God's Businessmen

While historians have treated American evangelicals and business in other eras, God's Businessmen covers the largely untold story of evangelical entrepreneurs in the 1930s and during World War II. During those times these individuals funded and managed religious organizations and causes, believing that God had charged them with preserving Christian America. Spiritual opportunities and greater profits could prevail. Influential managers included the heavy-equipment manufacturer R. G. LeTourneau, the Club Aluminum Products Company executive Herbert J. Taylor, the realtor turned preacher J. Elwin Wright, the Sun Oil Company president J. Howard Pew, and the shoe store owner C. B. Hedstrom. Their organizations were varied: Christian Business Men's Committee International, Chaplain Counselors for Industry, the Association of Business Men's Evangelistic Clubs, Christian Workers Foundation, the Gideons, LeTourneau Evangelistic Foundation, Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship, National Association of Evangelicals, and Youth for Christ. Taylor's aluminum company provides one illustration of evangelical and corporate unity. Taylor in 1932 had composed the Rotary Club's “four-way test,” a code of business ethics that would appeal to evangelicals, yet was, in a nod to religious pluralism, nonsectarian and important in the workplace. During World War II he became treasurer of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), the most important layman among clerics, and there he shaped its appeal, broader than the separatist fundamentalists. In 1944 he sponsored a radio program, Club Time, to promote the gospel and Christian democracy. Psalms and hymns—sung by George Beverly Shea—alternated with advertisements for Taylor's company. Sales, ratings, and numbers of conversions were impressive

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