Can Bible, Business Mix? : Evangelicals Run Their Firms by the Book
The accountants at SSC Industries always tried to maintain a strong cash flow by postponing payment to creditors as long as possible, while trying to get customers to pay up immediately.
That’s how it was until one day in 1984 when B. G. Stumberg, president of the East Point, Ga., chemical company, picked up a Bible and decided that it wants businessmen to follow contracts to the letter. Pricked by conscience, he borrowed $150,000 to pay off SSC’s outstanding debts, and instructed the accounting department to henceforth keep as current on bills as possible.
“It may not have been the right thing for the bottom line, but it was the right way to do business,” said Stumberg, who is a born-again Christian.
As the number of American evangelicals has swelled to 40 million from 30 million over the past decade, a growing number of business people have sought to apply conservative Christian principles to the ethical problems they face at work. Like Stumberg, they are turning to religion to guide the way they finance their operations, manage and pay employees, contribute to charities, and reinforce what they consider proper values.
Many business people of other faiths are, of course, seeking to apply the principles of their religions as well. But observers say the efforts of born-again Christians have been particularly visible recently amid a resurgence of conservative Christian doctrine.
“There’s been a lot of discussion in the evangelical community about ‘the Christian way’ of doing business,” says Carnegie Samuel Calian, president of the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, a Presbyterian institution.
The interest in applying a Christian ethic at work is reflected in a steady proliferation in evangelical business and professional organizations, which are often forums for discussion of applying born-again doctrine, say officials of evangelical associations. The latest National Assn. of Evangelicals directory lists 38 such groups; among them are organizations for airline flight attendants, dentists, doctors and lawyers in addition to physical therapists, rodeo riders, social workers and soldiers.
Born-again Christians’ growing interest in applying biblical precepts may also be reflected in a small but growing number of complaints of discriminatory employment practices by evangelicals. Civil libertarians and employees of other faiths have charged that evangelicals have discriminated against outsiders in hiring and promotion, for example, and in the way they have used ads to seek clients and business partners of similar views.
While no definitive figures are available on the number of such complaints, “there has definitely been an upswing,” says Marc Stern, legal director of the American Jewish Congress in New York. “A few years ago you never heard of this kind of thing.”
The courts have recently struggled with a number of cases pitting employers’ rights of speech and religion against those of employees, and Stern predicts that there are more to come. “These conflicts arise because people sincerely believe they’re called on to live out their beliefs at work, just as they do in the rest of their lives,” says Stern.
That’s the way B. G. Stumberg feels.
At SSC, he held voluntary Bible study sessions and organized annual retreats where managers and their spouses considered issues of business practice from a Christian perspective. Stumberg hired a personnel counselor with an evangelical outlook to help employees solve problems with their spouses, children and personal finances.
Contributed to Success
“They called us the Bible-thumping chemical company, and that was fine with us,” he said. Stumberg believes that his attempts to put Christian ethics into practice didn’t penalize the company financially, but contributed to its success.
Stumberg retired last fall to devote more time to an evangelical business organization called the Fellowship of Companies for Christ, which he heads. But he faced an occasional question of business ethics, as he did last month, when he and an associate had an opportunity to buy a commercial tract in Atlanta.
Stumberg’s associate had an option that would have allowed them to purchase the property for half of the $12.5 million they calculated it would be worth after development. But Stumberg turned down the deal because it would have required him to co-sign a note guaranteeing other investors’ financial commitments--a practice Stumberg believes is prohibited in the Book of Proverbs.
John Reaves, a Dallas restaurateur, has also had his convictions tested in a costly way.
Reaves, 41, built a chain of five Smokey John’s Barbecue restaurants in the Dallas area with co-investors Drew Pearson and Harvey Martin, both of whom are former members of the Dallas Cowboys football team. The chain became well-known “and it looked like I was on my way to becoming a millionaire by the time I was 35,” he says.
But in 1983, after a born-again experience, Reaves decided he would no longer serve liquor at the restaurants. And he decided that he would stop under-reporting his sales, as he had in the past to avoid sales taxes.
Sought Bankruptcy Shield
His business fell off so sharply that in March, 1984, Reaves filed for protection under the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, with assets of $300,000 and debts of $485,000.
Now he’s trying to raise $2.5 million to open three restaurants that won’t serve liquor and will seek a “family” clientele. He is soliciting private investors’ capital, since the bankruptcy frightened off bank lenders, he said.
“With the bars I had, those restaurants were driving families apart,” he says. “This time I hope to do the opposite.”
Albert Dipezeen has tried to guide his small computer-services business in Kankakee, Ill., by the principle that charity gets whatever he doesn’t need.
Last year, when his Datafax Computer Services had sales of $1.4 million, he gave about $120,000 to evangelical ministries and other charities. He estimates that he gave another $8,000--in sums of several hundred to several thousand dollars--to people who came to him directly for help paying rent, medical bills or other crises.
“I don’t want to pretend I’m some kind of goody-goody guy,” says Dipezeen, 50, a Dutch immigrant whose speech still bears the accent of his homeland. “I can be a jerk like anybody else. I just think the Lord has given me this company to help people.”
Datafax is financially strong, but Dipezeen’s charitable impulses have sometimes complicated operations.
Won’t Go to the Bank
Sometimes he gives away so much that the company has squeaked by with only a few hundred dollars in its checking account after paying off its creditors. Since he believes the Bible frowns on borrowing, he won’t go to a bank in a cash crunch.
“My poor secretary gets hysterical over these cash flow problems, but I think that if we have extra money we ought to give it away,” he said. “It’s always worked out so far.”
Dipezeen believes his religious commitment has helped the company through tough times to prosperity. His habit of giving has made others willing to give to him in return, he says, and he believes a Divine hand has several times averted real trouble.
Once, in a slow time for his business, Dipezeen’s accountant called to gripe that Dipezeen had given away $9,000 for the quarter, far more than Datafax could hope to make. But when the quarterly results were calculated “we made exactly that--$9,000,” Dipezeen says.
Billy Watts feels strongly about what he considers family values, and has tried at his Como, Tex., shutter factory to do what he can to keep mothers at home with their children. For the past two years, he has offered the 40 employees at Custom Shutters an extra $1 an hour if they are a family’s sole wage earner, and an additional 50 cents an hour supplement for each of their children under 16 years old.
The wage supplement program has some curious effects on the distribution of pay. It has meant, for example, that some employees with long experience have been making less than newcomers who have more children.
But Watts insists the system has been popular with his staff, and has caused the wives of several male employees to stay home. “This was sort of a way I could put my money where my conviction was,” he says.
Consulted Officials
Watts was aware that his unorthodox program might be controversial, and says he consulted Texas anti-discrimination officials before putting it into effect. He also stopped holding voluntary Bible study sessions at the factory, he says, because some employees claimed he was showing favoritism to those who took part.
Some other evangelical employers have waged legal battles over what they considered their right to run a business according to Christian principles.
Sports & Health Club Inc., of Minneapolis, has been in court for three years battling city and state authorities over owner Arthur W. Owens’ desire to maintain what he calls a “religiously charged atmosphere” at the company.
Only last week, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review a Minnesota Supreme Court’s ruling that Owens couldn’t question prospective employees on their religious views, or discriminate against non-evangelicals in promotion.
The club’s management has been made up exclusively of born-again Christians. Sports & Health has also asked prospective employees to sign a “pre-employment statement” outlining its views, “just to see if any of it gives people a problem,” says Owens.
He insists that the company will hire persons who don’t share its views, although it won’t employ homosexuals, drug-users, single people living with persons of the opposite sex, or anyone “rebelling against authority”--for example, a wife who wants a job against the wishes of her husband.
A Costly Battle
The health chain, until recently the largest in Minnesota, lost $400,000 last year because of heavy litigation expenses and the effects of negative publicity, according to the owner. It currently owes more than $38,000 in contempt fines imposed by a lower court because he violated the court’s ruling.
Owens feels that the government is trying to discriminate against him by restricting the freedom to practice his religion. “It seems to me the question boils down to whose discrimination will prevail,” he said.
Realtor Paul K. Lotz in Newport News, Va., fought a court battle against the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, and now faces a suit by the state of Virginia, over his practice of using Christian slogans and symbols in its advertising for customers, and in a sign outside its offices. While Lotz also says in his ads that he doesn’t discriminate against those of any faith, the state contends that the ads will discourage non-evangelicals.
In late 1984, a California appeals court ruled that the publisher of the Orange County Yellow Pages had illegally barred two Jewish businessmen from advertising in the directory because they would not sign an oath that they subscribed to its evangelical views.
The publishing firm, W. R. Thomson, has since filed for bankruptcy protection, claiming legal expenses during the suit drove it to insolvency. But the 100-odd Christian Yellow Pages and similar directories remain a booming business around the country.
Critics of the directories, who include some evangelicals, say that even though many accept all advertising, their espousal of one religious view tends to scare off advertisers of other faiths.
“It’s nice to be around those who are like you, but we can’t mix only among ourselves,” said Matthew Welde, director of Presbyterians United for Evangelical Concerns.
