Stan GuthrieTrue or Merely Useful? All religions don’t lead in the same direction. When I was a new believer seeking reasons for my faith, I inhaled the writings of Christian apologists such as C.S. Lewis and Josh McDowell. The way my unsophisticated mind summarized much of their material was something along the lines of, “Christianity is different from all other world religions because it is the only one in which we don’t have to earn our way to heaven, because salvation is by faith, not by works.” Boston University’s Stephen Prothero no doubt would have challenged my simple formula on a number of levels, such as the obvious one that Christianity includes a prominent place for works, and other religions also have faith—that is, trust—in something at least. One point we would have wholeheartedly agreed on, however, is that Christianity indeed differs from all other faiths. But Prothero would have gone further: all the world religions, in fact, differ one from another. Prothero dismisses as sentimental nonsense the theories of many other religion scholars, such as …

Jason Byassee Mother Teresa, CEO How NOT to write about leadership. It is not hard to make the case that Western Christians, especially mainline Protestants, have long been profoundly confused about business. We have treated church members who run or work in capitalistic endeavors as if they were doing something slightly sordid. The real work of ministry is done by those who pastor churches, teach students, run non-profits, or pursue other avenues of do-gooding. This is ironic in that one of the Reformation’s chief charisms is the priesthood of all believers—the claim that a vocation to pastoral ministry is no more essentially holy than any other work God calls one of his saints to do. It is also hypocritical in that all of our ministries depend on the funding of our sisters and brothers who make their money the only way anyone ever makes it: in business. There is a real opportunity, then, for sensitive and probing theological work integrating theology and business. Some have begun to do just such work, and I anticipate much …