God’s Grace and the Marketplace: Mainline Protestant Church, Faith and Business

This paper explores the engagement of Mainline Churches with business ethics in the workplace and offers some ideas for how Mainline churches can participate more fully in the work that needs to be done. Part I suggests that, for many years, Mainline churches were less active than one might expect in supporting the development of robust faith perspectives on business ethics, and it identifies possible cultural, financial, and structural factors why this may be so. Many of these factors are common to other religious traditions, although some are particularly relevant to Mainline denominations. The discussion in Part II begins with a brief look at the overriding focus on profit maximization that characterizes the prevailing business ethos in the context of the relevant legal framework. It then turns to the emerging faith and business dialog and why Mainline churches have valuable contributions to make as this work progresses. Part III, the final section of the paper, offers ideas for ways that Mainline churches - as well as other religious traditions - can expand efforts to help bring the rich array of Christian teachings to bear on moral and ethical questions relevant to both business decisions and workplace ethics