. But again, what that institutional engagement looks like is left indeterminate.

On this score I’ll cite Michael Novak: ”It is not those who say ‘The poor! The poor’ who will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but those who actually put in place an economic system that helps the poor no longer to be poor.” Such economic systems require a variety of institutions, including governmental, profit-oriented, charitable, voluntary, and faith-based.

I’ve been working on putting together a collection of stories from my grandfather. One of these stories is set at Michigan State University in October in the late 60′s. There was an anti-war demonstration happening, which he describes:

A makeshift stage was set in front of Beaumont Tower at the center of campus and bull horns and tinny microphones battled for the attentions of the crowds. The audience numbered in the tens of thousands. The “freaks” were at it again. On stage were individuals whose message was “kill the pigs,” “take this place over,” and “stop the war.” Musicians with peace symbols painted on their guitars sang of disobedience and mayhem. The “pigs” kept a watchful eye from a distance hoping and praying that violence did not break out.

But what happened next is truly interesting:

A gray haired gentleman in a business suit and necktie made his way to the edge of the stage. He stood transfixed by the scene around him. At last he mounted the stage and spoke briefly with the one who currently held the microphone. I recognized him as John Apple, Ph.D., a renowned professor of social science. Dr. Apple took the microphone and turned to face the milling throng. To my amazement a hush fell over the entire scene and only the voice of Dr. Apple could be heard. He cleared his throat and thus spoke the most deadly prophesy I have ever heard.

The professor’s short speech to the protesters was the following:

Ladies and gentlemen! Your ideals are noble! You are MARSHMALLOWS hurling yourselves against a brick wall! You are wasting your energy by throwing yourselves uselessly at the administration! A MARSHMALLOW CAN destroy a brick wall! A MARSHMALLOW can destroy a brick wall from INSIDE! Do you wish to destroy the administration? BECOME THE ADMINISTRATION! Become the presidents of universities! Become the law makers of this country! Destroy the administration FROM WITHIN!

If well-formed Christians don’t occupy our institutions, others most certainly will. And as my grandfather observes, we are today reaping the consequences of those occupiers of various educational and governmental institutions over the last forty years. For what’s happening today at Michigan State University, check out “Despite strong Occupy Lansing movement, Occupy MSU fails to gain momentum.”

In just the few days since my piece first appeared last week, however, it seems that the question of how churches ought to engage the Occupy protests has taken on a more definite shape. In the case of Trinity Church in Manhattan, when the Occupiers’ “interest in setting up an organizing camp on vacant Trinity property at Canal Street and Avenue of the Americas” was met with denial from church officials, “The Occupy Wall Street forces then directed their skills at the church: They took their arguments to the streets. In familiar fashion, police officers converged on the area, standing around the perimeter.”

The Rev. Dr. James H. Cooper of Trinity Church reacted to what followed, trespassing on church property: “O.W.S. protestors call out for social and economic justice; Trinity has been supporting these goals for more than 300 years…. We do not, however, believe that erecting a tent city at Duarte Square enhances their mission or ours.”

Ecumenical News International (ENI) reports that Episcopal clergy were among those arrested in the Occupiers’ attempt to take over Duarte Park:

A retired Episcopal Church bishop and at least two other Episcopal priests were arrested on 17 December after they entered a fenced property owned by historic Trinity Episcopal Church in Lower Manhattan as part of an event to mark the three-month anniversary of the anti-corporate Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement.

Livestream video showed George Packard, former Episcopal bishop for the armed forces and federal ministries, dressed in a purple robe and wearing a cross, climbing a ladder that protesters erected against the fence and dropping to the ground inside the property, called Duarte Park. Other protesters followed, including the Rev. John Merz and the Rev. Michael Sniffen, Episcopal priests in the Diocese of Long Island (New York), Episcopal News Service (ENS) reports.

The full story appears below. But it’s clear that Trinity Church and so many other churches in cities where Occupy protests have occurred find themselves being forced to take sides. And its also clear that the Occupiers are no respecters of persons and property. If you are not for them, you must be against them and be ready for the consequences. Ready to cling to your guns and religion, anyone?
Read more on ‘Occupy’ and Institutional Change…

Tertullian (c. 160 – c. 220 AD)

The following section from Tertullian’s Apology has been illuminating some of my thinking about Christian social engagement lately:

So we sojourn with you in the world, abjuring neither forum, nor shambles, nor bath, nor booth, nor workshop, nor inn, nor weekly market, nor any other places of commerce. We sail with you, and fight with you, and till the ground with you; and in like manner we unite with you in your traffickings—even in the various arts we make public property of our works for your benefit.

This passage, in which Tertullian describes the involvement of Christians in all the workings of Roman life, first occurred to me awhile back when there was the brief flurry of worry over undue Christian influence, particularly “Dominionism,” on politics. The essay I wrote in response to that phenomenon has now appeared in The City, which you can check out here, “Christians, Citizens, and Civilization: The Common Good.” In this piece I make the claim that “the commitment to Jesus Christ as another prince, the ‘prince of Peace,’ makes us better, not worse, citizens.”

Read more on Tertullian for the Twenty-First Century…

Over at the Patheos Evangelical Portal, I write about “How Christians Ought to ‘Occupy’ Wall Street (and All Streets).” My argument is that the occupiers that ought to be foremost in the minds of religious leaders are those who “occupy” their pews on Sunday mornings and jobs in the world throughout the week. Indeed, “Christians therefore must occupy the world in their occupations.” That’s where the renewing and reforming presence of the church in its organic expression finds its greatest work.

Read more on Christians Must Occupy ‘All Streets’…