February 2007

ARTICLE TOOLS

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John D. Beckett, chairman of the privately held R. W. Beckett Corporation in North Ridgefield, Ohio, wrote one of the leading books on living out Christian faith in the marketplace, Loving Monday (InterVarsity, 1998). Now Beckett, 68, has written a sequel, Mastering Monday: A Guide to Integrating Faith and Work (InterVarsity, 2006). Senior associate editor Stan Guthrie recently sat down with him.

Why did you write this new book?

There have been something like a thousand books written on this subject. [Christians] have been set in positions of significant leadership, but their business influence has accelerated way past their spiritual preparation. This next book tries to build a more solid foundation under them and to help guide their thinking.

Do you think churches still don't understand business as a calling?

I do. Relatively few churches and pastors are reinforcing the legitimacy of a call into so-called "secular work." I have colleagues with tremendous business influence who are starving spiritually in their local churches. There's zero feeding; there's zero reinforcing of the call they have in the marketplace.

Some prominent Christian leaders, such as the late Ken Lay at Enron, have become embroiled in business scandals. What's gone wrong?

I've asked myself whether Ken Lay is typical of a broader problem—and I really don't know the answer. But frankly, like so many of my peers and contemporaries, I think he separated his work world from his faith world. Enron had a code of four values. Three are very close to my heart, because they're identical to the ones at our company: integrity, excellence, and a profound respect for the individual. What happened to these [values]? People close to it told me that they basically set ...