With some 80 percent of white evangelicals voting for Donald Trump in the 2016 election, many within and beyond the academy began to look to history for an explanation for the Trump phenomenon. In an almost divine irony, the publication of Darren Grem’s work, The Blessings of Business, gives insight into the intimate relationship between conservative evangelicalism and big business and provides a key analysis for understanding our current moment.
Beyond its immediate cultural relevancy, Grem’s work represents a significant accomplishment in the fields of both religious and business history. Through the lens of select, well-known Christian businessmen (and a few women), Grem illuminates how conservative evangelicalism was forged “in boardrooms and private businesses, not just in churches or communities or during political campaigns” (p. 3). His work moves beyond previous studies of conservatism by taking seriously the role of faith, denominational affiliation, and geography. This work avoids the common trap of flattening Christian America into a monolith. Grem masterfully demonstrates that although these Christian businessmen endorsed a brand of corporate Christianity conceptually, individual’s denominational differences and location also influenced how each engaged the marketplace. Grem is a natural addition to the ever-growing canon of work by scholars like Kevin Kruse, Bethany Morton, and Kathryn Lofton.
The book is divided into two acts. In the first act, Grem disrupts the conventional narrative of evangelicalism’s political resurgence in the postwar years and instead shows how evangelical Christians became both proselytizers and products of free-market ideology beginning in reaction to New Deal policies. Building upon the vast literature about the rise of conservatism, Grem illuminates how conservative businessmen like Herbert J. Taylor and R.G. LeTourneau connected corporate mission and organization to Christian doctrine and ethics. In so doing, these men were instrumental in cultivating a civic Christian identity that was highly individualistic and unashamedly missional and that embraced Biblical authority, particularly around ideas of family and sexuality. This form of Christian business proved lucrative; Christian businessmen not only turned large profits, but also funded a wide array of parachurch organizations like Youth for Christ and Young Life, as well as, Christian media ventures such as Christianity Today. Grem’s work deftly reveals the intricate networks of evangelical leaders, businessmen, and congregations that would continue to shape American notions of conservative Christianity over the twentieth century. Likewise, Grem’s study nuances understandings of evangelicals by showing that not only was the South significant, but the Sun Belt and the Rust Belt were also key regions of influence in the construction of Christian business.
In the second act, Grem demonstrates how conservative evangelicalism was not merely allegiant to capitalist culture but became a form of big business. Through a cursory study of evangelical businesses such as Chick-fil-A, Holiday Inn, ServiceMaster, Days Inn, and Tropicana, Grem highlights how evangelical business owners integrated devotional practices (Sunday closings, optional staff prayer meetings, or on-staff chaplains) into corporate culture. The extent to which owners could mobilize the corporation for Christian mission, as Grem convincingly demonstrates, was contingent upon whether the company was privately or publicly owned. The differentiation was significant, particularly after the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which under Title VII prohibited employers from discriminating against employees on the basis of, among other things, religious affiliation. As Grem shows, private ownership was key to maintaining a corporate identity that was, explicitly though often unacknowledged, white and, Christian. Grem then transitions to explain how it was not just that owners created spaces of devotion, but evangelical culture itself became commodified. In a case study of Heritage USA, the Christian theme park and residential club founded by Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, and the growing contemporary Christian music industry, Grem shows how evangelical entrepreneurs created their own market segments, encouraging consumption as an expression of one’s devotion to faith. In his final chapter, Grem explores the rise of Zig Ziglar, the ever-popular motivational speaker and author, who gained a national platform thanks to his work with Mary Kay cosmetics. Among his many contributions, Grem’s ability to grapple with the ways Mary Kay Ash, the cosmetic company mogul, S. Truett Cathy, founder of Chick-fil-A, and Ziglar, much like their other evangelical counterparts, were integral in upholding heteronormative, male-led family structures in the midst of the sexual revolution and feminist movement. Grem gives a comprehensive overview of how white, male, evangelical executives were essential to the formation and maintenance of a Christian free-market ideology.
Scholars from a broad spectrum of subfields will find this work illuminating. Grem has accomplished an impressive feat with this comprehensive, well- researched survey of American evangelical businesses that represents a necessary addition to all modern syllabi.
