What are companies for? This is an important question given their ubiquity and impact upon the world. Questions of purpose can be difficult to answer, however, and we’re all familiar with how mixed our own individual motives can be at times. In 2019 the Business Roundtable, an association of CEOs of leading US companies, released to some fanfare a statement that business’s purpose is to deliver value to its stakeholders: customers, employees, suppliers, communities, and shareholders.1 Some praised the organization’s seeming Damascene moment, going so far as to say that after decades of shareholder primacy,2 “Today, that changes.”3 Others were a little more skeptical of the substance of this conversion experience, and even as to whether it was a good idea in the first place.4

Those concerned with business’s inappropriate focus on financial performance commonly point to the work of Milton Friedman. In a famous essay more than half a century ago for the New York Times Magazine, he quoted from a book he’d written earlier: “there is one and only one social responsibility of business—to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits.”5 The single-minded way in which many executives have adopted this approach may well not have been what he would have been pleased to see as a legacy, not least when they ignored the nuances of his arguments.6 He certainly conceded in later years that company executives might owe duties to the public that could take precedence over duties to their shareholders.7 Nonetheless, a Friedmanesque foundation can certainly serve as a starting point to ask the question: “Other than the pursuit of profits, what responsibilities might business owe to society”? And, as thinking Christians (cf. 1 Cor 2:16), what biblical evidence can we offer to warrant whatever answer we come up with?

Now, it would be helpful if a clear definition for corporate responsibility could be pulled directly from the Scriptures, perhaps along the lines of “greed is idolatry” (Col 3:5; cf. Eph 5:5) or Paul’s rather fuller unpacking of the concept of love (1 Cor 13). The concept of the corporation, however, only came into being many centuries after the completion of the canon.8 The Bible is therefore unsurprisingly silent on the idea and its implications. Instead, we must first turn to the world’s definition of the concept of corporate responsibility, “anxious to understand it,”9 before returning to the Scriptures.

The term “corporate responsibility” has been used in various, frequently contradictory ways, and has substantial overlaps with several other related terms. It is sometimes used interchangeably with “corporate social responsibility” or CSR and is almost a synonym for the older term “corporate citizenship,” underlain by the idea of thinking of a company as a person.10 More recently its meaning has been at least partially transferred to the term “corporate sustainability,” and it is closely linked to “ESG” terminology.

One of the doyens of the field, Archie Carroll, has provided a helpful history of the term’s use in his 1999 article for the journal Business & Society.11 While acknowledging that the concept predates this, he picks up the story in mid-twentieth century North America when there arose increasing recognition that business leaders carried certain social responsibilities. These responsibilities included acting in ways “desirable in terms of the objectives and values of our society.”12 In the ensuing years academics became increasingly involved in the burgeoning field and related definitions began emerging.

The “responsibility” side of the term became linked to “public responsibility,” which might issue in “public service”; “social responsibility” might lead to “social responsiveness” and/or “social action”; and environmental issues are frequently included under the “social” label in the terminology.13 In a metrics-obsessed culture it is not surprising that corporate social performance became a way of talking about how companies were actually doing when it came to discharging any social responsibilities that they might be deemed to have.14

Two more related terms are ESG and sustainability. ESG stands for “environmental, social and governance,” an arguably unhelpful conflation of very different aspects of company processes and performance.15 Problematic as the acronym is, ESG has become almost ubiquitous in investment circles, and is widely used to describe companies with superior environmental and social performance.16 Sustainability is another duffel bag-like term into which all kinds of things can be stuffed. While the Brundtland definition of it probably can’t be bettered,17 Carroll, in a recent essay, astutely observed that businesspeople seem to see it as a synonym for CSR, since many CSR reports have now been renamed sustainability reports, with no material change to their contents.18

Our interest is not primarily historical, nor is it definitional for its own sake. For our purposes an awareness that there is supplementary and overlapping terminology is sufficient; and for a working definition of corporate responsibility we can lean for now on that formulated by Herman Aguinis: “the context-specific organisational actions and policies that take into account stakeholders’ expectations and the triple bottom line of economic, social and environmental performance.”19 Here he expresses responsibility in terms of the things that companies do and say that they do, in response to what actors such as communities and employees want. He also acknowledges that the results of company actions are not limited to the financial arena.

1. Biblical Warranting for Corporate Responsibility

Something should be said about the “why” of corporate responsibility: Why should companies behave in a socially and environmentally responsible manner? At the individual, Christian level such questions are comparatively easy to answer. The environment matters because in the beginning God created it—the earth we live on and the heavens we live beneath (Gen 1:1; Acts 4:24). Not only that but having declared his creation “good” (Gen 1:10, 12, 24, 31) we may surmise that actions that damage this good creation he is likely to regard as “bad” (particularly since it would seem that creating in some sense cost God effort (Gen 2:2–3), and perhaps also since it seems that God, at least at one point, appears to have enjoyed spending time in his creation).20 God also created humankind who make up the society that we live in today; made as we are in his likeness (Gen 1:27) we may presume that actions that harm society evince a certain lack of respect for the person of God, at least to the extent that his existence is reflected in the people of this planet (cf. Gen 9:6). We do not even need to leave the first chapter of the first book of the Bible to find that God also places responsibilities upon humans: to reproduce and populate the earth, and to manage life on that earth.21

So, an argument can swiftly be made that Christians should be socially and environmentally responsible. But companies? The obvious challenge to be faced is that the concept of a company is, by and large, absent from the pages of the Scriptures. Limited liability companies as we know them today did not exist in biblical times, although there were structures such as the peculium, whereby assets could be transferred by a master to a slave, or a father to his son.22 Encouragingly, however, issues relating to commercial enterprise certainly appear in the Bible, and we will rely on these for much of what follows.

A second challenge lies in the extent to which biblical teaching can be applied to the modern (Western) corporate context. This is not to question the Bible’s relevance to today’s world, nor to take issue with Kuyper’s famous lines from his inauguration speech at the Free University in 1880: “there is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human life of which Christ, Who is Sovereign of all, does not cry: ‘Mine!’”23 At issue here is how guidance and instruction provided by God to his people can be deployed in the public sphere, and more particularly what this guidance and instruction means for directors and executives, of whatever or no faith, running the corporations of today. I will return to this after considering the biblical evidence.

One collection of insights may be gleaned from employer-employee relations, a topic usually seen as a part of corporate responsibility.24 The book of Exodus relates how Egyptian taskmasters25 deliberately created harsh working conditions for Israelite laborers (Exod 1:11, 13–14; 5:6–9). The intended result was achieved: psychological brokenness (Exod 6:9). By way of contrast, God subsequently laid down a structure of work and rest that he expected to be applied not only to his people, but by his people to those working for them, even if the employee was not an Israelite (Exod 20:8–11; 23:12; 31:12–17; Deut 5:12–15). The Sabbath pattern is extended to the way in which agricultural activities are to be carried out, for the sake of the poor and even for wild animals.26 There is also a clear understanding that some employees are more vulnerable to abuse than others, and so regulations are provided for their protection.27 A power differential between employers and the employed exists, but this does not justify the oppression of workers (Isa 58:3, 6–7; Jer 22:13; Eph 5:9; Col 4:1).

There is also a range of instructions that God has given to his people that have direct implications for how they conduct business. “You shall not steal” (Exod 20:16; cf. 23:4) precludes fraudulent business practices, and bribe-induced corruption is explicitly forbidden.28 “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor” (Exod 20:16) prohibits untruthful comparative advertising.29 Taxes are to be paid as due (Matt 22:15–22; Rom 13:6–7). More broadly, all governing structures are to be respected and their requirements complied with (Rom 13:1–5; 1 Pet 2:13–17). Other instructions are provided to protect the public against undue risk of bodily or financial harm as a result of the irresponsible carrying out of agricultural and other activities (Exod 21:28–32, 33–36; 22:5; Deut 22:8). Standards of hygiene are expected with respect to the disposal of human excrement (Deut 23:12–14). There is also a recognition that irresponsible plundering of the earth’s resources is wrong, and that they should be exploited in a sustainable manner (Deut 22:6–7). Loans that are extended, and particularly those that are extended to the poor, are not to be managed in an extortionate and oppressive manner (Deut 24:10–13). Harsh and abusive business practices are roundly condemned (Amos 2:6–8; 8:4–6; Mic 2:1–2; Hab 2:12; Mal 3:5).

An argument can also be made for corporate philanthropy, based on the apparently permanent presence of poverty, and the requirement to be generous with available resources and to exercise such gifts as one has been given.30 Such philanthropy need not take the form of hand-outs but may involve merely avoiding ruthless efficiency in profit maximization, thereby creating opportunities for the poor to survive.31 There are indications in Scripture that such philanthropy should be informed by an understanding of need and worthiness (1 Tim 5:9–16). In practice, such philanthropy has long been coupled with an aggressive public relations or publicity campaign in order for the company to be seen in a good light,32 rather contradicting the approach Jesus insisted on, at least in one’s personal capacity (Matt 6:1–4). Greed is not good, the Bible tells us (Prov 1:18–19; Eccl 5:10–12; Isa 5:8). Indeed, as we noted above, Paul equates greed with idolatry, “the ultimate expression of unfaithfulness to God.”33 Sharp business practice may result in short term gain, but not in the long term (Prov 20:17; 21:6–7). Generosity is likely to be rewarded (Prov 19:17; cf. 31:20). Ill-gotten wealth may not provide the hoped-for results (Prov 10:2). Reputations are damaged by evil deeds (Prov 10:9), no matter how much spin is applied (cf. Prov 10:19).

So, what we have is a body of biblical teaching that could, in principle, be applied in a corporate context. Human resources departments could adjust company policies to bring them into line with biblical expectations. The internal audit function could be focused on rooting out bribery and corruption. The Corporate Social Investment Officer could be allocated funds to alleviate human suffering. The question we must now consider is therefore not whether this biblical teaching could be applied, but rather the extent to which it should be applied in corporate contexts.

2. The Case Against Corporate Social Responsibility

There’s an obvious problem here, and it presents itself when we attempt to apply this teaching to a corporate situation where the shots are not being called by Christians. It’s easy to issue a call to Christian business leaders to conform to God’s revealed views on responsibility: God clearly expects obedience from his people (Deut 10:12–13; John 14:15, 21) and, after all, God is the primary owner of all.34 As part of the motivation for such leaders, there are indications that such obedience will result in rewards, perhaps in this world as well as the next35—doing well by doing good36—and disobedience will lead to loss (Job 20:19). Ultimately, of course, Christian business leaders’ behavior should be determined by their fear of God, rather than the unrestrained pursuit of financial rewards (cf. Neh 5:1–13).

Where a company is owned by and managed by a Christian, or Christians, the guidance from the Scriptures that we’ve surveyed above would seem to be broadly applicable. There are indeed companies, past and present, that could be assigned to such a category.37 In this post-Eden world, however, such situations are unusual. In the absence of any conveniently available hard data, I would suggest that few would disagree that most businesses around the world are led by non-Christians, and that most businesses are not owned by Christians.38

How then are decisions to be made with respect to corporate responsibility when a company’s decision-makers do not share the same faith?39 And even in the wonderful situation where the executive and the board are both populated by Christians, what will non-Christian and institutional shareholders think of this executive and board if they started giving “their” money to the poor? Could such shareholders not rightly accuse these Christians of attempting to serve two conflicting beneficiaries?40 A typical situation is that a company is owned by a range of individual and institutional shareholders and is managed by mostly non-Christian executives and governed by a board of mostly non-Christian directors—does the Bible have anything to say about the extent and nature of the company’s responsibility to the environment and society?

I have argued elsewhere41 that simplistically making normative statements such as “companies should do more CSR” does not provide a helpful platform for engaging with business leaders. In the same article I offered some preliminary thoughts as to what arguments Christians could deploy in a bid to influence company leaders, faithful or faithless, to lead their companies in a more responsible manner. These arguments had pragmatic underpinnings and were largely aimed at suggesting to leaders that taking the company’s non-financial performance into account might just have a positive effect on its financial performance.

Such thoughts, however, do not address a fundamental question: from our Christian perspective, do companies bear any responsibility to society? Some certainly would answer “yes” to this: “A corporation that exploits the environment is one that is not acting according to the God-given responsibility to care for creation.”42 But at the risk of being deafened by well-meaning cries of correction, if not of heresy, I would like to suggest that the answer is “no.” Companies have no such responsibility.

The biblical case for individual Christians’ responsibility to society has been made above and is, I believe, unequivocal. But what is a company? It is “a body of persons combined for common (esp. commercial) object.”43 Now it is true that the Bible has much to say about the social responsibilities of one particular body of persons who have been combined for common object. But this body is called the church,44 and is in no way to be equated or confused with the companies that we are concerned with here.

It is also true that there have been times when God judged bodies of persons en masse for their social irresponsibility. One example is that of Edom. In the prophecy of Obadiah (vv. 1–9) we read how some really bad things were going to happen to the nation. The cause of these calamities was the nation’s seriously anti-social behavior (vv. 10–14). An argument could perhaps be made that, just as God has held and will hold national bodies of people to account for irresponsible behavior, so too will he hold to account the bodies of people that constitute companies.

Possibly. But allow me to make two observations that would weaken such an argument. First, the responsibilities of political leaders are different to those of business leaders. It’s included in the job description of the former that they should govern society (Rom 13:1–6; cf. 1 Chr 18:14). When political leaders fail to discharge their God-given mandate (Rom 13:1–7) societies may indeed carry the consequences of this. While enterprises such as the East India Company may have carried mandates that included the governing of societies,45 and one may of course debate whether such mandates were appropriate, they are a vanishingly small minority today.

Second, one may also discern a difference in kind between the concepts of “nation” and “company.” The idea of a nation contains several elements, one being land—nations are thought of as having borders, and we can depict them in atlases. Another element is that it is a legal entity—nations can and do enter contractual arrangements with other nations, with individuals, and with companies. But when we think about a nation it is primarily the people that come to mind. When we pray that God’s saving health might be known among all nations46 it is not legal entities or tracts of land that we are referring to, but people. When Jesus was accused of perverting a nation (Luke 23:2), it was the Jewish people that the leaders were referring to.

And while a company is indeed, as we have noted, made up of people, in the West at least when we think of a company, we think first of it as a legal entity47 before we think of it as made up of individuals. If we speak, say, of the way companies are damaging the environment we do not usually think of the faces of those who are doing the damaging.48 It’s even clearer when we make statements such as “companies should be fairer to their employees,” drawing a distinction between the company itself and the individuals working for it.49

Companies don’t get to go to heaven—or hell (despite what some activists might wish).50 And much as many of us might desire to assign them social responsibilities, this just doesn’t make good sense. We may and should speak of the social and environmental responsibilities of company directors and managers. “The development, strengthening and multiplication of socially minded business men is the central problem of business.” These aren’t the words of a recent left-wing commentator but appeared in 1927 in the pages of the hard-nosed Harvard Business Review.51 The words that we choose matter. Speaking of the non-existent social responsibilities of a company detracts from our ability to understand and influence the mechanisms that impact on company social performance.

We have a natural tendency to anthropomorphize companies. At least part of the reason for this is that, for the purposes of the legal system,52 companies are deemed to be persons.53 By doing this, the courts have created what is known as a legal fiction. This does not mean that, as far as the legal system is concerned, companies do not exist. Legal fictions are very real.54 They are created to attain desired legal consequences while avoiding undesirable ones.55 These fictions are useful in law not least because those using them are not supposed to fall into the trap of believing them to be true.56 It is when a legal fiction is taken too seriously that it can become dangerous.57 This is what all too often happens when we use anthropomorphic language about companies. Forgetting that the personhood of companies is merely a convenient legal fiction, we start equating that personhood with humanity.58 Humans have social responsibilities; surely companies, “persons,” after all, do too? But to speak of the social responsibility of companies is to speak of a fictional concept far less helpful than the legal fiction of the company itself.

This doesn’t mean, however, that companies have no responsibilities at all. Companies are governed by the law. This is entirely appropriate, since it is the legal system that creates these companies in the first place. Companies may therefore be prohibited from engaging in nefarious activities as diverse as employing child laborers and providing payday loans at eyewatering interest rates.59 These prohibitions may be enforced by the threat of sanctions such as fines or the loss of a license to operate. But this is not corporate social responsibility; this is a matter of corporate legal compliance (or non-compliance).60

What is there to stop jurisdictions from legislating responsibility? Nothing at all. Some countries such as India have done just that.61 But this is the political and regulatory authorities exercising responsibility, not the companies. For the companies, it is then merely a question of compliance with the law, not a noble and potentially PR-worthy exercise in social beneficence. Companies are not human persons that have social and environmental responsibilities; they are legal entities that have legal responsibilities. There can therefore be no useful theology of corporate social and environmental responsibility.

3. Conclusion

At first blush this might seem a bleak conclusion at which to arrive. Does this mean that it is not realistic and indeed not even appropriate to hold companies to account for their non-financial performance, for their impacts upon the environment and society? By no means!62

It would seem rather obvious that if we wish to change a certain behavior, we should first ascertain what factors determine this behavior. Stridently asserting that companies should behave in particular ways begs the question “why?” All too often the reply is “because companies have social and environmental responsibilities.” And since we have shown that this is not the case (except when we mean by such responsibilities mere compliance with the law) we should not be surprised when companies behave in what appear to be irresponsible ways. An incorrect diagnosis is likely to result in inappropriate interventions, leading to suboptimal outcomes.

Political leaders have social responsibilities—it’s what they’re there for. Paul is insistent that God has put the governing authorities in place, and that they are there for our good (Rom 13:1–4). In writing this he would presumably have had in mind an earlier instruction that stresses that kings’ powers should not be deployed for their own gratification (Deut 17:16–20), and the various proverbs that point to the positive impact a good king can have on his subjects (for example, Prov 29:4). It is certainly the case that all too often political leaders do not discharge their social responsibilities. From the oppressive policies of a long-deceased Egyptian leader (Exod 1:18–22) to the wastelands of modern Syria,63 the road of political social irresponsibility is well-trodden. Yet a poor track record doesn’t negate the original purpose. Consider the US constitution: “Its first three words—‘We The People’—affirm that the government of the United States exists to serve its citizens.”64

If we wish to see the social performance of companies changing, then a crucial lever to pull is that of influencing political leaders to change the rules of the game within which these companies are operating. Exactly how we exert that influence may depend on the political system at the national or supranational level that is appropriate to the case in point. Nevertheless, it is these leaders who determine and enforce the laws with which we expect companies to comply.

It is certainly also possible to change companies’ social performance by direct and indirect acts of activism, a topic I have written of elsewhere.65 But such activism should not be predicated on any sense of a company carrying social responsibilities. It is simply a question as to how influence may be exerted over its board of directors and managers, who are making the decisions that determine the company’s social performance. In those special cases when companies are led and/or owned by Christians one way of exerting such influence is to remind such leaders and owners of their own social responsibilities, aspects of which we have already considered. In other cases, appeals are likely be made on the basis of self-interest, even if not couched in such terms.

As Christians, we ought to care about the created order and the created human beings who live in and enjoy it. This means that we should care when we see companies damaging society and the environment. Some of us may hear God’s call to do something about it. But our efforts are likely to be thwarted if we base our actions on a myth, that companies themselves have social responsibilities. One crucial point of engagement is at the political level, where these social responsibilities certainly do exist. Companies should be regulated for the benefit of society, and compliance with such regulations should be enforced. A second point of engagement is at the level of company directors and managers, where we may seek to persuade them that it may benefit them and the companies they serve to go beyond legal compliance in reducing societal harm and providing societal benefits.

A theology of personal social responsibility is possible, and I hope that I have shone some light on the steps that could be taken along that path. Theologies of political responsibility and civic engagement are likewise possible, although this article is not the place for them. But since companies do not have such responsibilities to society a theology of corporate social responsibility is neither possible nor desirable. This conclusion directs us to acknowledge where such responsibility actually lies, and not waste our time chasing a will o’ the wisp through the swamp.

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[1] Business Roundtable, “Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation,” 2019, https://tinyurl.com/2p8fpmnt.

[2] The idea that managers’ and directors’ primary duty is to make decisions that are in the interests of the company’s shareholders (see N. Craig Smith and David Ronnegard, “Shareholder Primacy, Corporate Social Responsibility and the Role of Business Schools,” Journal of Business Ethics 134 (2016): 463–78).

[3] Rick Wartzman, “Top CEO Group Business Roundtable Drops Shareholder Primacy,” Fast Company, 19 August 2019, https://tinyurl.com/5x2nsnej.

[4] Andrew Winston, “Is the Business Roundtable Statement Just Empty Rhetoric,” Harvard Business Review, 30 August 2019, https://tinyurl.com/mrxwsywa; Karl Smith, “Roundtable’s Epiphany Is Wrong-Headed,” Bloomberg, 25 August 2019, https://tinyurl.com/apuzxt3r.

[5] Milton Friedman, “The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits,” New York Times Magazine, 13 September 1970, https://tinyurl.com/msmphmyu.

[6] For example, staying within “the rules of the game” (Friedman, “The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits”).

[7] Thomas L. Carson, “My Correspondence with Milton Friedman about the Social Responsibilities of Business,” Business & Society Review 123:2 (2018): 217–42.

[8] “Chartered Company,” Encyclopedia Britannica, n.d., https://www.britannica.com/topic/chartered-company.

[9] John Stott, The Contemporary Christian (Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, 1992), 28.

[10] Carmen Valor, “Corporate Social Responsibility and Corporate Citizenship: Towards Corporate Accountability,” Business and Society Review 110:2 (2005): 191–212.

[11] Archie Carroll, “Corporate Social Responsibility: Evolution of a Definitional Construct,” Business & Society 38.3 (1999): 268–95.

[12] Carroll, “Corporate Social Responsibility,” 270, quoting Howard R. Bowen, Social Responsibilities of the Buinessman (New York: Harper & Row, 1953), 6.

[13] Sandra A. Waddock and Samuel B. Graves, “The Corporate Social Performance-Financial Performance Link,” Strategic Management Journal 18.4 (1997): 303–19; for the sake of brevity, I will usually in this article refer to social responsibilities in this way.

[14] José M. Agudo-Valiente, Concepción Garcés-Ayerbe and Manuel Salvador-Figueras, “Corporate Social Performance and Stakeholder Dialogue Management,” Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management 22 (2015): 13–31.

[15] Gary Cundill and Hugh Wilson, “ESG? A Framework for Corporate Governance and its Environmental and Social Outcomes,” Academy of Management Proceedings (2020), https://tinyurl.com/3jn48r3s.

[16] The Economist, “ESG Should Be Boiled Down to One Simple Measure: Emissions,” 21 July 2022, https://tinyurl.com/mspzmsxz.

[17] Gro Brundtland, “Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development: Our Common Future (1987),” United Nations General Assembly, A/42/427, https://tinyurl.com/zr4dxfe9.

[18] Archie Carroll, “Corporate Social Responsibility: Perspectives on the CSR Construct’s Development and Future,” Business & Society 60.6 (2021): 1258–78.

[19] Herman Aguinis, “Organisational Responsibility: Doing Good and Doing Well,” in APA Handbook of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, ed. Sheldon Zedeck (Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2009), 3:855–79.

[20] Gen 3:8. Gen 6:6–7 indicates that such enjoyment is now alloyed with regret.

[21] Gen 1:28–30; cf. Gen 2:15. Gen 7:1–5 and 8:15–19 provides an example of obedience to God’s command in this regard.

[22] Robert W. Hillman, “Limited Liability in Historical Perspective,” Washington and Lee Law Review 54.2 (1997): 613–27.

[23] Abraham Kuyper, “Sphere Sovereignty,” lecture at the Free University, 20 October 1880, translated by George Kamps, https://tinyurl.com/yapub3t9.

[24] Herman Aguinis and Ante Glavas, “What We Know and Don’t Know about Corporate Social Responsibility: A Review and Research Agenda,” Journal of Management 38 (2012): 932–68.

[25] While the employer here was the government rather than a company, this does not change the principles involved.

[26] Exod 23:10–11; cf. Deut 25:4, where the welfare of domesticated animals is also considered.

[27] Exod 21:7; perhaps also 23:9; Deut 10:19; 24:14–15.

[28] Exod 23:8; Prov 17:23; Eccl 7:7; Isa 1:23 (in the context of government); cf. Deut 25:13–16 and Prov 11:1; 20:23, where it is evident that sharp practices were known to be present in commercial transactions; see also Deut 27:17 and Prov 22:28; 23:10–11, in the context of property.

[29] While a competing company may or may not meet the definition of a neighbor, presumably those working for it do.

[30] Deut 15:7–11; Matt 25:34–36; Rom 12:8; Gal 2:10. This is not to say that whatever applies to individual Christians can be simply applied to companies—by way of example, the latter presumably don’t get the benefit of treasure in heaven (Mark 10:21) as a consequence of corporate action on earth; philanthropy focused on Christians (Rom 12:13) is likely to throw up some ethical dilemmas. An avenue that might bear pursuing, however, is the extent to which companies may be thought of as having neighbors (cf. Luke 10:29).

[31] Deut 24:19–22; the well-known story of Ruth provides an example of such responsibility in action, taken even further to protect the safety of the gleaner (Ruth 2:2, 9, 15–16, 22). The story of David and Nabal, fraught as it is with overtones of a protectio1n racket, deals with overlapping business interests, rather than distinct philanthropy.

[32] Timothy S. Mescon and Donn Tilson, “Corporate Philanthropy: A Strategic Approach to the Bottom Line,” California Management Review 29.2 (1987): 49–61.

[33] Brian Rosner, “The Concept of Idolatry,” Themelios 24.3 (1999): 21–30.

[34] 1 Chr 29:11–18; Ps 100:3; cf. Eccl 5:18–20 and 6:1–6 for the implication for work.

[35] Deut 11:13–16; Ps 107:35–38; Ps 112. cf. Dan Slater, Robert Holbrook and Joseph Xu, “Do Christian CEOs Make a Difference? Empirical Evidence from the S&P 500,” Journal of Biblical Integration in Business 25.1 (2022): 74–82.

[36] By way of support: Oliver Falck and Stephan Heblich, “Corporate Social Responsibility: Doing Well by Doing Good,” Business Horizons 50.3 (2007): 247–54. cf., however, Aneel Karnani “Doing Well by Doing Good: The Grand Illusion,” California Management Review 53.2 (2011): 69–86. (Not to say, of course, that material prosperity is a guide to godliness—cf. Isa 2:7; not all gain is honest gain: Ezek 22:13, 27; Hab 2:9).

[37] For example, John Lovatt, “Christian Banking and the New Quaker Bank,” Faith in Business Quarterly 16.2 (2014): 9–16; Michael Zigarelli, Christian-Owned Companies (Hildesheim, Germany: 9 to 5 Media, 2019)

[38] For it to be useful for our current purpose, researchers would probably need to somehow focus on some definition of Christianity which would include belief in the Bible. Some warranting can, however, be drawn from publications such as the Pew Centre’s report on the size of the world’s Christian population, which shows Christians as a 32% minority of the world’s population (The Pew Centre, “Global Christianity,” December 2011, https://tinyurl.com/ye28nvmm). It would therefore be surprising should such a minority turn out to own the majority of owner-led businesses. More pertinently, a discussion of corporate responsibility usually takes place in the context of large businesses, many of which are listed on the world’s stock exchanges. The ownership of these companies is frequently spread across a range of other entities such as pension funds and index investment companies, and it would be unusual and almost certainly inappropriate to describe the majority of these as Christian in nature.

[39] Decision making in the perhaps simpler context of a marriage is difficult when only one partner is a Christian, which presumably was at least part of Paul’s motivation when he warned the Corinthians (2 Cor 6:14–18). It’s beyond the scope of this article to debate the application of this verse to Christians co-owning and co-managing businesses with non-Christians.

[40] cf. Matt 6:24; Luke 16:13; as pointed out by Stephen N. Bretsen, “The Faithful Business as a Publicly Traded Corporation: Testing the Outer Limits of Corporate Law,” Journal of Biblical Integration in Business 11.3 (2006): 42–80.

[41] Gary Cundill, “A Response to David Parrish on Corporate Social Responsibility,” Faith in Business Quarterly 17.4 (2016): 27–30.

[42] Mark Benjamin Spence and Lee Warren Brown, “Theology and Corporate Environmental Responsibility: A Biblical Literalism Approach to Creation Care,” Journal of Biblical Integration in Business 21.1 (2018): 45–54.

[43] J. B. Sykes, ed., The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English (London: Oxford University Press, 1976).

[44] And, in a rather nice touch, it is even likened to a human body (1 Cor 12:12–27).

[45] “The Company that Ruled the Waves,” The Economist, 17 December 2011, https://tinyurl.com/mr2zajdx.

[46] Episcopal Church, The Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments and Other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church (New York: Seabury Press, 1979).

[47] Even if this entity may be defined as a legal fiction, a term explained below.

[48] For example, Matthew Taylor and Jonathan Watts, “Revealed: The 20 Firms behind a Third of All Carbon Emissions,” The Guardian, 9 October 2019, https://tinyurl.com/3pt6jh75.

[49] For example, “How to Ensure That the Future of Work Is Fair for All,” The Economist, 8 November 2021, https://tinyurl.com/bdzk3unp.

[50] Tembile Sgcolana, “Shell Can Go to Hell: Petition against Wild Coast Shale Gas Exploration Grows,” Daily Maverick, 15 November 2021, https://tinyurl.com/mvw99xxz.

[51] Wallace B. Donham, “The Social Significance of Business,” Harvard Business Review (1927): 406–19.

[52] For the sake of brevity, I will confine what follows to the US legal system.

[53] Sanford A. Schane, “The Corporation Is a Person: the Language of a Legal Fiction,” Tulane Law Review 61.3 (1987), https://tinyurl.com/p8sp9jeb.

[54] John D. Stanley, “Fictions: Legal and Organizational,” Academy of Management Journal 9.2 (1966): 12–126.

[55] Chunlin Leonhard, “Dangerous or Benign Legal Fictions, Cognitive Biases, and Consent in Contract Law,” St. John’s Law Review 91 (2017): 385–426.

[56] Stanley, “Fictions: Legal and Organizational.”

[57] Leonhard, “Dangerous or Benign Legal Fictions.”

[58] Dave Fagundes, “What We Talk about when We Talk about Persons: The Language of Legal Fiction,” Harvard Law Review 114.6 (2001): 1745–68.

[59] For example, “The Birth of the New Deal,” The Economist, 17 March 2021, https://tinyurl.com/3wa5xcnv; “An Assessment of the White House’s Progress on Deregulation,” The Economist, 14 October 2017, https://tinyurl.com/9syszp88.

[60] I am aware that there are those such as Carroll who include legal compliance as an aspect of CSR. This seems to me to be a stretch. Imagine, if you will, a company manager explaining to an outraged community meeting, “Of course we’re a socially responsible company—we haven’t broken the law!”

[61] Kirthana Singh Khurana, “Mandatory CSR in India–A Trailblazer from the East,” BRICS Law Journal 9.4 (2022): 81–107.

[62] As an apostle once wrote, railing against the idea of ongoing sin (Rom 6:2).

[63] cf. “The Rehabilitation of Syria’s Dictator Raises Awkward Questions for the West,” The Economist, 11 May 2023, https://tinyurl.com/33am9t4k.

[64] United States Senate, “Constitution of the United States,” n.d., https://tinyurl.com/2p9bmnzx.

[65] Gary Cundill, Palie Smart and Hugh Wilson, “Non-financial Shareholder Activism: A Process Model for Influencing Corporate Environmental and Social Performance,” International Journal of Management Reviews 20 (2018): 606–26.