Review for Ministers-at-Work by Rob Fox April 2004

Richard’s book is a protest – against the marginalisation of Christianity by business, and the marginalisation of business by Christianity. The business world finds little of significance for its activities in the Christian faith or the Christian church. The church feels the same about business. This is not how God intended things to be, and it is vital that both these processes of marginalisation – pushing to the edges – are reversed.

Questions of Business Life is also the story of the Ridley Hall Foundation over the last six years. The Foundation is the project relating Christian faith to the business world which Richard has run at Ridley Hall. The main focus of this is a programme of residential seminars on topical business issues, involving practising businesspeople, which have been a combination of identifying and promoting best practice and developing a Christian perspective on the particular topic. Each chapter of the book is both a report and a further reflection on one of those topics. They are:

Issues about doing business corporately: The nature and purpose of a company: the stakeholder debate Changing stakeholder relations: the development of supply chain management Can partnership really work? Establishing trust in the construction industry The changing faces of loyalty: rewriting the psychological contract

Issues about doing business globally: Fuelling the consumer society: the ethics of marketing Tackling international corruption: doing business without bribes Saving the planet: business and sustainable development Business without frontiers: the growth of e-commerce

Issues about doing business individually: Influencing organisations for good? The role of the consultant Changing patterns of work: the portfolio lifestyle Spirituality and the workplace: a new paradigm at work? The revived idea of vocation: calling in the secular world

On one topical issue after another a robust and imaginative biblical theology, linked to the well informed, practical understanding that businesspeople bring, has a refreshing and often unexpected relevance to the world of work. Questions of Business Life reveals how these insights have emerged in the life of the Ridley Hall Foundation.

So marginalisation has to stop. Richard’s book shows how and why.

“Questions of Business Life” is available from good Christian bookshops or from Richard himself at Ridley Hall.

For once the publicity blurb accurately tells us what the book is about and how it came to be written, so I have no need to describe the contents. It is not however simply a re-hash of the findings of seminars hosted by the Ridley Hall Foundation, rather a series of reflections on them, placed in a contextual whole. How far the seminar material is used varies, I suspect reflecting how coherent the outcomes of each were. Various contributions from speakers and participants are woven into the chapters, but the book is more of a reflection on them. Higginson also seeks to point up some common themes and directions for progress in useful introductory and concluding chapters. The latter in particular, The revived idea of vocation, is perceptive and pointed.

So how useful is it? Well, this is more a book about ethics and relationships than ministry, with the central aim of pointing to the divide between Christianity and business and how this might be bridged. It is about the contexts within which ministry at work takes place. Some of these are particular, such as the construction and marketing industries, others are general. Even in the former certain themes and principles with wider application are identified, for example the recommendations for positive ethical standards in marketing stand as sound bases in many other areas of business life (pages 154-5). The chapter on the role of the consultant clearly draws out the parallels between Christian and secular ethical standards (page 251ff) in this industry and slays a few myths about this oft-feared creature. That on globalisation ought to be required reading for the next meeting of the European Worker Priests!

Higginson clearly knows his territory well; the 9 page bibliography of works cited and referred to is not there for show, these resources are aptly used. I got the impression too that he knows the limits of his own experience and allows others to speak for themselves. This was particularly evident where there were clearly wide ranges of opinion represented at a seminar, notably in the chapters on Spirituality and the Workplace (I recommend this one to all interested in the subject) and Tackling International Corruption: doing business without bribes. The agonising that many at the seminar had been through comes across clearly in the latter.

The biblical parallels are sometimes a little strained, for example in The nature and purpose of a Company and Business without frontiers: the growth of e-commerce, but in fairness Higginson recognises that it is not possible to find good parallels for some of the areas covered. Jesus did not send a text message ahead to have the Upper Room ready, convenient though this may have been.

Where the book is strong is in grasp of historical information and trends: how and why we got where we are now. The summary of how the “company” has developed is simple yet sound, and the final chapter gives a good analysis of just how Christianity and Business have grown apart, with proposals as to how to address this.

It is a balanced book, with measured criticism both of the business world and its critics where this is justified, and pointing up how much of what goes on in business is constructive. There is a particularly lucid critique of the Spirituality and Business movement that chimes well with concerns I have heard expressed.

Overall this is an enjoyable and informative read. It is readable and accessible, an even pace is maintained throughout, and the modular structure makes it easy to read in chunks (I read it a chapter at a time on the train). I suspect that I will come back to it again; it is too thought provoking to leave on the shelf. If you are involved in the world of business in any way, or just interested, it is well worth having.