It’s time to think honestly

I recently appeared on a panel for a Christian conference about work in Fort Worth, Texas, alongside a handful of pastors and entrepreneurs. All of the panelists, myself included, were committed to a theology of work that recognizes its inherent virtue, and all of us were proponents of a market economy. The moderator asked each of us to address our thoughts on the “parallel economy,” whether it was likely to persist, and how we incorporated it into our respective businesses. To simplify, a “parallel economy” is one in which Christians pursue commerce only with other Christians. The term has picked up steam over the last five years, especially in the aftermath of the “woke” moment, the advance of critical theory into corporate America, forced diversity hiring and training (DEI), and other aspects of cultural leftism in the 2020s.

Proponents of a parallel economy (sometimes referred to by its defenders as a “freedom economy”) state that there is a defensive measure to the idea. Because so many businesses are at risk of being canceled if they use the wrong pronouns or ignore the right sensitivity training, they need to inoculate themselves from the threat of secular progressivism. However, they also tout a positive agenda out of such a marketplace—the belief that limiting our choice of vendors, suppliers, employees, and even customers to those of our faith and politics will advance kingdom principles and people virtues. Many people of faith are sympathetic to the concept. It is common for there to be biases where there are affinities in marketplace decisions. Upon further inquiry, though, those of a devout Christian worldview ought to be suspicious of the parallel economy concept on both economic and theological grounds.

I first must state my underlying sympathy for the concept. Where proponents are sincere and not guilty of crass marketing the name of Jesus, there is no need for wholesale rejection of the idea. While “Christian grift” has long been a thing, the concept itself does not sink or swim merely on the ill intent of some. I hope the movement transcends the “Jesus fish” mentality of decades gone by, and I have no doubt that its most earnest proponents want the same. There has been a real need for Christians to evaluate potential (possibly existential) vulnerabilities to their business since 2020, whether it be access to technology, banking, or legal protection. There have been extreme cases, thankfully rare, where certain acts of persecution were taken against Christians of goodwill. Pursuing the relationships necessary to not allow cancellation or shutdown that one may face at varying degrees of exposure across different sectors is wise and prudent. Some issues are matters of equal protection under the law, and First Amendment protections must allow Christians to conduct business, even as they allow some to also not make it that easy. In my financial advisory practice, I do not want to be told I must provide wealth services to the pornography industry. Other suppliers of services may exercise their First Amendment right to not work with businesses engaged in good and healthy activities. This freedom of exchange is vital in our republic, but it requires thoughtful and proactive consideration of how a business can defend against unnecessary provocation by one hostile to our faith.

However, the idea of a “parallel economy” whereby one is removed from supply chain exposure to the unsaved world is a delusion. Worse, it is entirely unnecessary and even sub-optimal. Men and women of faith engaged in business have a primary responsibility to serve their customers— to be a blessing to them—by providing the best goods and services they can. They have every right to work to make sure their suppliers will not cut off their access to electricity (metaphorically and literally), and yet also have an obligation to find the highest quality provider of goods and services they can in the course of delivering on their business mission.

The interconnectedness of the modern economy is so engrained in our exchange of goods and services, it would take less than five minutes to enumerate a hundred ways in which “parallel economy” companies are going “unparallel” every minute of the day. We have every right to find companies that profess to share our belief system, but proclaiming that in so doing we are immunized from those who do not reflects an economic ignorance that is hard to imagine. Indeed, any rebuttal to this argument will be read on a computer made by a hardware company, across broadband lines provided by a company, on a phone made by a company, using an email system provided by a company, where the enterprise involved is deemed to be potentially hostile to the Christian way of life. If one tries to dismiss all of these categories, they surely could not dismiss the same reality about the furniture we sit in while reading it, the utility provider involved in the electricity, the maker of the paint on the laptop, the refreshments being consumed while reading it, etc.

Conservative Christians have, for years, rightfully lambasted the outrageous hypocrisy of people like Sen. Bernie Sanders or Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez using the iPhone made by a multitrillion-dollar company to distribute via multibillion-dollar social media companies from coffee shops where coffee drinks sell for $6 messages of the failure of capitalism. The parallel economy advocates are either unaware of their own reliance on the full force of a market economy in our modern world, or they are promoting something that not only does not but cannot exist.

The question, though, is whether or not it even needs to. Jesus encouraged His disciples in John 17:11–18 that we are not to be “of the world,” even as we are “in the world.” There exists a connectivity to the world on this side of glory that is inescapable, and devoid of ethical compromise. That said, there also exists an antithesis between belief and unbelief that separates those reconciled to God from those married to the fallen world. This antithesis is, indeed, profoundly relevant to our interaction with unbelieving thought and worldview.

And yet, the creation mandate for mankind to produce goods and services is a core mandate, calling, and gift for all of creation. All of mankind is made in the image of God and, thankfully, possesses skills, talents, and contributions to the market economy that we are to avail ourselves of. Matters of Christian conscience may prevent us from certain “unclean foods” (Romans 14: 20–23), but the common grace that God uses to conserve, preserve, and bless us is real and applicable to this very subject. There is a giftedness in the marketplace manifested by unbelievers that we do benefit from, we must benefit from, and we ought to benefit from. Their giftedness is a part of what Christians deliver to their customers when they provide goods and services in the marketplace. Common grace unites believers and unbelievers as creatures made in God’s image. Where the antithesis and common grace intersect creates a complexity that Christians must reconcile when it comes to economic life.

In summary, our duty in producing goods and services is to bless our customers and do our work excellently. We have not just a right but a duty to defend against external forces that may represent an existential threat to our enterprise. There will be ample opportunities to work with believers in the course of our business activities, and we will inevitably work with unbelievers, too, including leveraging their contributions to this interconnected, complex economy in the work we do. That God has bestowed a common grace on believers and unbelievers to make economic life possible in a world besieged by sin (amongst other aspects of living) is a blessing. It does not negate the antithesis, and we must vehemently advocate for the kingdom of God in our work.

The reality of a modern economy has made the parallel economy an impossibility, even if certain aspects appeal to us as a convenience or sub-cultural option on occasion. And the dual reality of antithesis and common grace has made the parallel economy unnecessary on this side of glory.