Entrepreneurialism has long served as a surrogate religion for millions of Americans. This shift is because often entrepreneurialism looks a lot better to our peers than a life of Christian discipleship. That’s not all our fault—the ad men have no small portion of the blame for this—but to the degree that we make Christianity look boring and unserious, we share some degree of responsibility.

Jake Meador

Jake’s comment focuses on the ways Christians fail to make the life of faith compelling enough to compete with entrepreneurialism, but of course it’s also worth noting (as Jake has himself in the past) that evangelicals have an even deeper problem with the worship of success: our revivalist missiology often leads us to elevate those who most successfully mimic the work of the ad men, so that we end up praying “Come, Holy Success” over the kinds of lives and ministries that we, presuming that God loves success, view as insufficient.