Many Christians find themselves working for businesses or corporations that encourage compliance with the moral revolution. Perhaps their company wants them to participate in gay pride month. Perhaps they require employees to use the preferred gender pronouns of their co-workers. Or maybe they require them to sign a statement affirming critical race theory, homosexuality, or some other perversion.
The question then becomes, how are Christians to faithfully respond to employers who are pressuring employees to abandon their convictions. Many Christians know it is wrong to capitulate to such requests but might have difficulty articulating why or formulating a strategy to do so. We acknowledge that every situation is different and should be handled differently. Nevertheless, there are several principles on how to faithfully approach the issue.
First, we must register a protest at some level.
God does not expect his people to be swayed by conventional wisdom, mobs, or groupthink. God’s exact words were, “You shall not fall in with the many to do evil, nor shall you bear witness in a lawsuit, siding with the many, so as to pervert justice” (Ex. 23:2). When you hide from the mob, they are going to find you eventually. When they do you will have to either comply with their demands or not. Eventually, Christians will be forced to show their cards or compromise. T.S. Eliot warned that the subtle pressure of intellectual conformity was a bigger threat than outright persecution.1 The nature of the current moral revolution is that the mob isn’t satisfied until everyone conforms, indeed until everyone celebrates their cause.
That being said, that doesn’t mean we should be more zealous than the situation calls for. There may be some cases where it is wise to keep your head down and mind your own business for a time, especially if you aren’t being forced to lie or to sin. For example, imagine your company periodically sends you so-called “social justice” propaganda emails that make no claim on you. For the most part, you can delete these emails with silent disgust. But you should begin formulating a plan. The emails may be phase one of a larger operation.
Second, we must prepare to speak the truth.
The time will likely come where we need to speak the truth, recognizing that the chips may not fall where we prefer. We should be prepared and ready to make the best arguments for our position, spoken in love. For more on this point see our companion article One Little Word Shall Fell Him.
Third, we are being asked to submit to a religious view.
Some might think it’s best to hide out as long as possible in hopes that the mob will trample someone else. The problem with this is that the new notions of inclusion and diversity are not neutral. Not everything is included. Real diversity is not desired. Rousseau made it clear in The Social Contract that Christians are welcome in society only as long as they submit to the General Will—as long as they subordinate the opinions of God to the opinions of the majority. He thought that Christianity was most contrary to the “social spirit.” This is how inclusion excludes other religions and all with a straight face. Pluralism and Christianity’s faith claims are not compatible. The moral revolution is trying to sacralize a new order.
Fourth, we need a strategy to register our disapproval
It’s hard to be the oddball, so begin by discussing your concerns with your closest coworkers. From there seek out co-workers that acknowledge the moral bankruptcy of the moral revolution. Find a group of like-minded employees, band together, and fearlessly stand on your convictions in a winsome and joyful way. This may mean writing a thoughtful email, though sending an email to the top will likely be less impactful than first sending it to your immediate supervisor. It might also mean calling a meeting to voice your unified opposition.
At The New York Times, 150 out of 1200 employees demanded that Donald McNeil be fired. Why? Because he used the N-word in describing why not to use the N-word.2 The voices of a mere 12% of employees caused a man to get fired. This can happen in your company too, but in which direction? What if you organized the other 1,050 people to push back? They wouldn’t all join you, but many would. One of the felicities of this approach is that principled obstreperousness would be put in the right direction.
Fifth, we shouldn’t do this alone
A church that swallows up self-sufficiency in favor of mutual dependence (i.e. the hand needs the foot and the foot needs the eye) can be a powerful force. For the church to become what sociologists call a “deviant subculture,” it needs to support church members when they register disagreement at their job. The church needs to see that one of the best ways to subvert the poisonous values of society is for Christians to offer resistance when their company joins the moral revolution. When Christians resist, they demystify the moral revolution and help others see evil for what it is.
But voicing displeasure with the cultural revolution may put you in the crosshairs of your company. Since you risk losing your job, the church should have your back. No Christian should feel like he is fighting this battle alone. Christians should know in advance that the church will be there to provide for them. And if it ever comes to it, Christians should know that if they are thrown in jail for speaking against evil, the church will care for their wife and kids, provide legal aid, and visit them often. We know that all who desire to live a godly life will be persecuted (2 Tim. 3:12). The faithful should not suffer alone.
Sixth, we must make backup plans
There is a risk that you’ll lose your job if you resist.3 This is the primary reason Christians keep silent. So, we must begin formulating backup plans and asking the question, “What will I do if I lose my job?” But more than making backup plans, we need to be proactive and create alternatives. What would it look like if more Christians became entrepreneurs? What if local churches offered training on entrepreneurship? This would give more Christians the opportunity to take risks and speak out, or to proactively pull out of corporations and government jobs. In other words, it would enable Christians to become antifragile.4 It’s not that every Christian should abandon corporate America or their government job. Corporate America has culture-shaping power and we need Christians in those jobs, fighting the fight of faith. But neither can Christians allow their moral conscience to go silent because they fear losing their job.
Seventh, we must see that the enemy isn’t always as strong as we perceive him to be
The powerful forces of corporations and government look terrifying and unbeatable. In truth, they are often brittle. When Daniel prayed in defiance of King Darius’ order (notice that Daniel prayed with windows open for all to see, Dan. 6:10), the King reversed (Dan. 6:26) the irrevocable law (Dan. 6:12) after seeing Daniels’s faithfulness to Yahweh. Daniel’s resistance exposed the impotence of the King’s wicked requirements. While it’s not always the case that the merest resistance will reverse unrighteous decrees, the resistance of Daniel is a biblical example that gives us hope that enemies will crumble when we are faithful.5
The economist and financial researcher Jerry Bowyer has provided a model for what resistance can look like. He has attended several virtual shareholders’ meetings for large corporations and challenged their progressive stances. Most of the corporations ignored or dismissed his questions. But what if an entire block of shareholders and employees were asking these questions? The questions Bowyer suggests asking are, “Why in the world would large publicly traded companies endorse such divisive legislation that is clearly incompatible with the sincerely held beliefs of half of the country? Is it mainstream to force girls to compete in sports with athletes who identify as females, but are, biologically, boys? Is it mainstream to force shelters for battered women to accept biologically male applicants? Is it mainstream to compel churches into accepting new gender ideologies in their hiring practices?”6
Eighth, we need to understand why many corporations support the moral revolution
The reason is fear. Sasha Issenberg has admitted that those advancing the revolution shame corporations to coerce them to comply.7 Those in the moral revolution threaten boycotts and bad publicity if the company refuses to meet their demands. So, companies give public signals that they are obedient to the whim of the revolution, signals such as encouraging their employees to support gay pride month.8
While companies are afraid of the woke tidal wave, the majority of Americans don’t want corporations involved in politics.9 What happens when big business antagonizes most of the country, their shareholders, and a block of their employees. Well, if all those people are silent, nothing happens. But if a block of those people intelligently resists, then King Darius may reverse course. Never forget that the convictions of your faith and what you do with those convictions influence the direction history takes.
Jason Cherry is an elder at Trinity Reformed Church in Huntsville, Alabama, as well as a teacher and lecturer of literature, American history, and economics at Providence Classical School in Huntsville. He graduated from Reformed Theological Seminary with an MA in Religion and is the author of the book The Culture of Conversionism and the History of the Altar Call, now available on Amazon.
- T.S. Eliot, The Idea of a Christian Society and Notes Toward the Definition of Culture (New York: Harcourt, Brace, Harvest Books, 1940), 18. ↩︎
- https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2021/02/12/donald-mcneil-new-york-times-fallout/ ↩︎
- For example James Damore of Google was fired for merely suggesting there are non-sexists reasons why there are more men than women in STEM jobs.
https://thefederalist.com/2017/08/08/read-the-google-diversity-memo-that-that-everyone-is-freaking-out-about/ ↩︎ - Nassim Nicholas Nicholas Taleb, Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder (New York: Random House, 2012). ↩︎
- https://soundcloud.com/user-812874628/episode-440-daniel-chapter-6-part-1-series-on-the-prophets ↩︎
- https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/05/a-shareholder-asks-some-inconvenient-questions/ ↩︎
- https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/05/opinion/gay-marriage-boycotts.html ↩︎
- https://hbr.org/2020/02/how-do-consumers-feel-when-companies-get-political ↩︎
- https://scottrasmussen.com/59-believe-companies-taking-political-positions-adds-to-divisiveness-in-america/ ↩︎