Does Christianity impact all areas of our lives? Evidently some Christians believe that it does not.
For example, there are plenty of Christian business persons who follow Machiavelli’s rules in business instead of Christ’s. One illustration is given by Joel Belz, the founder of World magazine and concerns following the Golden Rule in business. Specifically he concluded that paying employees the minimum wage is essentially telling them “If I could legally pay you less, I would”. Is that treating your employees as you would want to be treated? Should not a Christian business owner or manager work to maximize their employees’ compensation? A business owner or manager definitely wants to maximize their own compensation. Of course a business must take into consideration the other financial requirements of a business such as the need to provide a healthy return on investment for the shareholders, the need for capital to reinvest in the business, and paying their vendors on time. [1] However, the principle of treating one’s employees as one would want to be treated remains valid.
Another example of compartmentalizing Christianity is Christian churches and denominations suing each other over church property instead of following Paul’s teaching of resolving such issues with the Christian community (1 Corinthians 6:1-8). Why do we ignore this teaching while we criticize the world and other Christians for ignoring other teachings of the Bible?
Can we compartmentalize our Christian faith so it only applies to certain areas of our lives and not others? If the answer is yes, how do we decide to which areas we apply the teachings of Christ and which areas we do not? Did Jesus ever compartmentalize his teachings?
_________________________
[1] Joel Belz, “Upside-down Golden Rule”, World, February 22, 2014, p. 3.
