Evangelical and Elite: What Happens When Christians Bring Their Faith Convictions to Corporate America or the U.S. Government?

Evangelicals have become significant players on the national stage, so much so that the actions and statements of their leaders ripple across the political and cultural landscape. What happens when evangelicals bring their faith convictions to bear on corporate America or the U.S. government? In particular, how does an evangelical Christian who also leads a major American institution--such as Walmart or the National Institutes of Health--invoke his or her faith when making big decisions?

Bradley C. Smith of Princeton University and I just published a study on this subject in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion. It emerged out of a larger study (first published by Oxford University Press as Faith in the Halls of Power) for which I interviewed 360 evangelicals who were top American leaders. These elites included former President Jimmy Carter along with 50 cabinet secretaries and senior White House officials from the last five administrations. I also sat down with 100 CEOs, chairpersons and presidents of major companies including New York Life Insurance, Johnson & Johnson, Tyson Foods, and JC Penney. To round out the study, I met with over 150 leaders from the worlds of nonprofits, the arts, entertainment, and the news media.

I wanted to uncover how these people bring their personal religious convictions to bear on their roles as public leaders. In other words, how does religion seep into their relationships, their work, and the decisions they make?

We found four kinds of evangelicals in the corner offices of major U.S. institutions--the pragmatic, the heroic, the circumspect, and the brazen.

Pragmatic evangelicals are serious about their faith, but they don't advertise it. In the words of Genworth's Chief Investment Officer, Ron Joelson, "You don't want to offend people who are not Christians. . . . [As someone] in a position of power and authority, I don't want people to feel uncomfortable. . . . [That's] not a particularly good witness." Joelson's sentiment was repeated by dozens of other leaders we studied. 

Ed Moy, director of the U.S. Mint, takes a different approach. Early in his career, he worked in the private sector and was confronted by his boss after submitting his first expense report:

He shuts the door to his office, and says, "Let me explain something around here. We in sales management never believe that the company is paying us enough, and so...we measure the minimum amount of miles from home to work and back again, and that's personal miles. Everything else . . . gets dumped in the business column, and that way you get an extra 50 [to] 75 bucks a month. If I were to hand this in, accounting is going to ask some questions, and then there's a massive audit on everyone, and we can't have that kind of trouble. So I'm telling you that if you're interested in a career here, you're going to change this expense report."

The next week, when Moy submitted the expense report unchanged, his supervisor threatened to fire him (but, in the end, didn't). Moy refers to the event as a "seminal moment" in shaping his understanding of the relationship between faith and work.