Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
How to Develop a Christian Mind in Business School
How to Develop a Christian Mind in Business School
Apr 2, 2025 8:37 AM

“Why are you going to business school?” my friend asked, with some concern, “It seems like such a waste of your time. Why not study history or philosophy or the Great Books or something you’d enjoy.” It was a good question. I mitting myself to spending two years going to school full-time (while working full-time) to get a degree in a subject—business administration—in which I didn’t feel particularly passionate. But I felt that God was calling me to go to B-school. So I went.

Living in northern Virginia I was fortunate to have several excellent MBA programs to choose from so I applied to a local, private Catholic university. Although I’m an Evangelical (a Reformed Baptist, to be exact), I figured attending a Catholic school would help teach me to integrate business with my Christian faith. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

What I soon discovered was that in this “Catholic” school Christ could be found on the crucifix above the doorways but would be found nowhere in the curriculum. None of the professors ever expressed a specifically Christian viewpoint and some grew rather fortable when I or my classmates would do so. Just as in non-Christian colleges, the prevailing impression at this Catholic school was that secular neutrality was the only legitimate norm. The result was that expressing an opinion that resembled that of, say, a Catholic bishop, was often considered offensive. For instance, in a class on non-profit marketing the adjunct instructor was shocked when I expressed the opinion that Planned Parenthood was the epitome of corporate evil and was not, as she had assured us, a model for marketing excellence.

I suspect my experience is not mon. While there are still some schools that subscribe to theidea of Christian scholarship, they have e exceedingly rare. In most schools—particularly in most business schools—the assumption is that the topics of study are “religiously neutral.” What does God have to do with finance? What does Wall Street have to do with Jerusalem?

Quite a lot actually. In fact, there is almost nothing about business administration that is “religiously neutral.” Yet every year thousands of Christians enter and exit B-School without learning how to “think Christianly” about their education or vocation. With so few direct resources available to them in business school, how should they go about developing a “Christian mind”?

I’ve pondered that question for two years, and although pleted my MBA program two weeks ago, I still can’t stop thinking about it. While I certainly don’t have all the answers and it would take a book-length treatment to adequately cover the topic, I wanted to explore the issue in a series of blog posts.

In this series we’ll consider a variety of topics, including what you really get out of such programs, what it means to develop a “Christian mind”, and how can we learn to engage in Business Administration from a Biblical worldview.

But before we get to that there’s more prolegomena to cover, so in the next post we’llclarify what business school is and reasons why it may or may not be the right educational choice.

See Also:Part I,Part II, Part III, Part IV

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Doctoral Work on Religion and Philanthropy
I received this notice via H-Net last week: THE LAKE INSTITUTE ON FAITH & GIVING THE CENTER ON PHILANTHROPY INDIANA UNIVERSITY DOCTORAL DISSERTATION FELLOWSHIP The Lake Institute on Faith and Giving at the Center on Philanthropy, Indiana University will offer a one year doctoral dissertation fellowship of $22,000 for the academic year 2009-2010. This doctoral dissertation fellowship will be given to a scholar whose primary research focus is in the area of religion and philanthropy or faith and giving. The...
Why Not Learn Some Economics First?
According to a report from the Zenit News Service, Cardinal Renato Martino, president of the Pontifical Council of Justice and Peace, recently insisted that the “logic” of the market be changed. He said that the logic “was till (sic) now that of maximum gain, and therefore the most investments possible directed toward obtaining maximum benefit. And this, according to the social doctrine of the Church, is immoral.” This is because, according to the Cardinal, the market “should be able to...
Birth of Freedom Shorts Series: How did Plato and Aristotle justify slavery?
In this week’s Birth of Freedom short video Sam Gregg, author of On Ordered Liberty, discusses the views that two influential ancient philosophers held regarding human equality and the practice of slavery. If you haven’t seen the other 7 video shorts, you can check out the rest of the series, learn about premieres in your area, and discover more background information at . ...
Careful what you wish for….
Via Drudge, Australia is joining none other than China in censoring the internet. Here’s a surprising endorsement/justification the writer uses to bottom line the article: The Australian Christian Lobby, however, has ed the proposals. Managing director Jim Wallace said the measures were needed. "The need to prevent access to illegal hard-core material and child pornography must be placed above the industry’s desire for unfettered access," Mr Wallace said. I’m not endorsing porn. But earth to Mr. Wallace: Scan up a...
Busted
The lyrics to “Busted,” written by Harlan Howard, and made famous as performed by Johnny Cash: My bills are all due and the babies need shoes, But I’m Busted Cotton’s gone down to a quarter a pound And I’m Busted I got a cow that’s gone dry And a hen that won’t lay A big stack of bills Getting bigger each day The county’s gonna haul my belongings away, But I’m Busted So I called on my brother to ask...
Federalism and the EPA
There’s a lingering issue that continues to bother me about the so-called “global warming” Supreme Court case from 2007, Massachusetts v. EPA (05-1120), and that is a nagging concern about federalism and environmental standards. As it stands currently, individual states are often prevented from enacting tougher legislation or regulation regarding some forms of pollution than the federal EPA standards. In order for a state EPA to partner with the federal EPA, be “authorized,” and thus receive funds, “a state must...
Birth of Freedom Shorts Series: Is it appropriate to consider the religious views of political candidates?
Acton Media’s latest Birth of Freedom short video is a timely message in the face of tomorrow’s election. In this video, William B. Allen, Professor of Political Science at Michigan State University, discusses how faith, “the pelling part of one’s existence”, ought to fit in when evaluating a political candidate. Check out more Birth of Freedom shorts, learn about premieres in your area, and discover more background information at . ...
Baby Stepping Toward the Nanny State
Is Senator Obama a closet socialist waiting for inauguration day, at which time he and a Democratic Congress will immediately pursue a massive increase in the size and power of government in our lives, panied by massive tax increases and massive redistribution of wealth? Or is he really a moderate pragmatist, a canny politician who when he was getting started in politics used his radical contacts from his ultra-leftwing Hyde munity, but now is in a position to use more...
Election Preaching
The election day sermon was an important institution in colonial New England. It was one delivered by Samuel Danforth in 1670 that furnished the venerable Puritan concept of America as an “errand into the wilderness.” (For more, see Nathan Hatch, The Democratization of American Christianity.) One need not share the Massachusetts colony’s view of church-state relations (one of the chief tasks of government was the suppression of heresy) to recognize that the election day sermon served a useful purpose. The...
“A lot of people are hungry for this…”
A Boston-area Church of Christ is using environmental stewardship to boost membership. The United Church of Christ, to which the Newbury congregation belongs, has called upon its members to e more deeply engaged in stewardship initiatives. Gary Gardner, a senior researcher at the Worldwatch Institute, an environmental research organization in Washington, wrote in 2002 that the union of environmentalists and religious institutions is "a bination that until recently remained virtually unexplored. . . . Each looks at the world from...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved