My article from this week's newspapers is a follow-up to last week's answer about Christians in the marketplace:
What about a
Christian business owner – should they participate in transactions that are
related to events with which they do not morally agree?
This question addresses the other side of one that was
begun in the previous question addressed in this column, and both deal with the
question of how Christians live out their moral convictions in the
marketplace. When the Christian is the
customer, it does not seem to be their responsibility to be their concern what
the business owner’s incidental use of their income outside of the transaction
in question.
However, when the Christian is the service provider, the
question is perhaps more complicated. The
Christian, as customer, agrees with the merchant for a product or service and
is not substantially involved once the transaction is complete, but the
Christian business-owner finds themselves in a more difficult position.
This begins with the business owner’s own
conscience. So, even though their name
may not be associated with the immoral act and their service may not directly
support the immoral act, they may face a trouble conscience over contributing
to the act.
I can think of an occasion where this was the case when
I was working as a service technician repairing computers. Some of our technicians were uncomfortable
with servicing a computer whose use was related to pornography while others,
while not supportive of pornography themselves, saw their service of the
computer as separate from its use with pornography.
This issue became even more complicated on an occasion
where the computer was not used merely to access pornographic images, but was
used in the actual production of pornography, and technicians who were
comfortable working on the previous computers were troubled by the prospect of
servicing this particular machine.
An even greater level of objection occurred when on
on-site service call was received to install computer equipment at an adult
entertainment venue near the store.
Technicians who had not been uncomfortable with the previous scenarios
now found this to be beyond a level that their conscience could bear.
This illustrates the variety of levels of involvement a
Christian might have when providing a product or service in the
marketplace. Certainly the Christian
merchant is not responsible for every action taken with the product they have
sold. Nearly every product can be
misused in some sinful way, so the Christian business-owner would have to
interview every customer about their intended use of the product, and even then
would be confronted with the possibility that the customer had lied. Obviously, the Christian merchant does not
need to trouble themselves with these sort of concerns.
Some services involve a higher degree of participation
than others – either by the nature of or the proximity of the service. So, for example there is a significant
difference between the plumber who fixes the bathroom sink at a strip club and
the audio-video technician who designs and installs a system for mass-viewing
of sexually-explicit entertainment.
Likewise, take the example that has made frequent
headlines in the news in recent years where services are sought for weddings, but
the merchant declines the job because they cannot support the marriage that is
occurring. It seems that here there is
also a question of degree here. The
caterer who is providing a meal probably faces less uncertainty about the
morality of their involvement than the owner of the venue which hosts the
event, and the baker who is tasked with writing the message on the cake or
placing the figures of the couple on top is most likely to face a question of
conscience for their involvement.
While I would be uncomfortable instituting church
discipline to require or forbid individual Christian participation in business
transactions which cause questions of conscience, it seems that it is certainly
necessary to respect the weight which such decisions place on people of moral
conviction. One would hope that state
and federal law would recognize this by protecting the conscience right of
merchants, while at the same time those merchants ultimately have the
obligation to follow Acts 5:29’s instruction to “obey God rather than man,” in
matters of conscience, regardless of law to the contrary.
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