This article was originally published here by USA Today

— by Tim Busch

When I started my first business 40 years ago, I had to ask myself a lot of questions. Where should I get office space? What is my revenue model? How could I expand? And many others. But there’s one question I’d have to ask now that I didn’t have to ask then: Do I need to abandon my faith?

The rise of so-called "woke capitalism" has put religious belief on a collision course with entrepreneurship and economic participation. Where once business was about innovating and improving lives, now companies are being pressured by political leaders and activists to toe a variety of ideological lines.

The ever-shifting list of demands ranges from supporting slavery reparations to opposing the police, from accepting abortion on-demand to rejecting the concept of gender, among many others. Plenty of commentators have highlighted how woke capitalism leads to discrimination against conservatives and others with right-leaning views. Yet it is just as much a threat to people of many religious traditions.

By its nature, woke capitalism comes into conflict with faith. Both make moral claims about what’s true and what’s false. Yet only the woke capitalist demands that employers and employees accept its moral claims as a condition of doing business. While it doesn’t matter to a Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, or Buddhist entrepreneur whether the shop owner next door holds the same views about God, humanity, and justice, nothing matters more to the woke capitalist.

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[Picture Courtesy Reach Records ]