Welcome back to the Christianity and Business Podcast, an initiative of the RTW Dunham College of Business at Houston Baptist University. I'm your host, Jaren Shearer, and this is the show that helps Christian business leaders to integrate biblical values into business. On this episode, we're joined by Dr. Robert Shearer. Dr. Bob Shear has taught business law and management ethics at North Greenville University and Southern Wesleyan University, respectively. Today he's helping to grow a startup called Carolina Buy, which is a purchasing cooperative for educators, governments, nonprofits, and churches in the state of South Carolina. And he's a highly decorated U.S. Air Force combat pilot from Vietnam. And he holds a jurisdictorate from the University of South Carolina. He's the author of the new book, My Life in the Two Cross Kingdom: How Jesus' Cross Got Me Into the Kingdom, and How My Cross Gets the Kingdom Into Me. And for many years has hosted the TV show Nightline on the Dove Broadcasting Network and blogs about Two Cross Kingdom living at Robert Lynnshearer.com. I'll have that in the show notes. And he's also very proud that he's got three handsome grandsons. And uh those grandsons happen to be my sons. And if you haven't put two and two together with our last names, uh Dr. Bob Shear is my dad, and and I love him. And I'm just so excited to be able to share him with our audience today. Uh Bob Dad, Bob Dad, welcome to the show. Just call me Paw Paw. Paw Paw, yes. I like Bob Dad. That's gotta kind of sound like Bobcat or something. Sounds good. So uh obviously, so many different things that we could talk about, and so many things that we do talk about. And we're gonna be coming to visit here pretty soon and looking forward to more late night chats about deep uh deep matters as we do. Uh, but but here we have limited time. So let's let's start by talking about management ethics. And and you've taught this this subject, and you've been training and equipping business students over the last really the last decade, uh, Christian business students primarily to go into the marketplace uh to represent Christ and management ethics is one of those subjects that you've taught. Um what is what is this concept of duty-based versus outcome-based ethics?
SPEAKER_01Well, thank you, Darren. Uh it's uh good to be with you and all your listening audience. Um I I've uh I've taught that uh off and on, even before I started teaching at the university level. I was teaching in high school. Um I'd be pastoring churches, and uh they'd need a teacher to come in and and substitute. Uh normally I was teaching, I had to substitute for a lady who would go on maternity leave or something like that, and I'd get three months with these students, and and it was really a great experience for me to be able to teach uh these principles of ethics. And gratefully, when I went to teach, the the leadership of the schools were very open to a uh Christian worldview. And uh so when we talk about uh the marketplace or economics, which is what I was teaching in high school, but then at the university level, we talk about uh management ethics and uh uh and contract and law and those kinds of things, um, we do come to have to deal with how we make our decisions. And there's really only two ways of making decisions. We're either going to decide to do what we're going to do in business because it's we have a duty to do it, or we're gonna do it because uh the uh um it it's very pragmatic and has some results that we like, and maybe there's some results we want to avoid, so it's outcome-based. So it's either we're gonna do what we're gonna do because we sense an obligation as a matter of duty, or we're gonna do it because it's gonna produce the greater utility. Um, the duty-based would be seen more as biblical, and uh the uh um the outcome-based would be more utilitarian. And so those are the the kind of the more technologically ethical terms would be deontological, duty-based, God-based, or utilitarian-based. What's gonna what does man think is gonna produce the greater results? And that's the the marketplace, uh that's the that's the way we make decisions in the marketplace. Now, if you're a follower of Christ and you're going to do what the kingdom of God would have you to do, you're probably gonna have to be pretty aware of what what God's word says, because that's your duty-based source. Um, now, utilitarianism, uh Jeremy Bentham and all the guys are gonna be doing, or the utilitarian approach to to making decisions. And um, well, uh, you're gonna do it on the basis of the pragmatic. What's gonna produce the greater good? Uh and we hear that all the time in America, the greater good. And and it sounds like it's so consistent with us as Christians. Obviously, God would want us to do the greater good. Well, the problem with that, Darren, is that the greater good is based on what my man views as the greater good, and God may not that may not be right in the sight of God. Now, there are a lot of there are specific illustrations of that uh that we could talk about if you'd like. Yeah, yeah. What does that look like? Yeah, well, I think probably the classic I was in law school um from I got out of the Air Force. I wasn't a believer, I got out of the Air Force in in uh 1972, actually, yeah, 1972, and I started law school at the University of South Carolina. I'd been a pilot in the Air Force for six years, and my life was changing and all of that. And somebody said if I went to law school here in South Carolina, I'd really I could really go places because in South Carolina it's a military-industrial complex state, and uh uh everybody, the good old boys in the General Assembly got all their law degrees from the USC, but most of them didn't have military backgrounds, but we had military bases all over South Carolina, so they said uh you know it'd do you good to get a law degree. So I said, okay, I'll I'll go, I'll go. So I went and got my law degree. Well, the interesting thing is that in the early 70s, there were two major issues in 1971 and 1973. In 1971, um the Ford Motor Company um decided that in order to compete uh with the Volkswagen and in Europe and the Toyota uh from Japan, we needed a subcompact car, but there were no subcompact cars in the early 70s in America. So the Ford Motor Company said, okay, well, we're gonna produce a pinto. Now, a pinto, in order to be a subcompact car, had to be less than 2,000 pounds. And if they were gonna create it to be less than 2,000 pounds, it's gonna have to, they want to keep the price at below $2,000. So the president of the Ford Motor Company, the the chief executive officer was was uh Lee Iacoca. And he said, no more than 2,000 pounds, no more than $2,000. And that was the bottom line. And and so they created the Ford Pinto. Unfortunately, when they did their crash tests, they discovered that a rear-end collision on a Ford Pinto, the way the the fuel tank was so closely um up against the bumper that that there was no protection. And so they saw it in the crash tests, they knew the results, the consequences, but in the greater good sense of it, the the long-term, the really the the short term, I should say the short-term um results were they wanted to make sure that they had a a moneymaker. And so they didn't put the extra $200 into the into the price of the car, and they didn't put in the extra couple hundred pounds in the weight of the car because they they couldn't compete with Japan and and uh Germany. And so they they put it on the market, and sure enough, you all know the history. I think probably most of you would know the history of the Pinto. They had multiple crashes, multiple fires, multiple losses of life, and um they uh they felt like that um it was worth it. I mean, uh because they were pragmatic. And it, even though there was a loss of life, they their bottom line was was advanced. And uh by the time most of this happened, I think uh Lee Acolca, uh, I think he went to Chrysler to bail them out or something like that. So he missed out on a lot of the consequences because he went to another automobile company. But Ford had to walk it work its way through that. Now, what that amounts to is the duty-based, which is what God's word says in the marketplace, is even if the the even if some of the results are not really what we want, we have to be more concerned about long-term results. And the long, in the long haul, God's word is what you're gonna have to apply. In the short run, pragmatically, yeah, you might be able to cut some corners and you might be able to do it the way it appeals to you or to your family or to your friends or to the marketplace. But but that's and and and most people would say that's the greater good. In America, we talk a lot about the greater good in the marketplace, in education, uh, all over the culture. What's in the greater good? Unfortunately, it sounds good, but it doesn't measure up to really what God's word says. And if you're gonna take up your cross in our culture, what you're gonna have to do is actually do what is the will of God, not what is in my best interests. Yeah. But the truth is, what's in God's best interest winds up to be uh much better for us.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. But our culture in in the marketplace, especially, is so steeped in secular humanism, just a very man-centered way of going about business and and just focusing on, you know, it's been said that the purpose of business is to maximize shareholder value. And and so if if that's that's a very outcome-based view, uh, to be truly duty-based, I mean, it's it seems, it almost seems impossible, uh, but I like this concept that you've introduced in the last uh couple of years uh of of the two-cross kingdom. What what would it mean? Well, first of all, let's let's talk about what is the we we have a what is the two-cross kingdom concept?
SPEAKER_01Well, it's it's a biblical kingdom of God. It's not just a concept. Jesus came preaching the gospel of the kingdom. That he says, and for this purpose, I was I was brought to the earth is to declare the kingdom of God. The interesting thing was, and I just noticed this the other day, the Jesus came preaching the kingdom of God. And then if you look at the very end of the book of Acts, the Apostle Paul finishes the last couple of verses talking about literally the kingdom of God. From the beginning of the life of Jesus and his ministry to the end of the book of Acts and the Apostle Paul's ministry, he's talking about the kingdom of God. Now, the the cross of Jesus is what when we when we surrender our life to the Lord Jesus Christ and we lay our life on the altar at the mercy seat, the cross, we enter into the kingdom of God at his cross. Now then, Jesus then in Luke 24, 49 said, If any bat man will 9.23, I'm sorry, Luke 9.23, if any man will come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me daily. Now if my if my faith and trust in Jesus is what gets me into the kingdom, then Jesus said, if you'll take up your cross and follow me, that's what gets the kingdom into you. That's when you really begin to appreciate the kingdom of God. And the the the truth is we don't really begin to appreciate the kingdom of God by taking up our cross because we go to church every Sunday, where we're gonna take up our cross is in the marketplace. Because in your book, I mean, you've done such a wonderful job in Marketplace Christian. I mean, if it's true that 85% of the people in our churches on Sunday are gonna spend 60 to 70% of their waking hours in the marketplace in some kind of a for-profit venture, then that's where we're gonna be taking up our crosses and following Jesus, not in an institutionally religious setting. We need to be out there in the marketplace doing that. Now, and I'll finish this part with this. People are always asking me, well, Bob, how do I, where do I take up my cross? And can you explain the Jesus cross and my cross? How does that work? Well, um, we take up our cross as the same place Jesus took up his cross. And and every time I say that to folks, they say, Well, that can't happen. Jesus took up his cross on Calvary, you know, on Calvary. That's where the cross was was put on that mountain there in Jerusalem. And I said, That's not where Jesus took up his cross, that's where he got nailed to it. Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane the night before was by himself with the Heavenly Father. And when he looked at what was going to have to happen, and dear friends, it wasn't just the shedding of his blood, it was the wrath of God that he was going to have to experience. And that's really a sense of separation from the Father. Remember on the cross where it went black. Remember that it went black? God is light, and in him there's no darkness at all. Jesus had to experience that separation from God, and he experienced that on the cross. And we don't have to, but the fact of the matter is, Jesus had to deal with not my will, but thine be done. And he did it in the Garden of Gethsemane. In the marketplace, there are going to be gardens of Gethsemane for us, where we're going to say, uh, Father, I don't know. This it'd be better for me if I didn't have to hire this person of this gender, this person of this color, this person of this blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I mean, uh, but okay. I'm supposed to see them as Jesus sees them without regard. In Christ there is no. So I'm going to see them that way. And I have to take up my cross and do it that way. Baking a cake, on the other hand, some people will have to say, I can't bake a cake for this person because of what it represents, and I cannot give myself to that.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01See, the marketplace is where these issues come up, these ethical issues come up.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_01And we're going to have to make that decision is taking up your cross and saying yes to God.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And so uh for a company that is seeking to be uh, you know, a Christian company, a Christ-centered company, Christian-led company, it's it's not enough to just say, well, you know, we've got a cross on our business card or, you know, the fish. You know, we're we're it's it's much easier to identify with Jesus' cross and say, I'm a Christian, and kind of could be a nominal Christian, than it is to take up our cross, that second cross that you're talking about, and and actually be a disciple and live out the his plan for our lives, no matter what the consequence is, right? That's right.
SPEAKER_01In fact, in fact, um the cost of discipleship is really what we're talking about. And Dietrich Bonhoeffler, in his book that deals with the cost of discipleship, uh, he specifically says when Jesus calls a man and a woman, he bids them come and die. I mean, we have to be able to die to ourselves. And that doesn't happen just by going to church because sometimes taking up our cross, well, our cross is not what we wear around our neck, and it's not what we put on the bumper of our car, and it's not something that we look at on the altar at the church. Um, taking up our cross means dying to ourselves. And and that the apostle Paul said, let this mind be in you, businessman, businesswoman, let this mind be in you. But that the Jesus Christ did not think equality with God was something to be grasped, but he emptied himself in in uh in Philippians chapter 2, verse 5, and following that canonic passage, the emptying passage, he emptied himself. Well, that's really what it means to be a marketplace Christian. There has to be a sense in which we die to ourselves and we actually empty ourselves. Paul said, I'm crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, but it's not I who live, but Christ who lives in me. The life I now live, I live by my faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. Now, if that's true, that He that He did that for me, then He bids me come and die, take up my cross and follow Him.
SPEAKER_02Because we would we would rather at least in probably more difficult in uh a part of the world that is hostile to Christianity, but at least here in the United States, it's more convenient to identify with Jesus' cross and say, I'm I'm a Christian, than it is to actually take up your cross and to to take up your own cross, because that's where you, I mean, that's really the fruit, right? That's the fruit on the tree that identifies if you're actually in him, right?
SPEAKER_01Exactly. And what's convenient, what's convenient uh is not really uh what it's all about, uh, because uh uh convenience doesn't produce great fruit. It may be more convenient for um a prophet to speak prophetically, but Jesus said, beware of false prophets, by their fruit you will know them. And so where our fruit is manifested isn't just simply by teaching a Sunday school class on Sunday at the church. A real prophet is gonna produce fruit where he or she spends 60 to 70 percent of their waking hours in the marketplace, in business, uh, where it's gonna cost them something. Um, and I tell you, I pastored for over 30 years. But when I had my back surgery, you recall this uh 10 years ago, I I I had I had an opportunity, somebody needed me, wanted me to go to work in a in a service business. I was recovering and I'd and they asked me to be a morning manager in a restaurant. I had never done anything like that before in my life. Never, ever done anything like that before my life. I was I'm a white-collar kind of guy. Good Lord, I have a law degree, a seminary education, pastor churches. I'm a white-collar guy. I never didn't know no, no, no, no, no. I can't. He said, I'll give you the key. Uh I I my brother and I are in our 30s. We've got young brides and long babies. Uh, you got to get up and you can't go back to sleep anyway. So why don't you just take the key, open the store, greet the people, seat the people, take their money, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm saying, oh, I know I'm telling myself, no, I can't do that. And all of a sudden, I sense the Holy Spirit say, Well, Bob, I thought you were an evangelist. I said, Well, I love to talk about Jesus, but where what are you doing with that, Lord? He says, Well, you're gonna see 500 people there. Every week, and they keep coming back because this is this is a really family restaurant. And you're gonna have a chance to talk to people about me. And all of a sudden, I realized my flesh, my flesh was gonna keep me from doing what God wanted me to do out in the marketplace. And I'll tell you what, Darren, when I talk to people like at North Grable University or any of these other seminaries around here, I tell people field education at the seminary, don't ordain somebody just because you've given them field education so they know how to work inside a church building institutionally. Make them go six months working in a service industry someplace. Because then taking up their cross, they're gonna understand what it means to really serve. We've got people who go from a cradle to the pulpit without ever having to serve anybody. And then they don't they don't understand why people don't love them in the church. Well, I honestly I think that's part of taking up your cross, but you don't learn that you know by putting a cross around your neck, putting a cross on your bumper, or or going to a church has a pretty cross on the stained glass window or on the altar. Yeah, it's not the same thing.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And and growing up when I was growing up in your house there in Columbia, South Carolina, you were my pastor as well as my father. And the the way that I saw you taking up your cross as the the executive, you know, the the pastor of our of our church was by getting engaged in the pro-life movement, which I didn't really know anything about except through you. And and I certainly came to realize that this is just not something that the typical pastor is doing. You know, the the typical pastor is very much focused on the Sunday morning event, you know, almost like they're in the event planning industry. And yet you were going out and uh doing sidewalk counseling for young moms about to go in and have their babies aborted, um demonstrating out on the streets, went to jail three times, four, four, four, four times. Four times that was this. Twice in Greenville, one in Columbia, and one in Charlotte Mecklenburg. So so you've you've seen um you could we could probably have you know get your perception on the jail system as well, but we can talk about that later.
SPEAKER_01And interesting, I love the men in blue and women in blue. I'm a I'm a big big fan of the police.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. And and you know, the other thing that was very noticeable, and and you were talking before about how the one of these uh church growth principles that kind of emerged when you were pastoring was the homogeneity principle that people worship better, whatever better means, when they're when they're worshiping with people that are like them. So, you know, birds of a feather flock together, people of the same race and similar socioeconomic status and and all of this. And but what I remember of our church was it was about half white, half black. Uh um, maybe even a little bit more black than than white. And and so that was just my my experience growing up. And so, you know, going into a an all-white church or or or an all-black church for that matter just feels very foreign uh to me to then then not having that um that integration. You know, it's it's said that Sunday morning is the most segregated time in America during the week. And and I think that's um that's really true. But the and I don't think you had this terminology for it, but really this this was two cross kingdom ethics, right? Manage management management ethics, that it's not about the outcome of trying to see how popular we can get in the community. But if God is calling you, you know, here we are in a time of extreme uh, you know, racial hostility, um it's it's not about trying to get more successful in the world's eyes and getting bigger, because at least at that time, it wasn't cool to be inclusive necessarily. And it certainly wasn't cool to to go to jail because you're standing up for the for the unborn. Um what how how does that um how does that relate to this two-cross kingdom ethics concept?
SPEAKER_01Well, um actually you kind of really did a great job of laying the foundation for it, Darren. And I I appreciate, you know, I I don't know that I've ever heard you actually summarize my life that way uh before. Um, and I'm honored that you remembered it and could see it that way. Um I actually, our nation right now is desperately in need of uh understanding that constitutionally um whatever is comfortable for us may not be God's will for us. Whatever's convenient for us may not be something that God's got planned for us. And our and our founders knew that of our nation knew that if we were going to be able to um cross at that point um the lines of our our colonies, then to be the states, they created a constitution that actually had a provision in there that that helped us to be able to relate to each other across state lines. And um it was amazing that our Constitution was ratified in 1789, and then 1791 we got the Bill of Rights. Um but the fact of the matter is there was a little portion of that called the Uniform Commercial Code, and actually the Interstate Commerce Clause was what provoked the Congress to come up with the Uniform Commercial Code. But what it meant was that we're gonna have to relate across state lines in ways that maybe South Carolinians don't relate well to Bostonians, and we're gonna have to relate across state lines. They they may not be like us, but in our nation, we were founded on biblical principles. We were founded on biblical principles, and what that meant was um we had to treat each other as as um like us. We're we're we are one people, and uh and our nation was founded on that principle. And so we think that what happened during our time of integration in the South was somehow um the law. We made we had to create new law for that. No, no, what it was is a business. It's business. We have we have integration across state lines without regard to race, really without regard to gender either, but certainly without regard to race, based on the principles of God's word that are in the Constitution. The Interstate Commerce Clause of the Constitution says if you're doing business in Birmingham, Alabama, and you're you're getting products and merchandise and customers coming across state lines, then you must operate according to principles, uh duty principles, not the greater good, the way you see it, the greater good. But you've got to do it what's right. And our Constitution said with the Interstate Commerce Clause that created the Uniform Commercial Code, if you're doing business in Birmingham, Alabama, and some some African American wants to come and use your diner to eat, you've got to serve them because you have a duty to do that under our constitution. Our constitution, which is lines up with the word of God, which is duty-based. Our nation is rooted in all of that. And and and to take up our crosses means we need to be willing to do that. And uh, and I knew quickly I'll finish this, but but you mentioned about going to jail. I thought I had a personal spiritual revival in the 1980s, and I thought it meant I was gonna get to do great things down there at the altar on Sunday morning, like the guys on television used to do. And and I thought that's what it was gonna be all about. And then all of a sudden I saw the movie the the you know The Hard Truth. Yeah, the hard truth. And I re I saw babies being dismembered in the mother's womb on the vid the movie, and it so impacted my life. That's when I got involved with Pastors for Life. The Holy Spirit was more involved in getting me to make a difference off the church campus during the week than down there in the in the at the altar on Sunday morning. I wound up having to what I did, what we did Pastors for Life up here did one Saturday. I didn't know they were gonna do it. I'd never even been up here before, and the pastors up here, good see you, Bob. Glad you're here. We're gonna pray. I said, Great. Well, we do that too down in the Columbia and up here in Greenville. Yeah, but we're gonna pray over there on the property of the abortion clinic. And I said, Really? He said, Yeah. I said, you know, I've got this crazy law degree that says that's gonna be misdemeanor trespass. They're gonna they're gonna call the cops. The cops are gonna come and get us, put us handcuffs, they're gonna put us in the paddy back and haul us down to the county jail, which is just down the street from this abortion clinic. And he said, Yeah, we're so glad you're here to join us. And I'm thinking, what? I didn't come up here to go to jail. I came up here just to hold a sign. And all of a sudden, like like working in the in that servant in the restaurant, God's saying, uh, Bob, you're filled with the Holy Spirit. You you're you're you're taking up your cross today. And I said, Okay, they put us in jail the next morning at nine, the drunk tank on Saturday night. I don't have time for that today. That was a great time, great experience. I felt like Paul and Silas in jail. The next morning at nine o'clock, we were in front of the judge, and the judge said, How do you plead? How else are you gonna plead? Now, nowadays, people don't have to do that because they don't ever arrest anybody that's breaking the law. But but now, back in the early 90s, you break the law, you go to jail. And I said, Well, guilty. I was on, I was trespassing and said it would be a hundred bucks. So we paid a hundred bucks. At 9:30 on Sunday morning, I got out of jail in Greenville and I wound up in my church preaching at 11 o'clock that morning. I mean, all of a sudden, I saw it. I saw what the difference between representing Christ in the marketplace of commerce and ideas out there in on the streets, and and the connection that made with being in the church. And I think if the church ever gets a hold of that, um a revival will hit the church and then an awakening will hit the culture. But the Constitution was based on not uh what makes us all feel good and we all worship with people like her better who are like us, or we we we have a business where we serve only people like us and all of those kinds of things. No, no. We have we have to be willing uh to embrace the whole culture in the marketplace, yeah, as followers of Christ taking up our crosses.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Well, that cross-carrying um discipleship is what has um made such uh uh an impression on me uh from the time even when I wasn't serving God uh those years ago. Um this another another episode. Um, I think you would encourage any parents out there right now, don't give up on your kids because I was certainly um one that maybe some would have given up on, uh, actually. So I hope that encourages somebody right now that needed to hear that. Um, but but dad, thank you for sharing your time and your story with us. And thank you uh obviously for helping to open my eyes up to just the the opportunity and the need to uh uh focus beyond just what's happening in church. You know, there's so much more that God is up to than what happens in a church service. And and um and you've really hoped helped me through your involvement in the in the pro-life movement and and just recognizing the opportunity in the marketplace uh have helped me to get on track with what I'm doing today. So sure love you and um can't wait to come and visit you here pretty soon.
SPEAKER_01We're looking forward to having uh your whole family, but we just can't wait. And and Gigi is really ready. She's really ready.
SPEAKER_00We hope you've enjoyed this episode, and if so, we would greatly appreciate it if you would leave us a quick rating and review for the Christianity and business podcast on iTunes. You can get more information about HBU Center for Christianity and Business at Christianityandbusiness.com. Thanks for listening and remember to keep integrating biblical values into your book.