In my opening keynote at the 2006 Entrepreneurial Bootcamp I addressed “The Big Picture for Entrepreneurship and the Christian Family.” One of the sub-topics in the message was the problem of imbalanced and unbiblical theologies of wealth, poverty and human action. From the vows of poverty of the monastics, to redistributive agenda of liberation theologians, to the “positive confession” and “word of faith” movement within certain Pentacostal circles, imprecise and unscriptural theories of wealth, poverty and human action have been on the “Christian” scene at least since the early gnostics and ascetics sought to minimize the Lordship of Christ over the material realm with their dichotomous vision of reality.

Poverty as Virtue: The belief that wealth is inescapably the result of compromise, that it is necessarily a deterrent to righteousness, and that poverty is a sign of spirituality.

Disenfranchisement as Desirable: The belief that it is preferable or mandatory for Christians to be persecuted and disenfranchised from civil and cultural leadership within society.

The “Get Me Outta Here Gospel”: An anti-dominion, anti-stewardship philosophy that implicitly rejects Christ’s lordship over culture, civil government, and nations. This view minimizes the Great Commission and posits that there is little left to do on earth except share the Gospel and wait for the Second Coming.

Prosperity as Gospel: The belief that health and prosperity are promised to believers and are available through faith; the formulaic and mystical expectation that specific faith actions will result in specific financial, physical and health rewards.

Material Success as Prime Objective: The belief or attitude that business success and financial blessing are the primary or ultimate objectives of entrepreneurship.

The Sociology of the Postmodern Work and Family Ethic as Biblically Normative: The assumption that popular 21st century educational, social, and business lifestyles are historically normative and ethically neutral.