BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION AND THE LIBERAL ARTS UNIVERSITY: OIL & VINEGAR? John R. Sutherland Assistant Dean Faculty of Business & Economics Trinity Western University When I arrived at what was then called Trinity Western College in 1978 to teach in the Division of Business, I encountered two very surprising attitudes, conveyed to me with greater or lesser degrees of tact by certain colleagues of that day. The first was that a professional business administration program was somewhat of an intrusion into what had been until recently a purely liberal arts college. Secondly, some professors felt that it was virtually impossible to be a success in business life while retaining a Christian worldview and value system. I was not the first professor of Business Administration to be challenged along such lines, nor will I likely be the last. But in responding to those criticisms I was able, over the years, to convince my colleagues that those of us involved in professional studies could not only co-exist with the purists, but even merge to a significant extent with the liberal arts mainstream, to the advantage of both sides. I would like to share the fruits of that quest with the readers of this journal, recognizing that business studies are probably a substantial presence on many of their campuses. I plan to briefly overview the usual understanding of what constitutes the liberal arts, and speculate as to whether adding a business administration program represents a significant departure from that kind of education, or if it can be seen as consistent with it. Then I will try to illustrate how business administration courses differ when taught in a Christian university as compared to a public one where religious perspectives are typically ignored. I benefitted greatly from reading The Idea of a Christian College by Arthur Holmes. In the book, Holmes considers two ways of understanding a liberal arts education. The first is to define the liberal arts in terms of a set of academic disciplines. This is the standard dictionary definition--a broad, general education consisting of courses in the natural sciences, the social sciences, the humanities, and religious studies, with the intention of developing students' general intellectual capacities as opposed to their professional or vocational skills. If one were to think of a liberal arts education as being first and foremost the study of traditional disciplines, then there is no question that the introduction of business courses such as marketing, management, finance, accounting, statistics, management information systems and so on would not fit the mould. However, Holmes goes on to discuss what I think is a much more useful way of looking at a liberal arts education. He defines it in terms of a type of education that is appropriate to people as whole persons, rather than to more narrowly trained specialists such as an accountant, a nurse, a teacher, even a scholar. Holmes speaks of liberal learning as concerning itself with truth and beauty and goodness, which have intrinsic worth to people considered as fully-faceted persons rather than as workers whose perspective might be limited to how an education relates only to certain functions. I suspect he means by that statement that an accountant, for instance, would see limited use for philosophy in preparing a financial statement, although that same accountant as a human being might come to certain philosophical conclusions about integrity which lies behind human endeavours, including the evaluation of a business's affairs. Holmes hastens to add that usefulness is not a crime. But the practical uses of the things we learn are limited and changeable. There is no question that this is true. Most of the jobs which our current students will occupy once they graduate probably did not exist when they entered kindergarten, at least not in their present form. That is why Holmes sees the necessity of a liberal learning that takes the long-range view and concentrates on what shapes a person's understanding and values rather than on what he or she can use in various roles one might occupy from time to time (Holmes, pp. 27-29). Holmes goes on to reflect on how the liberals arts contribute to the making of persons. He notes first of all that a person is, or should be, a reflective, thinking being (pp. 2931). Thus we should be helped by our education to be analytical, to organize ideas into an ordered whole, and to be systematic. In addition, we must examine our own worldview and that of others whose theories we evaluate. Secondly, he sees a person as a valuing being (pp. 31-32). He maintains that in the curriculum one should be exposed to aesthetics and other areas of value, and to the logical structure of value judgements. And finally, Holmes sees a person as a responsible agent, accountable ultimately to God, for life is a stewardship of what God has created (pp. 32-33). Universities were originally founded to teach students the liberal arts. Those days are "long gone." A recent study in the United States estimated that only about 200 liberal arts colleges are left among America's 3,400 colleges and universities. The definition of a liberal arts college in this case was one that granted at least 40% of its undergraduate degrees to students who have majors in traditional liberal arts fields (Bluford H. Putnam and Edward I. Stevens, "Management as a Liberal Art," The Chronicle of Higher Education, July 24, 1991, Vol. XXXVII, No. 45, p. B1). I once heard a speaker characterize the trend this way: "In the '60s students studied sociology because they wanted to change the world; in the '70s they enrolled in psychology in order to change themselves; and in the '80s students took business administration because they wanted to find a job!" In 1991 24.2% of all bachelors degrees and 23.7% of all masters degrees awarded in the United States were in business (Source: The American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business). Trinity Western University is no exception to this trend away from the pure liberal arts. Business Administration and Aviation appeared in the mid-1970s, Education and Computer Science in the 1980s, and now Nursing in the early 1990s. Business Administration is the largest major here, in terms of student enrollment, while Education is vying with Psychology for second place. From the point of view of Arthur Holmes' perspective on the best kind of education, are we witnessing a dangerous trend? I cannot say that traditional business studies were always concerned with issues of ultimate truth, ethics, social problems and stewardship, especially of stewardship on God's behalf. Let me quote, for instance, from an interview conducted just over 10 years ago with a number of business faculty at the University of Michigan. I should add that Michigan is the fifth-ranked program out of 700 schools of business in the United States. Prof. A: In the strategy courses we do tend to take a longer term horizon than the functional area courses, but I maintain that we are not going far enough. When we think about what a manager's job will be in the future, it is important that that person have a broader focus than we are imparting in the business school. A narrow definition of business problems is going to be very dangerous in the future. What is business? Where does it fit into society? We might be broad in the policy area, but we are not broad enough. Prof. B: I guess there's some question as to whether that topic fits in the policy area, or in the philosophy department. Prof. C: Are we as a business school faculty qualified to teach those kind of issues? The role of the corporation in society? The corporation as a social organization? Prof. A a little later: In teaching MBAs in their fourth term here we did one or two cases in social responsibility, and it didn't seem to me that students had been thinking about these sorts of issues prior to that time. I found that they were very passive and their thoughts on the subject were not very well thought through. Prof. D: I have tried to raise certain social responsibility issues in courses that I teach. It is not my intention to teach ethics, but just to have students start thinking about the broader role of management in our society. I think many students are leaving the school without giving any thought to the social responsibilities that they will have. Prof. D again: A lot of people teaching in business schools around the country think that what we are talking about here has no place in the curriculum. Prof. B: Probably a lot of our faculty feel that way. The professors interviewed went on to say that employment recruiters did not show any interest in whether the graduating students had been exposed to broader, philosophical questions of ethics and social responsibility ("What's the Mission," Dividend: The Magazine of the Graduate School of Business, University of Michigan, Winter 1982, pp. 10-11). There is no question that the business administration curriculum, until very recently at least, lacked what we could consider a grounding in the liberal arts, or that business professors did not include a significant liberal arts component in their own career preparation, their teaching or their research. The decade of the 1980s was not one on which the business world can look back with pride. A 1983 Gallup Poll done for the Wall Street Journal reported that 49% of those surveyed thought that business ethical standards had declined in the preceding ten years. Only 9% thought they had risen. Matters got worse as the decade went by. It would appear that the ethical and social challenges confronting the business world in the 1990s are likely to force business executives, professors and students to focus as they have not done in the past on ethics, values, indeed on the very mission of economic activity. Consider this prediction by ethicist John Langan, a Jesuit priest: In societies as different as the United States and Poland, the United Kingdom and Mexico, greater reliance is steadily being put on the private sector to meet a wider variety of personal and social needs. This ensures that even more of the vexing problems of contemporary societies will come to be ethical problems for business. But business itself is constantly being subjected to new strains and new pressures for change as markets and production processes become more global, as technology makes vast quantities of information more readily available, and as demands for rapid decisions are intensified (John Langan, "The Ethics of Business," Theological Studies, Vol. 51, No. 1, March 1990, pp. 81 100). The response of schools of business to the public outcry for a broader mandate for business institutions in society has been twofold: one, to broaden the traditional business subject areas to include more liberal arts courses and emphases, and two, to begin to incorporate ethics into its programs. The American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business is the accrediting body for North American business schools. In 1991 it altered its accrediting standards to require that new topics such as ethics, global business and the impact of demographic diversity on the workplace become mandatory. The new rules also stress a desire for creativity and innovation (Gilbert Fuchsberg, "Under Pressure, Business Schools Devise Changes," The Wall Street Journal, April 23, 1991, p. B1, B14). Business schools now routinely refer to the significance of the liberal arts as a necessary part of a business major's preparation for a career. The University of Denver, for instance, in listing the objectives for its undergraduate business core curriculum, includes this statement: Build a foundation for life-long learning: clear thinking and communication, problem solving, research and team skills, analytical prowess, computer competence, and the ability to enrich both personal and business life through relating to and appreciating the liberal arts ("A New Undergraduate Business Core Curriculum at the University of Denver," rough draft September 1992). Such a perspective in strongly seconded in an article entitled "Management as a Liberal Art." The authors begin by noting that at the same time as traditional liberal arts institutions are expanding their professional programs, the corporate world is increasingly placing a high value on the kinds of skills one learns in liberal arts courses, such as the ability to write effectively, to ask probing questions, and to organize structured solutions to complex problems. The writers urge educators to focus on how to integrate management programs into the liberal arts more effectively (p. B2). It would appear that this new attention to the liberal arts has expanded even to that hallowed ground, the funny pages of the daily newspaper. In my favourite comic strip, Calvin and Hobbes, Calvin stands moodily beside his faithful pet while waiting for his arch enemy, the school bus. He remarks, "I hate going to school. I wish I was a tiger. Tigers don't need to know anything." Somewhat miffed at this opinion, Hobbes replies, "Hey! Attacking running animals involves a lot of physics. There's velocity, gravity and laws of motion, not to mention all the biology we have to know. Then there's the artistic expression of it all, and a lot more!" "Gosh," says a chastened Calvin, "I never realized killing was so grounded in the liberal arts." "Yes," replies Hobbes, "my dissertation on ethics was very well received." All kidding aside, by 1988 only 11% of American MBA programs did not have an ethics course in the curriculum. Such initiatives are very much in accord with Arthur Holmes' perspective on liberal arts as career preparation. Holmes refers to the necessity of developing the appropriate attitude toward work itself, the need to acquire cognitive and communication skills, the importance of stimulating one's ability to think in fresh, creative ways, and the necessity of value development (pp. 38-41). Business schools agree, and either incorporate these emphases into their own courses, or utilize available liberal arts courses to meet these needs in business majors' programs. To conclude this opening portion, I submit that a business administration major is an appropriate offering in a university such as Trinity Western. The vital necessity of the liberal arts is recognized and eagerly incorporated into our courses. And I also believe that Trinity benefits as a university from having us here. Samuel Dunn makes this comment in a previous article in Faculty Dialogue: The [Christian] college serves as an instrument to help adults prepare to bring about societies characterized by righteousness and social justice...The business department is created in the Christian college to prepare individuals to move into positions of influence in business. Business leaders have an important role to play as they help shape the economic future of the country, as they provide working environments for their employees, and as they become social leaders in their communities. As these business leaders influence their companies, their communities, and their industries for good, they are helping the Christian college meet its ultimate goals (Samuel L. Dunn, "The Strategic Importance of the Christian College Business Department," Faculty Dialogue, Winter 1990, No. 13, pp. 113-114). How should a business administration program at a Christian university differ from one offered at a public institution? I heard of a student recruiter from a Christian liberal arts college who, when asked that question by a high school student, replied, "There is no difference." I shudder to think that this could be so. But apparently just such a situation actually exists. I am in legitimate possession of a letter written by a fourthyear business student to the Chairman of the Business Department of one of the United States' more famous Christian liberal arts colleges. I prefer not to embarrass the college by revealing its name, but I will quote from its contents to illustrate the scenario we attempt to avoid here at Trinity Western. I am writing to you as Chairman of the Business Department to express a great concern of mine...While speaking with several other students, we realized that something was missing from the classes we had taken. What was missing was a strong integration of Christian and business principles. In my time here, I can remember only two occasions when we discussed Christian principles in business during class time. I remember these because of their rarity...As I speak with students of other disciplines, I find they are not in the same situation. The Science department consistently presents God in nature. There is a great deal of social awareness and involvement in the English department. And Sociology and Social Work eagerly present Christian principles and duties. This is the case for many other majors. As I tell others my major, I am surprised to find that I am held in lower esteem because of it. One student even said, "I avoid business students like the plague." The reason, they say, is that business students are unaware of or unconcerned about God's work. Business students have a reputation for being very self-seeking. I do not believe this is entirely true, but I also do not think we are training students to make responsible decisions in light of Christian principles. Fortunately the above situation is not representative of Christian liberal arts colleges in North America as a few brief quotes from three fine Christian institutions illustrate: 1. Goshen College - Guiding business education is the mission statement of the college that views "education as a moral activity that produces servant leaders for the church and the world." The crux of business education as a "moral activity" is that it includes reflection on business practice and structure from social, theological and ethical perspectives. 2. Dordt College - We want you to understand that Christianity is more than just a "religion" in the narrow sense of the word. Rather, it is a comprehensive view of the world which seeks to understand all areas of life in light of the truth of God's word, the Holy Scriptures. This world-and-life view is radically different from other pictures of reality, and hence gives us a very different interpretation of what we see around us, including our economic system, our business structures, goals, practices, etc. 3. Seattle Pacific University - [The third overall goal of the School of Business is] to provide an educational environment for the achievement of academic competence, professional excellence and ethical decision making that is intellectually honest and biblically based. The Faculty of Business and Economics at Trinity Western University affirms all of the above statements. Now let me go on to illustrate in a practical way how a Christian perspective can be brought to bear on an ethically charged business issue. In the early 1980s bankruptcies began to rise very rapidly as a severe recession gripped the North American economy. With the economic recovery of the middle and later part of the '80s bankruptcies declined slightly, but then began to rise again and continue to set records as each year goes by. The International Credit Association in the United States estimated in 1990 that 24 million Americans were in financial trouble and that 3 million were on the verge of filing for bankruptcy. The effects of bankruptcies on employees, lenders and the families of bankrupt individuals can be devastating emotionally, financially, and spiritually. In addition, many Christians have gone through this same horrible experience and have encountered the further problem of finding themselves ostracized by their churches and abandoned by their Christian friends because it was felt that declaring bankruptcy is a sin. I was approached back in 1983 by Trinity Western's academic dean at that time, Dr. Ken Davis, about writing an article on the subject of bankruptcy from a biblical perspective. That article eventually grew into a book entitled Going Broke: Bankruptcy, Business Ethics and the Bible, which was published in the summer of 1991. To the best of my knowledge, it is the only book in existence that analyzes the legal, financial, emotional and moral aspects of bankruptcy and business failure from a Christian point of view. Writing the book was not easy. As is the case with most business problems, the Bible has nothing to say about bankruptcy. In fact, many professing Christians who are involved in business life have concluded that the Scriptures have no relevance to their economic activities. For example, the chairman of the board of one of America's largest dry goods corporations, known for having read the Bible through at least 70 times, was interviewed by a biographical story writer for a major evangelical publication. He exclaimed, "I never mix the Bible with business. Good business is good business. There's no Christian way of doing business" (William J. Krutza, "The Nearsighted Ethics of Christian Businessmen," Eternity, September 1976, p. 15). One of Canada's most famous Christian businessmen was asked if his corporation was his kind of Christian witness. He replied, "Not at all...I never let...religion affect my business knowingly" ("Jimmy Pattison: The Man Behind Expo '86," Faith Today, September 1986, p. 31). The authors of an excellent casebook on business ethics have analyzed this rather surprising point of view very well. This is what they say: A popular type of Christianity holds that faith in Jesus Christ is primarily a private affair. One belongs to a church and prays with a community of believers, perhaps even participates in church social events and gives money in the collection for the poor. The Gospel message is taken to be a call for a change of heart, for a new trust and love, yet for many this conversion plays itself out solely in churchly activities and family life. Although the major portion of each week for many Christians is spent in the business world, this world may be insulated from the values of the Gospel. It is often taken for granted that Christian faith is not really meant to change the world, and certainly not the business world. This may result from a sober judgment that, after all, business is business, and its rules and ethos must hold sway in its domain if an enterprise is to survive. The business world is a highly complex phenomenon, and some very competent people suggest that it is not at all clear that the simple stories of the Bible are relevant to twentieth century economic life (Oliver F. Williams and John W. Houck, Full Value. New York: Harper & Row, 1978, pp. 34). In examining a modern business problem from a Christian perspective, then, I first had to decide whether the Christian Scriptures were relevant. As an orthodox Christian I felt I had no choice but to believe that my faith applied to all areas of life, but I still had to decide in what fashion the Bible can be used to address economic issues. I concluded that the Bible functions in three ways as I critique business life Christianly. First of all, it gives us a worldview or a life perspective. In a classic article in Harvard Business Review, Harold Johnson makes this point very well: The application of religion's ultimate insights to specific situations is, of course, a tremendously difficult task. There are no blueprints, no simple rules to go by. Christianity does not present the executive with a tool kit of easy-to-use rules and precepts by which problems can be solved. The doctrines are not bound up in a simple list of "do's" and "don'ts" somewhat in the style of a book of etiquette, which if followed will result in harmonious, gentlemanly relations within and without a business. But it does offer a frame of reference, a universe view, which instead of giving peace of mind and easy success in human relations often breaches the barricade of self-assurance, focuses on difficulties, and erases naive hopes of business progress ever onward, ever upward (John R. Sutherland, Going Broke: Bankruptcy, Business Ethics, and the Bible. Waterloo, ON: Herald Press, 1991, p. 98). The Bible teaches us to view society as God does, with a bird's eye, above and outside our culture. It forces us, if we let it, to break through cultural conditioning. Let me give you a brief example. Our North American culture highly prizes individualism, and it affects many aspects of our society, including how we view our role in a business organization. We have had to learn the important management strategy of teambuilding from the Japanese. We could have learned it from the Scriptures. The Bible places high stress on community, on using one's gifts to the benefit of others, on building one another up, and on putting aside one's own interests for the sake of our colleagues. North American Christians have by and large reserved this biblical perspective for the local church. The Japanese, whose culture highly values teamwork and organizational loyalty, have applied the scriptural notions to business life with great success. How pathetic that a non- Christian nation had to model biblical emphases (without realizing that is what they were doing, of course) to people with a Judeo-Christian tradition. Secondly, the Bible teaches us values, including those which can be applied to business life. Values represent our ideals concerning how things ought to be (i.e. ends or goals), and how things ought to be done (i.e. means). You will find that biblical values may stand at times in stark contrast with private enterprise values. For instance, in our capitalistic economy wealth and property are valued as a measure of a person's worth. From a Christian worldview wealth and property are seen, on the one hand, as an opportunity for increased service for humankind, and on the other hand as a possible obstacle to salvation ("It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven"). In private enterprise, one might see the value of justice as the protection of property one already possesses. For the Christian justice is regarded as the right of every person to the means of leading a meaningful human life. And thirdly, the Bible provides us with general ethical principles which guide our thinking in fundamental ways, and help us to devise our value system. These principles include such things as the solidarity of the family unit, for instance, or the purpose of economic life. Having concluded that the Bible was relevant to evaluate this ethical dilemma of bankruptcy, I next looked for any specific scriptural material that might be of use. As I said, there is nothing explicitly on bankruptcy, just as there are no specific data on pricing, labor unions or stock markets. But I did find some help. I concluded that in order to deal with a specific economic issue, I should try to see if the Bible could at least give the problem an economic context. While the biblical writers never directly addressed my particular concern, they were inspired to provide us with certain fundamental principles describing what economic life should be like, and what its goals should be. If I could determine those things, then I could perhaps decide where the issue of bankruptcy consistently fit in. Thus I spent a great deal of time uncovering the timeless economic principles which lie behind biblical teaching on private property, the key economic resource in biblical days. Our modern capitalistic notion of private holdings, such as land, capital and other resources which individuals privately own, is based on the ancient Roman idea that private property is ours to use, or even abuse, as the owner sees fit. This notion of private property, and the right to use it any way we choose, is so important to us as Canadians that we have been clamouring for years that it be enshrined in our constitution. But the biblical view of private assets, I learned, is much different. God retains ultimate ownership, considering us to be stewards of his property. Self-indulgent, or self- interested, use of private property is ruled out. Rather, we are to use private holdings to further the interests of justice. The purpose of economic life is not to maximize profits for the shareholders in the long run, but to do justice. Is the pursuit of profit illegitimate? Not at all. Nowhere is the accumulation of wealth denounced in Scripture. Material resources are even at times an indication of God's favour. But are profits an end in themselves, as the typical free enterprise position holds? Absolutely not. Material resources are means to further godly ends, not ends in themselves. How does one use these resources? To do justice. What does justice mean? I studied a good deal of philosophical material as I wrote my book in order to examine the various ways in which business decisions can be made, and distributive justice, as it is called, is certainly one such way. But I found that the usual philosophical definition of justice was not exactly the same as the biblical understanding of the term. Justice has to do with what is fair for all parties affected by a decision. The category of justice called distributive justice refers to the fair distribution of society's benefits and burdens. Equal pay for work of equal value is a question of justice, as is the wage rates paid to men versus woman. In capitalistic economies the prevailing view is that society's benefits should be distributed primarily on the basis of a person's contribution to society's well- being. This contribution would be measured in terms of such things as effort and productivity. Socialists, on the other hand, are more inclined to see benefits going in the direction of need. While time does not permit an exploration of the biblical material, I can tell you briefly that justice is seen first and foremost as an activity. One did not get justice, one did justice. The form it took was to care particularly for the needs of the vulnerable and disadvantaged, or as one commentator put it, to defend the cause of people on the margins of society. Justice in biblical terms involves fairness plus mercy. Such a view of the way business should be done has significance for a host of business issues. These could include such matters as: 1. The firm's responsibility toward customers, competitors and the community. 2. Just compensation and treatment of employees. 3. Affirmative action. 4. Elimination of discrimination connected to race, sex, disabilities and age. 5. Responsibility toward the environment. With respect to the issue of bankruptcy, I had one last area of biblical teaching to draw upon, that being the material on debts and the forgiveness of loans. This was of immeasurable help in coming to conclusions about the just treatment of bankrupt individuals. I concluded, by the way, that the bankruptcy process was not inherently sinful, although it was wide open to abuse. I have now turned my attention to a new topic and am presently editing a book on the subject of labor relations. I and the other contributors to the volume are considering questions of justice and reconciliation in finding a Christian approach to healing the labor-management rift which exists in North America and stands in the way of greater economic competitveness. My particular interest is in the issue of strikes and alternative dispute resolution strategies. My goal is to find ways to protect the legitimate concerns of individual workers in dealing with their employers, while at the same time respecting the rights of innocent third parties who are often harmed by strikes. General biblical principles and values, especially those having to do with justice and reconciliation, are having a significant impact upon my research. My purpose in writing this is to illustrate three things. Firstly, in a Christian university business faculty can explore issues in ways which are uniquely biblical. At public universities such ways of dealing with topics are considered to be inappropriate. For instance, a business ethics professor at nearby Simon Fraser University wrote what is in many ways quite a good article entitled "Should universities teach business ethics?" I'll mention in passing, by the way, that he refers to the necessary liberal arts skills of critical enquiry, experimentation and research design in developing his argument. The author concludes that a language of applied ethics, one providing a logical and secular mode of making sense of the moral minefield hidden beneath conventional wisdom, is an imperative (Mark Wexler, "Should universities teach business ethics?", Simon Fraser Alumni Journal, Spring 1992, pp. 13-20). Secondly, good business research and teaching in a Christian university can draw upon the wealth of knowledge and skills that all of the liberal arts, including biblical studies and theology, provide. Samuel Dunn is absolutely correct when he says: With respect to knowledge, the business disciplines may be viewed as applied liberal arts, as they are direct applications of psychology, sociology, economics, philosophy, mathematics, and religion (Dunn, p. 116) Public universities would place limitations upon my academic freedom by denying me the use of religious perspectives. Before I mention my third point, I'm anticipating what some of you might be thinking at this moment: "Why don't we hear more of this kind of teaching at church?" I wish we did. But Christian businesspeople have not often found the church to be of much help in dealing with issues that are peculiar to economic life. For example, in one study several hundred executives were asked whom they usually consult on ethical matters related to their work. They listed clergy last behind even "No one, I work it out myself" (Daniel Maltby, "The One- Minute Ethicist: Can Business School Ethics Courses Really Make Us Better?", The Marketplace, Vol. 18, Issue 3, May/June 1988, pp. 12-15). The results of this study were not a surprise to me. As part of my research for the book on labor relations, I wrote to every Christian denomination in Canada, asking them for denominational statements, historic church positions, rules of thumb, or anything else they might provide to indicate their views on laborrelated topics. Fewer than twenty bothered to answer, all but five to say that they had nothing, but felt that something was desperately needed. Here are a few representative replies: 1. The Associated Gospel Churches: "I agree that the [labor] movement does function with little critique from the church and from Christian leaders...I must tell you that within our Association I do not know of any documents that would be of value to you." 2. Quakers: "Canadian Yearly Meeting has made no statements on labor-related matters." 3. Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada: "Congratulations on your project to edit a book on labor relations in biblical perspective. Neither our church, nor its predecessor bodies, have done much work in this area." 4. Evangelical Free Church: "I affirm the work you are doing on the proposed book on labor relations in biblical perspective. The evangelical church has so specialized in "religious" things that it has abdicated its responsibility in terms of the practical. It is only as we bring the relevance of Scripture to the broad cross section of life and address mankind in an integrated, holistic manner that we will gain a hearing for the Gospel. I think that which you are doing relates to this and I sincerely express thanks." 5. The Canadian Council of Churches: "This is a most timely study, and we would be eager to learn of your findings. We wish you courage and success." This brings me to my third point about the way in which we as business faculty can do our task differently in a Christian university. For the kingdom of God to extend into the economic realm, Christian businesspeople must take the leadership role. It will be primarily the businesspeople, not the clergy, who will bring the redemptive Word of God to bear upon business matters. As Dunn puts it so well: It is critical that business leaders in our society be well grounded in theology, philosophy, ethics, history, and political science. It is also critical that they understand how decision-making in business management is replete with opportunities to apply Christian moral and ethical principles. In a world characterized by rapid change, by information technologies, and by ethical diffusion, and where the physical environment is so easily and so often degraded, there is a critical need for business leaders with a high vision of humankind and of God's physical creation. The business department in the Christian college can help prepare the kinds of leaders needed (Dunn, p. 114). Economic life affects everyone in society eventually. Even in our Christian institutions students often make life-shaping choices with respect to careers, based on North American purposes and ethics because they have not been shown how to do otherwise. A faculty of business administration in a Christian liberal arts college is in the best position to equip students to make wise choices concerning the world of work.