Walking the walk

Proselytization is often confused with evangelism. Talk is cheap. People need to see Christ in you. Let me show you an example of why it matters.

Bob Moore is a very successful businessman and the driving force behind Bob's Red Mill Natural Foods.

In 1978, he started Bob's Red Mill Natural Foods, as a small family-run business in Oregon selling stone mill-ground whole grains. The company has since grown into a multi-million dollar business that sells more than 400 whole grain products including flours, hot cereals, and organic and gluten-free products.

Bob has always put his customers and employees first. He calls his 209 employees his "second family." Two years ago, he decided to do something truly extraordinary. He gave the company to his employees.

"It's the only business decision that I could make," he said. "I don't think there's anybody worthy to run this company but the people who built it. I have employees with me right now that have been with me for 30 years. They just were committed to staying with me now and they're going to own the company."

It is a story fit for one of Jesus' parables. And Bob has taken the lessons of scripture to heart.

"There's a lot of negative stuff going into business today," he said. "It's a good old basic Bible lesson -- love of money is the root of all evil. And unfortunately, our entire philosophy today is get all the money you can and whatever way you can. It's caused many corporations to bite off more than they can chew. And it causes people to do a lot of things just for money that they feel in their hearts is not the right thing to do."

Two years have come and gone since the story of Bob giving his company to his employees first made the news. The interesting thing is that it is still touching hearts. That includes hearts in places not normally sympathetic to religion.

Here is one:

Now as an agnostic – I do not share the same religious viewpoints, but I find Mr. Moore’s example inspiring. Somehow, someway there has been this conflation between capitalism and religion that merged together to give birth to “Supply-side Jesus” that church going American evangelicals all pray to as they denounce the poor as “takers”; watching this all in real time is very perplexing. So – seeing a real life example of what I envision non-hypocritical Christianity to look like is quite humbling and Mr. Moore’s ability to lead by example is wonderful to watch.

The spectacle of Christian leaders selling politicians, greed, and militarism should perplex and disgust all that love and serve Christ. You have to wonder when people who call themselves evangelicals turn compassionate people off to Christ.

Moore's act of love also found its way to the Daily Kos, a blog portal for liberal politics. The blog post about Moore attracted a great deal of attention. Notice the title, "Compassion side Jesus and Bob's Red Mill Foods." On a site where the mere mention of religion often attracts ridicule, the reaction was uniformly positive.

The fact that this story of faith in action is still making the rounds, often popping up in the strangest of places, is an important lesson. Talking about Christ is useless, even counterproductive, unless you act in love. What was it the Apostle Paul said about love?

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Jesus commanded us to love. Anything less represents a complete failure of hermeneutics.