Garry Wills put his finger right on the bruise in his April 9, 2006 New York Times Op-Ed, Christ Among the Partisans.

"There is no such thing as a ‘Christian politics,’ Wills writes. "If it is a politics, it cannot be Christian. Jesus told Pilate: ‘My reign is not of this present order. If my reign were of this present order, my supporters would have fought against my being turned over to the Jews. But my reign is not here’ (John 18:36). Jesus brought no political message or program."

We agree with Mr. Will’s argument (and believe me when I say we are not all cut from the same political cloth at InsideWork):

This is a truth that needs emphasis at a time when some Democrats, fearing that the Republicans have advanced over them by the use of religion, want to respond with a claim that Jesus is really on their side. He is not. He avoided those who would trap him into taking sides for or against the Roman occupation of Judea. He paid his taxes to the occupying power but said only, "Let Caesar have what belongs to him, and God have what belongs to him" (Matthew 22:21). He was the original proponent of a separation of church and state.

We suspect InsideWork puzzles businesspeople who make a big point about being Christian businesspeople. This is not just word play for us. The semantics are complex. We don’t use the word Christian as an adjective that modifies some other noun (Christian Accountant, Christian Retailer, Christian Filmmaker). We understand ourselves to be people who imperfectly bear the spirit of Christ — who somehow, miraculously, lives in us — when we enter the marketplace every day. How imperfectly? Ask our colleagues and customers and competitors (while you’re at it, ask the people who clean our offices, print our stationery and collect our taxes).

Wills speaks to those moralizers among us who anticipate a brighter day when everyone does what Jesus would do:

The Jesus of the Gospels is not a great ethical teacher like Socrates, our leading humanitarian. He is an apocalyptic figure who steps outside the boundaries of normal morality to signal that the Father’s judgment is breaking into history. His miracles were not acts of charity but eschatological signs — accepting the unclean, promising heavenly rewards, making last things first.

He is more a higher Nietzsche, beyond good and evil, than a higher Socrates. No politician is going to tell the lustful that they must pluck out their right eye. We cannot do what Jesus would do because we are not divine.

That’s our reality in a world where Jesus said, "I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father."[1] In our best moments we do what Jesus would do because we are, as the apostle Paul has it, continuing to work out our salvation with fear and trembling knowing that, really, it is God who works in us to will and act according to his good purpose.[2] In our worse moments we do considerably less than that.

Garry Wills again:

Jesus was the victim of every institutional authority in his life and death. He said: "Do not be called Rabbi, since you have only one teacher, and you are all brothers. And call no one on earth your father, since you have only one Father, the one in heaven. And do not be called leaders, since you have only one leader, the Messiah" (Matthew 23:8-10).

The point of all this is that, with Mr. Wills, we’re doing everything we can to behave christianly in the world of commerce, beginning with working to see the world through the lens of biblical understanding, and not merely what’s visible from where we stand at the moment (there’s that whole worldview thread again). And that still doesn’t make us Christian businesspeople. What it makes us is Christians in business, following Jesus for all we’re worth. To claim much more (or much less) than that would be wishful thinking at best. At worst, from where we stand, it would be dishonesty plain and simple.

If all that seems to put us in the bind where, when things go well, God gets the credit and, when things go poorly, we take the blame, I’ll cop to that. It does, after all, put me in mind of Jim Collins’ level five leader who looks out the window to give credit and looks in the mirror to take responsibility.

Still seem too loose? Lacking in metrics? OK, then. Take us up on the offer to ask our colleagues, customers, competitors and cleaning crews — and let Jesus have the last word:

“Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.

— Matthew 7: 15-20 [New International Version]

Reading those words again today, I am not so much humble as humbled. Lord have mercy.

[1] John 14:12 New International Version

[2] Philippians 2:12-13, New International Version