Washington National Cathedral

Dean Lloyd: Good morning and welcome to the Sunday Forum, our weekly conversation at the intersection of faith and public life. And speaking of faith and public life, we are at one of the major intersections this morning, the intersection between faith and the economy. This is something that has been on everyone’s minds for months now. We are delighted to have David Miller with us, who has spent his life on one side of this divide and now on the other. David Miller is now working on trying to bring them together.

The church struggles often with what to make of economics. What is a faithful response to economic questions? What should be the relationship between the two? Also what is the relationship between our work life and our faith? How is it that when we enter into our work life, often in some aspect of the economy, we take our faith with us? And how do we live out our faith in the complexities of our working life?

David is a wonderful person to talk about both of those sets of questions. David had a first and significant career in international business doing corporate work in Europe and America, and along the way made a decision to go to seminary. And then has pursued the work of trying to integrate the world of economics and the world of faith.

David is now at Princeton and has written a book called Faith and Work, and is engaged in a good deal of study, exploration, and conversation about how those two worlds can come together. David, it is wonderful to have you here today and welcome!

So tell us, how does a smart guy doing quite well financially, thank you very much, make a decision to leave that behind and go to seminary? Was it a crisis of the spirit? A bolt from the blue? Or was there something else going?

David Miller: You may have answered the question: maybe I wasn’t such a smart guy! My wife and I were in London and I was a partner in a small private bank doing cross-border mergers and acquisitions work, corporate finance, and investment banking. My wife was a lawyer at Skadden, Arps and she had opened up their London office and shifted into teaching—interestingly enough, legal ethics at Notre Dame’s London campus.

During that time we worshipped in the Anglican Communion. We worshipped at All Souls Church in London, and during that time my faith began to grow in ways that made a bigger impact. I asked the question, “If God is really real, how does that—should that, ought [that]—shape my life as a business leader?” What responsibilities come with being in business leadership positions?

I wish I could say that there was a crisis, my world was falling apart, but in fact things were going very well. It was a slow, gradual, small drip-feed process where I ultimately discerned a sense of calling to go study theology. Initially it was sort of whispers or tugging. I never got an email or an official invitation from God. It was a gradual process.

Lloyd: I want to talk about what’s going on in the economy, some of what we’ve been looking at now. In light of your work—you worked with IBM for a good many years, and then were director of European operations for an America bank for some years, became an equity partner in a private investment firm… So you were operating somewhere in the neighborhood of the world that has been at the focus of the world’s attention for the last eighteen months or so. What kind of faith perspective can you bring to how the economy got where it got, why it’s there, and what we should make of this moment and how we might move forward? Is there something from a faith perspective to bring to all this that could be helpful?

Miller: I think there is, and I want to tell you a short story. When I was in London and went to tell my partners that I had discerned this calling to go study theology, I was terribly embarrassed about it. I grew up in the Northeast, and talking about faith was not a natural or comfortable thing for me. It was at the time of meeting where there was new business. I was a junior partner and raised my hand said that I wanted to make an announcement. There was silence. I said I had discerned a “calling” to study theology and would be tendering my shares back to the firm.

There was dead silence. You could have heard a pin drop. Joel, one of my partners, who is Jewish, said, “David, did you say call, that God has called you?”

I said “yes” with great embarrassment.

And he said, “Hasn’t God ever heard of call waiting?”

There was a sense of “what is he doing?” I was very frankly concerned about what my peer group, people like you here today, and my colleagues and business professionals think about, had I become some sort of religious nut?

So I sent a letter out to about four hundred people. We called it the “yellow letter,” as it was written on yellow stationery—essentially a business letter saying I was moving on, here is the party you should contact in my absence. But I also felt I had to be honest. I had to say what I was doing. I said I had this experience, a call to study theology. But have no fear, I was still going to read the Wall Street Journal every day, still listen to my rock-and-roll albums, and still say a bad word or two on the tennis court now and then. And I sent it out with a wing and a prayer, wondering what these people were going to think: had I become a religious nut, or what?

Of the four hundred letters I sent out (before email), I got back about over 150 letters, faxes and phone calls—all of them saying, I can’t believe you are doing this. I think this is terrific. I wish I could do this too.

There is a combination of two letters that I will share that really got at what was going on. One man wrote from Hong Kong, a senior executive, “I have more money than God. I own a home in Hong Kong, Paris, and New York, but my life is a shambles. My wife is about to divorce me. One of my kids is hooked on dope, and if I am honest, I drink too much. But I can’t talk to my pastor because he doesn’t understand my world. What should I do?”

I realized that there are lots of men and women that are out there who care deeply about their faith, and who care deeply about their responsibilities at work, and are trying to connect the dots. And today I think that we are in that very space where we have lived—particularly those in the baby boomer generation—a bifurcated, compartmentalized life, where we come and have a wonderful mass or wonderful service or wonderful worship, whether you are Christian or Jewish or whatever. And we go back into the game on Monday and we sort of compartmentalize that person.

And all the good things we’ve heard in the homily on Sunday or the service on Saturday we forget.

And there is a yearning, a deep yearning for people, particularly today in these times of crisis, to connect the dots, to integrate these faith teachings and marketplace practices.

Lloyd: As you look at and think about your colleagues and friends who are still in the business world and who have ridden through this recession, would you say, as you look at what has happened these last 18 months, was there a batch of bad eggs around that just did this? Or was it something fundamental or something even spiritual going on in the world, this country, or the economy? Or some foundational realities at work under the surface that contributed to where we are? Or was it just a few bad people?

Miller: I would say yes, there were a few bad people, or some good people that did bad things, who were so focused on their measurement system and how they were being rewarded, that either they didn’t think about, or chose not to think about, the ramifications of their decisions or actions. They weren’t doing anything illegal. Everybody else was doing it, so why not join in? And you were being rewarded by your management team and incentive system to do certain things. There were good people who in hindsight feel a deep sense of remorse at practices and kinds of transactions and trades they were involved in.

We do have to step back and say, systematically, is there something wrong? On the one hand, there are many right things about the marketplace: it presses people to be creative, to be competitive, to do their best. But without certain parameters, certain train tracks, something to keep people and the system anchored, it can devour itself. And we saw some of that self-devouring this year.

Lloyd: Right now we are seeing questions raised about whether there will be any success about putting further regulations in place. And on the other hand, we are seeing large profits in companies, large bonuses again. And the echo effect as one listens around is, nobody learned anything, and are we going to go there again? What is your sense? Has anything been learned by us as a nation or by the financial industry? Should something be different? And if so, how different could it be?

Miller: Well, a lot of good questions. A lot has been learned. There is a lot more caution. Different questions are being asked in boardrooms that haven’t been asked: some very helpful and positive, but with others, somewhat counter-intuitively, there is some danger that people have lost an appetite for risk and taking chances. They are looking over their shoulders in fear: how will the regulators think about this? That is smart, but also holds the creative juices back.

I do think history repeats itself. It would not surprise me if, in seven or nine years, we have another wave of scandals. It seems to be the human way. Legislation and regulation will tighten some of it up. But it is clear that our government can’t agree yet on what that ought to look like. It will largely be up to the business community and financial leaders to figure it out themselves.

There is one option that will take some courage. There is one bank that I work with that is putting together a kitty, so that your bonus will be measured over multiple years to have some long-term alignment between the risk and what you are doing with performance. If in year one you do very well, you get part of your bonus; but if, in year two and three, it doesn’t do well, they claw back the bonus. So there is a sense of changing the time horizons, and that is a smart move.

Lloyd: So you think there is some genuine self-examination going on in the industry?

Miller: Quietly. I wish there was more going on in public. I wish more CEOs and senior executives had made some public statements of reflection, self-critique, and remorse. I know a lot of that went on privately in various venues I am involved in. There was deep soul-searching, and quite rightly.

Lloyd: Anything going to happen at the macro level? G20 going to do anything that matters in this? Do you think there is any serious looking at globalization per se or structure of the financial economy that is going to affect this?

Miller: My own personal opinion is that there will be a lot of talk and probably nominal substantive action.

We also need to remember that, while things are very dour and difficult here in this country, other parts of the world are exploding with growth. The center of gravity is changing in the economic sphere.

So questions we are asking here that are moral, faith questions, are not being asked in other parts of the world. So men and women who are involved in global positions play a huge role in taking some of the debate we are having here to take those conversations to Hong Kong, Africa, India, countries that are exploding with growth but don’t always have the same moral frameworks to help challenge the system.

Lloyd: Why don’t we turn now to talk about some of your particular work, which seems to move from the macro to working with executives in decision-making positions in companies, and talking about bringing faith perspective into the workplace? You mentioned you sensed some search for guidance and lack of material available for that. Do you want to say something about where the need is, and what drew you in addressing these things in particular?

Miller: Some of it was not intentional and it sort of came to me. There is a Hebrew word, avodah, that I learned during my seminary studies and translated means three different things in English. Sometimes it is translated throughout the Hebrew scriptures to mean work at a job, sometimes worshipping God, and other times translated to mean service as in serving neighbor. That was kind of an epiphany; that is what my life is about. How can my work be a form of worshipping God and serving neighbor?

I founded, or co-founded, an organization called the Avodah Institute with a man named Bill Pollard, then CEO of the Service Master Company. He said he wanted to convene a group of his peer CEOs to talk about this quest of integrating faith and work. Our mission statement was integrating the claims of our faith with the demands of our work. So how do we integrate what often seems in opposition—faith claims and teachings—with workplace demands? We convened a group of twenty different CEOs, some from prominently traded companies we all know and some from small companies.

I was stunned at the hunger, the vulnerability and openness as we went around the room, and they were all sharing. How should they and could they use the power that they had as a CEO to change the system? And how could they appropriately draw on their faith as part of that formula without being imposing, obnoxious, or inappropriate about it? It is a question that many senior executives are deeply interested in.

Lloyd: So there are questions about not only how can they articulate in their company’s work a set of values that matter, but also how can they personally—in their leadership position—maintain their own faith compass?

Miller: That’s a great way to put it. There is this personal dimension: how do I stay on the straight and narrow and not become a headline? How do I personally have the right ethics and decency and questions of social justice? How do I carry myself, and what are the signals I send to the people who work for me?

Then there is a macro societal question: how can my organization do something towards the common good? How do we at a minimum not do harm, and at a maximum make this a better world for our employees, clients?

I’ll give one example, a difficult example. Tyson’s Food is one of my clients—world’s largest producer of beef, poultry, and pork. John Tyson is a man of deep faith, and he is trying to connect the dots. He is looking within his industry sector and asking, how do you take antibiotics out of the food chain? How do you change salt content? Things that have huge strategic effects. How do you change how you euthanize, how you kill the animals? There are all these challenges, and it is a moving target, with science and investments, to change things. He is taking a serious look at this, and this is not an easy industry.

Another man we’ve done things with is Steve Reinemund. He is now retired but was chairman of PepsiCo, one of the world’s largest snack food and beverage companies. He was trying to move the dial. How can you take food that we all call junk food and how can you change the ingredients content? How can he do things about issues of obesity? How can he add to the portfolio of food products things that are not just “fun” for you but are also good for you? He is trying to think these things through and his successor is as well. How do you handle your advertising campaign?

Sex sells, and we all know that. Steve found that problematic when one morning his daughter said, “Dad, do you know who is advertising your products and do you know what her YouTube videos are like?” As well as looking at all the issues with women and weight and body image and esteem, these are all big questions.

You cannot just walk into the boardroom and thump your Bible and say, “The Bible says we shouldn’t do this.” There is a certain persuasion, and you have to bring people with you. That’s an exciting challenge.

Lloyd: Aren’t they continually facing the pressure of quarterly profits and reports? At least the stories, as I understand it as an untutored outsider, is that that game has gotten more intense over the last decade, where the CEOs are being measured quarter by quarter. One of the impacts of this is that it has discouraged long-term thinking of the health of the economy, or health of the organization, or the health of the common good. If the accountability is so tight and so focused for CEOs, is that a factor you sense in the people you talk to?

Miller: Absolutely. And, in fact, some would view quarterly pressure as the good old days and they might view today’s pressure as month to month and week to week, with the data people can get so quickly for performance results.

There is enormous pressure in the executive suite. And I am not saying pity those poor people. They are handsomely rewarded for it. Speaking theologically, I view it as a calling to be a senior executive, to be called to be a CEO and to be running a complicated business with all the attendant pressures. It is pressure from Wall Street, shareholders, and pension funds. We want, of course, good earnings, so that even good people, like the church, put pressure on all these folks. It takes wisdom to have a long-term view of your industry sector and deliver satisfactory returns on a day-by-day basis.

Lloyd: In your book, you give an example of a CEO debating a decision to close a factory and move it offshore, where labor will be far less expensive. People there need work as well, but it can shut down a whole town at one time. Why don’t you talk about how you’ve seen something like that dealt with?

Miller: I am sure that people in this room have been touched by that situation. You know, there are two sides to that story. If we as Christians believe that God is Lord of All, then God also is Lord of someone in India just as God is Lord of someone in Pittsburgh, PA. So when a town loses a major employer, it is devastating. Companies have a moral and ethical responsibility that if they chose to do move offshore, to do so in as decent and caring a way that they can for the transition.

Let us also not forget that the new plant that is being taken to another country is taken to country where people might have been destitute. It can be an opportunity there for a new life. They also are children of God. So I urge a bit of caution, not to minimize the devastation when a community loses an employer, but let’s also remember there is another side of the equation, where another community is given an opportunity that it never had.

These are terribly difficult decisions to make. This is not just a financial decision. These are moral and ethical decisions that people of good faith ought to be praying about.

Lloyd: Let’s get to the strategic and tactical approaches you are taking to get faith in the workplace conversations going. You’ve travelled around and seen different models to get these discussions to integrate faith with the workplace. What are you learning? Have seen models that are pretty fruitful? Are there some that are not such a good idea? How are you seeing people doing this sort of thing? I think most people would agree that faith is something that people do on Sunday morning or in their own prayer life but it’s not what you expect to get supported in the workplace. But you are finding some instances of people doing this.

Miller: In this book, God at Work, I write about what I call the “faith at work movement.” It is actually a bona fide movement that meets a sociologist’s criteria of a social movement, like the women’s movement or the civil rights movement.

Men and women, particularly the younger we go in the generation (the millenials), who today we are hiring into the work force, they have no time for this faith on the weekend bifurcation. They want to bring their whole self to work. If they are gay, they don’t want to have to be embarrassed about it. If a guy wants to wear an earring, he’s going to wear an earring. If someone’s an evangelical Christian or an orthodox Jew, they don’t want to have to hide that. They want to be who they are at work. And companies are sort of ajar. They don’t know what to do with this, when people want to bring their faith to work.

It begs a question about when do you have meetings—impacts of high holy days, prayer considerations, room for meditations, dietary considerations. A whole host of things come up.

I’ve seen firms have a variety of reactions. And in my research that I am doing at Princeton University, both with assistance from my students and field research, I see a variety of responses that corporations have to faith at work – at one level they have what I call the “ostrich approach” in that they put their head in the sand and say that nobody is doing this. The opposite approach is the “clampdown,” where someone says, I know this going on and it scares me to death. The last thing I want it people bringing God into the workplace. Then people try to stifle it wherever they can. The third is, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” As long as people are benign, I don’t mind if they use the conference room for a tour of study or a prayer group.

But the fourth—and I think this is the wave of the future and what I am working on—is “faith friendly.” This is not “faith based,” which allows one tradition privileges over another that I don’t think is appropriate in a publicly held company. The question is how can a corporation be faith friendly, similar to family friendly policies or gender orientation friendly policies? How can the corporation be faith friendly to allow people to bring what makes them tick, often the most central thing in how they discern right from wrong, their ethical behavior, finding meaning and purpose in work, to the workplace?

Perhaps, instead of shutting that part of the human soul down, if companies really believe in diversity and inclusion—which everyone says they do—what about diversity and inclusion of world views, religious thinking, spirituality? That, I think, is the wave of the future. And this model, this paradigm of faith friendly, is the right structural rubric, legal rubric—and, frankly speaking as a Christian, the right theological rubric.

Lloyd: And you are saying that happens some places?

Miller: I am. There actually some companies that are using that language in their core values. They are striving to be a faith-friendly company. There is a professional services firm that I have done some work with in the accountancy world. They initially had me do some teaching on ethics. And the vice chairman who brought me in and took me aside said, “Look, David. I know you’ve got this God stuff going on, but please don’t do any of it here. Just straight secular ethics.”

I said, that’s fine, and we did ,but about eighteen months later I got a phone call on my home phone, cell line, and they said, “Look we told you not to do the God stuff. But we need to do the God stuff now.”

Why? They had an issue where they had a prayer group in the firm, and it had been misused, and someone had been hurt by it. A whole brouhaha existed about the use of company assets for different religious organizations. The question was, how does the firm handle that? We developed a task force for this, and they came out with a recommendation. And the task force had a Sikh, a Muslim, a Jew, a Catholic, a whole range of people with various religious traditions, including an atheist, and they resoundingly agreed at the end that they should be faith friendly. Then they asked advice on policies that look are faith friendly.

Lloyd: We are going to ask for questions from the audience and write them down, and Deryl will collect them. Keep on this track for now. This work you are doing… For example, you are going around meeting groups of CEOs or executive leaders for a workshop for a day or half a day. What would you say are the common things they want to hear about? Is it five or ten moral principles for the businessperson, or the spiritual principle? What do you do with them? What questions do they want to hear about, and where do you go in those conversations?

Miller: That is a great question. If there were to be repeating themes between business leaders when they are talking very privately and openly, some want to finish well. They know how hard it is to finish well, almost as St. Paul talks about “running a good race.” Finishing well, that’s one question.

Others feel that they are not honored or respected for what they do at their church. That what they do, until Pledge Sunday, is not that well appreciated, and they wish they had more support from their church, their parish, and acknowledgement that what they do is a calling. How to do it? How to advance God’s work in the marketplace? Others feel a deep sense of remorse that the demands of the job are such that they don’t have enough time for their family or children that they would like.

Others are so focused on the things that they don’t know how to fix or change that it is a deep burden. For example, in their industry there are practices that they don’t like and they are trying to change those practices. For this, you can’t just wave a magic wand; it has to be through persuasion and moral argument and commercial argument. Last night, a Jewish executive was talking to my students about when he was the head of the underwriting and risk committee for a medium-sized investment bank. The bank had a deal-making opportunity come before them. It was a perfectly legal transaction to underwrite a business opportunity for a company, General Media. General Media’s main asset in the portfolio is Penthouse, and this executive made a call to Bob Guccione.

It was a perfectly legal deal with about $5 million in commissions and bonuses at stake. And the executive tried to make a moral argument back at the office, as he was an orthodox Jew, as to why they shouldn’t do this and what the moral issues were with doing this. This was a tough decision.

Some of the decisions are big and obvious and bold, while others are subtler and they creep in. Sometimes it’s the practices and how you pay your people and what kind of medical care you offer. Yet knowing when you add more benefits you are less competitive. Those are the things they struggle with.

Lloyd: When you hear all that, are you the answer man? What’s your response to that kind of complexity and ambiguity?

Deryl: One of the people that’s influenced me in my theological growth—and I teach a course on him—is Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Some of you may know him as one of the early and most profound resisters to Hitler.

Bonhoeffer says that the Christian life, at the end of the day, comes down to two things: prayer and righteous action. So when I work with different executives, often in a very quiet and private kind of setting, we do pray. I do believe that prayer makes a difference in how we can frame a problem, how we can understand it.

We look at biblical motifs and resources and passages that might give a creative way of thinking about an intractable problem. And I encourage people to take righteous action even if you pay for it.

I would be kidding if I said I was the answer man. But I walk alongside people and honor and validate their yearning, and give them permission to think about these things. And it doesn’t mean that they are a wimp or they are weak. If anything they’re strong because they dare to ask these questions in the boardroom.

Lloyd: Let’s go to questions. Deryl will collect them.

Deryl: The first question has to do with how we value certain occupations and the monies that go toward them. “Why do you think it is that on Wall Street there is a feeling that bankers deserve more income than teachers? And how do we determine the value that we set according to a certain occupation?”

Miller: The question is spot on and almost answers itself. How we value certain professions just doesn’t make sense, does it? The people on Wall Street… And I understand the importance of liquidity and value and making monies available to organizations—even the church—so that they can invest and function and grow and produce goods and services for society. But I’ve got to wonder sometimes why the teacher who is doing all that he or she can to help in an inner-city situation isn’t making about three times what they are making.

I am on a task force in my church (I am a Presbyterian) working on the theology of compensation, looking at the compensation of clergy. I think we grossly underpay our clergy. They are many parts of society where we have the matrix wrong. The answer of course isn’t simple, but it is up to us in the room to solve this. We have to legislate differently, we have to agitate and try to put our money where our mouth is.

Deryl: This question addresses health care. “Looking at this from a spiritual perspective, would health care reform that abolished for profit-health care insurance companies be a good thing?”

Miller: It’s a big topic and I can’t really give it a fair answer. My own inclination is that the efficiency and creativity that comes from the marketplace realities—properly guided and steered and regulated and measured in proper ways—will provide the correct goods and services. That said, you know we are in a huge mess right now and the Gordian knot has to be cut somehow.

Deryl: This is a political question. “Is there any kind of party bias to your work? Or, turning it around, do you see any kind of political perspectives from those who come seeking your help?”

Miller: Party bias… I guess I like a good party like anyone else!

I don’t know if there is. Curiously enough, people are saying to me, if you are interested in faith and work, why don’t you do more work in faith on politics? And I say no thank you, that’s not my gift and that’s not my cup of tea. I admire people who work in faith and politics but I put that aside.

And most of the people I work with, that is not the issue. It’s their broken soul, their broken spirit, their yearning to be a different kind of leader.

We’ve talked a lot about the people I work with, but one cause of hope I have, working at Princeton University, is the young students, the best and brightest. I teach a business ethics class, “Succeeding without Selling your Soul.” We look at business ethics—not through Sarbanes-Oxley or the moral philosophers, important though they are. We look at ethics as a question of character and culture that then begs the question, what shapes your character, your culture? Which brings up the God question. We look at different religious traditions—Judaism, Christianity, Islam and a few others—and say, what are the great teachings that people can take into the marketplace?

It stuns me that the class is oversubscribed and the students cannot get enough of it. They are trying to figure out: should I go to Wall Street where the big bucks are, or should I go start my own business?

One of my students is working for Land O’Lakes, working in East Timor right now, helping to develop products. And she could have been making easily ten times her salary right now on Wall Street. So I find a certain hope and enthusiasm with young people who want to integrate the claims of their faith with the demands of their work in appropriate ways. They want to do something good for society, which may be through Wall Street, but not necessarily. And they are open to things, where before the crisis they thought they were on a track and had to go this way. They are bolder about following some still, quiet place in their heart.

Deryl: Is there a concern in today’s multi-racial, multi-ethnic and multi-religious workplace that expressing one’s faith could lead to conflict?

Miller: Yes. There is a danger of that. And conversely, there is a danger that, if you don’t talk about an issue or problem, that you just get another form of stress, you get a different form of conflict. We all know in family systems, in the organizations we work with, there can be the proverbial “elephant in the room.” Everyone knows there is an issue but nobody is talking about it.

If you accept the data, and I do, some ninety percent of this country describes themselves as religious, spiritual, or believing in some higher power, some form of God. Well, that means that ninety percent of the people coming to work are bringing that part of themselves to work. So do we just ignore it or pretend it’s not going on? I think that’s not a sign of enlightened leadership. It is better to recognize that this is going on, that the younger generations in particular want to deal with this question. So, let’s find constructive ways to talk about this, that aren’t imposing things upon people, but are inviting people to be who they are in a harassment-free environment. To put it another way, to ignore the question would mean more lawsuits, more problems than to engage the question.

Deryl: “What do you think the American business environment will look like in ten or fifteen years, and will international trade agreements mean more than political ones?”

Miller: I have a counter-intuitive feeling about this question. I have a feeling that we will see a slow, quiet resurgence of making things and not just selling and servicing knowledge-work, which is the bread and butter of where we are as a knowledge-work society. I have no empirical evidence, but I am seeing small pockets of activity.

I can’t validate this as a scholar, but I think we will see a resurgence of people making things: what we used to call manufacturing. That excites me, and I think we will see that going on.

The second part of your question, of international trade agreements, almost superseding political agreements, for better or worse I think that is the way of the world. Economies and companies move light years faster than governments. If Wal Mart decides they want to go green, if Wal Mart decides their overseas manufacturing has to have certain human standards and pay scales, that will happen a lot quicker to change the dial than if our Senate makes a proclamation to the same effect.

Deryl: “Why do you think Christianity has flourished under capitalism a system that often has employed greed and selfishness to meets its ends?”

Miller: What a great question. People write long books on that question. Perhaps without getting into all the obvious connections that Weber and Durkheim and people who are heirs and students have critiqued and written over the past hundred years, I’ll make one observation to throw out there as food for thought.

Christianity celebrates the freedom of the human spirit, human agency to make choices. God has made a choice for us through Jesus Christ. That is a tenet that I accept as a follower of Christ, a Christian.

We also have with that some freedom. God does not force himself on us. He’s always there for us but does not force himself on us, and with that comes huge possibilities that we can abuse or misuse, or we can leverage and have a long and wonderful flourishing life as a person of faith, as a Christian.

Capitalism is also a place of choice, where you can make good choices and also bad choices. There is a creativity that can be constructive or destructive. The parameters are ours to write and create. The rules are not necessarily written.

The morality of capitalism is ours to protect and to ensure and keep reaffirming or to abuse and misuse. So there is this sense of freedom and human agency and the importance of choice, which is essential part of Christian identity and the capitalist way of thinking about organizing economic systems.

Deryl: This question is about re-directing the huge bonus funds, the controversial funds we are hearing a lot about for certain Wall Street heads, and using those for other purposes: to retrain unemployed workers, or helping towns that have lost their factories to overseas ventures.

Miller: The question of redirecting large corporate bonuses… This business ethics class I mentioned, an exam question I had last year for the last semester was just one question. They had to write a fifteen-page paper, drawing on the resources of their religious tradition—or, if they don’t have one, one that they came from, their parents’ or grandparents’—to answer one question: Is executive compensation just or just obscene?

There were some marvelous answers. And I said, I don’t want emotionalism, populist thought. I want rigorous religious thinking, rigorous business thinking, smart thinking, make your case as to what you should do.

The range of answers was fascinating. One theme that came through several papers… And how I would answer the question is: To mandate, as a government, what someone should do with their income flies in the face of how this country works, and our legal system. To tell someone what you should do with your salary, or what I should do with mine, seems inappropriate at best.

However, here’s what role the church can play, that we can play, is to think: If we happen to be that one percent of America that’s earning incredible sums of money, ridiculous sums of money. What’s the Christian responsibility once you have that? And can you, within your company, mandate that all executives take x percent of their bonus, like Goldman Sachs, and put it in a bonus pool for helping just the things you are mentioning? Or does someone in their own right say, I’ve figured out just how much is enough.

There is a group in Greenwich, Connecticut (the hedge fund capital of the world) I lead, called the Greenwich Leadership Forum, a group of about 110 to 150 people a month, to talk about integrating faith and work. The man who came last weekend, I had the pleasure of interviewing him, he said early on in his life, he and wife tried to figure out what’s “the number,” and once they reach that number, they give everything else away.

He said it is the most freeing thing he’s ever done. Now most of us, 98% of the country, are just trying to get through the week, and we can’t have this dream of having some magic number. But those of us who have the possibility to do that, there is powerful things that one could do, and our faith motivation ought to be teaching us massive generosity. How do we invest our surplus to help those around us? Not only Band Aids for those who need a fix right now, but also for structural changes? And I know many men and women who don’t talk about this, but it’s their faith that motivates them to take their multi-million-dollar or multi-hundred-thousand-dollar bonuses and redirect them towards what we might call godly purposes. And that excites me.

Deryl: One more question. “How can we help our economy retrench if we are sending so many jobs overseas and focusing on service industries alone?”

Miller: I am not a policy maker so I will pass on that one. It’s not a platitude, but the incredible creative spirit we have at a macro level—the structure and systems, and also the human spirit at the micro level—allows us to find ways to rebuild. Of course it is the Christian claim, isn’t it, that after we are knocked down, we can pick ourselves up and rebuild and transform ourselves and our circumstances, with God’s grace.

Lloyd: That was a big question at the end. Do you have a final piece of advice for people who are trying to integrate their faith and work life in some way?

Miller: I was a Boy Scout as a kid, and there was an adage that, when you went swimming, never swim alone. Have a buddy. Find at least one other person, or maybe a small group of folks, that you can begin talking to about these questions. Give it oxygen. Give it light. Don’t do it in the quiet recesses of your mind. Find someone to walk along with you who honestly challenges you and you him or her, about this one question: How are you striving to integrate the claims of your faith—what we’re going to hear from you in the homily about the Eucharist—with the demands of your work? Find a friend to enter into that journey, and your life will never be the same.

Lloyd: This has been a great conversation. We’ll be back next week with marine biologist and legendary ocean explorer Sylvia Earle to talk about the environmental crisis in our oceans.

But we hope you’ll linger now for a few minutes. David is going to the back of the church, where he will be signing copies of his book, God at Work.

Please feel free to linger, and by all means join us at 11:15 when we’ll begin our Eucharist of the morning.

Join us in thanking David for a wonderful conversation.