When Faith and Business Don’t Mix

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The WSJ yesterday published an article entitled, Mortgage Woes Take Toll On Lender With Roots in Faith. The article describes HomeBank Corp., a mortgage company that frequently opened meetings with prayer and every branch kept a chaplain on call. Training classes were required of all new employees, who had to promise the company they would repay the $60,000 cost if they didn’t stay at the company for at least 3 years. This “faith-based” company demanded 80-hour work weeks and some say valued allegiance and devoutness over productivity. The company is now in bankruptcy. Its former CEO, Patrick S. Flood, left the company in January with a smile, that is to say, a $5 million severance package. He plans to start another faith-based mortgage company, saying that “When Jesus got on the cross, people at the time thought that he failed because he died and the ministry ended. But people around him have cascaded it into the greatest movement in history. The company being a financial failure doesn’t mean that the work has ended.”

Let’s be clear here. Companies like HomeBank are about making money, not faith. Whatever one’s religious views, to manipulate other’s faith to make a buck on the backs of hard-working people is certainly not what Christianity is about. Which is to say, perhaps Mr. Flood should stop comparing himself and his companies to Jesus.

As always, not a sermon, just a blog.

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