Review of 'The Search for God and Guinness' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
As a person who has stepped away from organized religion, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to enjoy this book after Mansfield explained he himself is a pastor and as such respected but couldn’t support a President I like. However, the book is mostly a-political and does a nice job of highlighting the benefits to society true men of faith can bring forth.
The Guinness family did ascribe to the Gospel of Prosperity but not in the horribly corrupt ways we’ve seen by some in church history or by the American Evangelical church today. They had a vision that their prosperity being a gift from God also came with responsibilities to provide for others. As such, Guinness employees were always paid well above the average for the time and they were provided free medical and dental care with company provided physicians, and they were provided access to housing. Nathan Guinness’s …
As a person who has stepped away from organized religion, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to enjoy this book after Mansfield explained he himself is a pastor and as such respected but couldn’t support a President I like. However, the book is mostly a-political and does a nice job of highlighting the benefits to society true men of faith can bring forth.
The Guinness family did ascribe to the Gospel of Prosperity but not in the horribly corrupt ways we’ve seen by some in church history or by the American Evangelical church today. They had a vision that their prosperity being a gift from God also came with responsibilities to provide for others. As such, Guinness employees were always paid well above the average for the time and they were provided free medical and dental care with company provided physicians, and they were provided access to housing. Nathan Guinness’s philosophy was “to make money off of people, we have to spend money on people.” (probably not a direct quote) He really structured his business off of investing in his people, and it paid huge dividends in loyalty and hard work. He also provided classes to families because he wanted a strong home life and an educated population.
I’m sure the Guinesses weren’t all perfect and likely did some bad things, but the information in this history shows they did real works in faith, cared for their fellow humans, and provided more benefit to the human race than evil.
I’d like to know how the company culture changed after it was sold to Diageo in 1997. I’m pretty sure it isn’t the same and caters more to the contemporary action to milk as much work out of employees as possible before disposing of them.