While you might be thinking of Christ-honoring companies in your own state, or business owners in your own city who are successfully integrating Christian faith with their work, there is a distant part of the world that most of us don't usually associate with the integration of Christan faith and business: China.
In the September 23, 2010, issue of BreakPoint, Chuck Colson highlights an article from the BBC by Christopher Landau.
Colson reports: "The Chinese government is studying the impact of Christian entrepreneurs and Christian-run businesses. A professor at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences told Landau that it's clear to him that the growth of Christianity and economic prosperity are taking place simultaneously in Wenzhou--a city deeply influenced by Christian missionaries in the past."
Landau's article includes an interview with Weng-Jen Wau, owner of an industrial valve company in Wenzhou who is an openly committed Christian. Colson relates: "The factory owner is also quite open about another fact: When it comes to hiring, he would choose Christians over non-Christians every time--because he thinks they make better workers." (Regrettably, this is not always said about American Christian workers. But that is a topic for later.)
Colson goes on to reference Rodney Stark, in The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success. Colson writes: "Amazingly enough, at the end of his book, Stark quotes a published statement by Chinese scholars, who said they had no doubt that Christianity is the source of Western prosperity!"
Here is the amazing conclusion of Chinese scholars: "The Christian moral foundation of social and cultural life was what made possible the emergence of capitalism and the successful transition to democratic politics."
Colson concludes: "The simultaneous rise of Christian faith and economic success in China is just one piece of evidence that worldview matters. And that the Christian worldview, above all others, allows us to thrive in--and make sense of--the world we live in."
Please view a 2.5 minute video that Colson did for Worldview Matters in which he explains the critical link between the biblical worldview and work:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhBpl4J1NEM&feature=player_embedded
To subscribe to Colson's BreakPoint, go to: http://www.breakpoint.org/resources/subscribe-to-bp
