Christian businesses

Click for picture  Muffler Man - Christian Tech wanted

I had a brief brush with Fundamentalist Christianity.  There were problems at work and one co-workers solution was to take me outside, preach and pray over me and have me repeat some sort of prayer and a pledge to embrace something-or-other.  I soon discovered the insular nature of what I was getting into and realized that the only way it was going to work was to constantly immerse myself in it, subscribing to "Christian" radio stations (which weren't yet available my area) and only allowing myself to be around people of the same mindset - an echo chamber.  It didn't last long.

I seem to remember the whole concept of "Christian businesses" starting about 10 years ago.  Every year somebody would stuff a "Christian Yellow Pages" in my mailbox.  When dealing with Fundamentalist Christians, they would often ask, when referred someplace, if it was a "Christian business".  They want someplace where they are guaranteed that nobody will burst the bubble they live inside.  I sat outside one of these businesses one night at closing time and was interested to watch them doing a prayer circle.

So, would I be a customer of a "Christian business"?

I'm a systems analyst.  That means I'm trained to look at a business, its operation, its data flows, its business processes and rules, the various entities and how it all works together.  Out of this analysis comes an overall goal of what the business does for a living, sometimes encapsulated in a "mission statement" and specific recommendations for how things can improved, usually by eliminating dead wood and duplication of effort.

Many Christian business's mission statement have first and foremost Fundy-babble.  Something like "Our mission is to Glorify God and ...(the rest of stuff normally in a mission statement like customer service)".  When I walk in the door, I don't want my time invested in this business spent on anything other than the core business activity - in this case fixing my muffler.

The other thing is the actual competence of the work.  A full understanding of metalurgy requires believing in things that contradict Fundamentalist Christian thought.  Certainly wouldn't take biology from a teacher who doesn't believe in evolution.  I certain wouldn't trust a muffler repair guy who doesn't believe in particle decay because it would disprove a young universe.

I'm taking my business elsewhere, thank you.