What Should be the One Primary Goal of Christians


In my long career as a professor, a host of approaches to life, business and current times came and went. When I started teaching in a Department of Business there were no courses or subdisciplines called, "Mission Statements" or terms that referred to setting broad purposes for businesses or institutions. Economics provided the only broad goal for businesses, "To maximize profits." The consumer, in turn, was assigned a broad goal, "To maximize utility (satisfaction) from his/her finite income." There were, of course, disagreements about these.  One of my professors said a business' single goal was not maximizing profit but to "survive."

As time moved along departments of management began to refine this task of defining the purpose or goal of an institution. Courses in mission statements, etc. were introduced. To illustrate how important knowing a mission or goal, I recall an interview with a billionaire who was expressing disgust about a crook who had bilked huge money from people with a Ponzi scheme. The billionaire said he is often introduced to new people who claim, or are thought, to be extremely wealthy. He said, "I always ask such a person how the person made his/her money. If they can't say it in one simply sentence, I suspect something was dishonest."

If one were to ask 100 randomly selected Christians, "What is the goal of the Christian faith?", I wonder what the most common answer would be and/or how many different answers there would be? Here are some answers I've heard: To save humanity from hell. To help people get to heaven when they die. To punish our enemies. To make all people good people. To stop all abortions. To stop the socialism that Jesus hates.  There are many others of course. Many casual Christians might be stumped and not know how to answer.

To put the purpose of Christianity in context, we have to remember every church and denomination has to meet payroll and pay bills. They are businesses. While the goal from economics of maximizing profits usually does not fit, the business goal of surviving does. Any church or denomination wants it to survive. Thus, the goal my professor gave for businesses in capitalism, to survive, applies. 

Any business must deliver a product that will bring customers. The problem facing churches, and thus Christianity, is that those who pay its bills, those in the pews, have no reason to do what it takes to survive. They do not want their branch to broaden its appeal by embracing society's changes. Gay marriage and gay clergy, abortion rights, trans rights, female clergy, married priests and you know the rest cannot be added to the product mix because those in the pews a.) don't like them and b.) don't care about the faith's survival.

Not adjusting must be the reason thousands of past gods no longer exist. Christianity could/should learn from that. 

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