The Big Picture Issue 10: Contents

Links to all the posts

From the Director: David Laing: Mourning our Loss and Celebrating a Life Well Lived

Craig G. Bartholomew

We mourn the loss of David Laing, an influential Christian businessman, chairman of the Kirby Laing Foundation, a friend and supporter of KLC.

Faith and Business: Mixing Oil and Water for the Sake of the Poor

Peter S. Heslam

Our guest editor explains how poverty is a theological as well as a socio-economic scandal, and business is the primary means by which, in God’s redemptive purposes, this scandal is addressed.

Faithful Investing: Struggling to Invest Like God Really Does Own it All

Amy L. Sherman

Profits have moral attachments. This is the challenge Amy Sherman gives us, calling us to view investing not only as a means of growing capital but also as a means by which our resources can empower the work of human flourishing.

Calling for a Missionary Encounter with Modern Capitalism

Anonymous

An investor challenges the growth-for-growth’s-sake mentality that pervades most approaches to capitalism, and calls us to see our actions in the marketplace as missional activity that is capable of shaping business in Christ’s image and for his redemptive purposes.

Faithful Presences: Building Kingdom-Shaped Businesses

Denise Daniels

Daniels presents case studies of Christian businesses that embody key principles of business conducted for the common good.

The Rise of Processed Foods and the Fall of Global Health

Diana Salgado & Sofia Cortina

Ultra-processed foods are ultra profitable, but seemingly at a growing cost to global health. Astute regulations have led to better consumer choices and, thus, a market for better products, showing a possible way forward.

What if a Monastery Became a Tech Firm? Businesses as Character-Forming Communities

Kenman Wong

Our work patterns have a formative influence on us. One US tech firm puts principle before profit and has taken a lead in shaping its people and its home community for good.

Looking for Water on the Moon - Destroying it on the Earth

Chris Wright

Chris Wright discusses the perplexing paradox of modern humans, capable as we are of launching cosmic missions to find water while vandalising precious fresh-water resources on the one planet it certainly does exist.

How Business can Create Worthwhile Jobs and Spread God’s Love

Keren Pybus

Keren Pybus explains her mission to build a company that strives to be good business and good for people. She aims to create meaningful jobs that give workers a sense of belonging, inclusion and power in the workplace.

Preaching the Bible for All its Worth: Acts

Steve Walton

Prof Walton is a widely respected commentator on the book of Acts and is the author of the Acts installment in our Preaching the Bible series.

A Bigger Vision of Stewardship

Jason Myhre

Jason Myhre lays down the timely challenge for Christians to consider not just lowercase stewardship, but also the often-ignored capital-S Stewardship.

Approaching the Ethics of Finance through the Story of Joseph

Benjamin Nicka

The story of Joseph’s administration of Egypt in Genesis offers some surprising lessons for how we use the financial opportunities God gives to us.

TrueFootprint: A Small Business Addressing Big Problems

Kenneth J. Barnes

TrueFootprint is a company that works to empower those engaged in development projects to audit their own activities, root out fraud, corruption and mismanagement, and improve efficiency.

Just Helpers: A Cleaning Company with a Clean Conscience

Antoinette Daniel

Antoinette Daniel challenges business owners not to outsource their values, but to partner with those who care about people and positive change.

Business as an Avenue to Fulfil the Great Commandments

Hannah Stolze

While researching the best practices of Fortune 500 companies, Hannah Stolze discovered that these often overlap with ethics taught in the Bible. Though it is counterintuitive in business, this suggests that doing good to others is often, in the long run, good for you too.

The Beauty of Book Club: Lord of the Flies

Jordan Pickering

Great literature is formative and plays an important role in training our sympathies and our moral reasoning. Read why Lord of the Flies is a misunderstood classic that is worth your time.

A Christian Economics?

Richard Gunton

Economic theory is straining under the weight of current challenges to it. Richard Gunton argues that it is time for Christian economists to chart a new way forward.

Poverty and the Gospel

Andy Hutchinson

First among the UN’s sustainable development goals is the commitment to eradicate all forms of poverty everywhere. Andy Hutchinson argues that affluent western societies are plagued by forms of poverty that we may not notice.

A Lament for a Wife: In loving memory of Carina Schuurman

Derek C. Schuurman

Derek Schuurman describes his passage through grief, experiencing—in company with the Psalms—the presence of God and his hidden face.

From the Mill

Otto Bam

KLC’s home at Chesterton Mill reminds us of those structures that, like us, must be firm enough to withstand the waves while also yielding to the wind.

Home

Holly Enter

This beautiful narrative reflection invites us to consider the deep implications of our longing for home.