How Then Shall We Live? - The Christian Worldview Applied to Work
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Discusses how the Christian worldview provides resources for affirming the dignity of work; guiding one's ethical decisions in work; reforming your vocation to have a Biblical perspective on humanity & creation; finding balance between work, rest, and other responsibilities; and showing how work has eternal value and reward.
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How Then Shall We Live? - The Christian Worldview Applied to Work
- 1. How Then Shall We Live? The Christian Worldview Applied to Work Vocation, Calling, and the Purpose of Work, Week 6 Evan Donovan
- 2. Five Resources Christian Faith Provides for Work Creation 1. Life is more than work: faith as inner ballast 2. All work has dignity and worth Redemption 3. Faith as moral compass in world of work 4. Christian world & life view guides the means & ends of work Consummation 5. Faith provides hope of fulfillment in work, even in midst of work’s disappointments
- 3. Life is More Than Work Faith provides inner ballast to avoid the twin dangers of pride or despair The “work beneath the work” can drain us because we are either deriving our value from work or just slogging through it to get to something else “I have learned in every state to be content.” ~Apostle Paul, Phil. 4:11
- 4. Who Are We: Starting with Creation “Christianity is not just involved with ‘salvation’, but with the total man in the total world. The Christian message begins with the existence of God forever, and then with creation. It does not begin with salvation. We must be thankful for salvation, but the Christian message is more than that. Man has…value because he is made in the image of God.” - Francis Schaeffer
- 5. Work’s Dignity & Importance: Our Work as the “Masks of God” Creator ◦ Participating in the work of creation – Adam naming the animals Redeemer ◦ Reversing the effects of Fall – “far as the curse is found” Sustainer ◦ Helping to keep the world in being and in order
- 6. Work’s Dignity & Importance: Four Key Institutions of Society The family Work Church Government
- 7. The Fall’s Effect on Work: Broken Relationships Bryant Myers’ diagram of poverty as broken relationships, as adapted by Bryan Fikkert & Steve Corbett of the Chalmers Center. Retrieved from http://network.crcna.org/global-mission/getting-going-helping-without-hurting on 2/5/2016.
- 8. The Fall’s Effect on Work: Broken Relationships Bryant Myers’ diagram of poverty as broken relationships, as adapted by . Retrieved from http://network.crcna.org/global-mission/getting-going-helping-without-hurting on 2/5/2016.
- 9. The Fall’s Effect on Work: Three Dimensions of Evil Personal - sin Systemic / social - oppression Cosmological (Satanic / demonic) – “principalities and powers” Finding balance: “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins [personal], in which you used to live when you followed the ways of the world [systemic] and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air [cosmological], the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.” (Eph. 2:1-2)
- 10. Recognizing Work’s Brokenness We must acknowledge the limitations to what we can accomplish in this fallen world We must neither “strive after the wind” (overwork), nor be idle We are not called to selfishness, but service Work reveals our idols if we try to find satisfaction in it rather than in who we are already in Christ Workplace can become a place of envy, jealousy, gossip, but this really just reveals what was already in our hearts (Mark 7:20-23; James 4:1)
- 11. Redemption: Christ’s Work and Ours In Christ, the creation is reconciled, broken relationships restored He has committed to believers the ministry of reconciliation This means bringing people into right relationship with God, but it also means working in God’s power to reverse the effects of the Fall Through Jesus’ ministry, He met both spiritual and material needs; we must also
- 12. Redemption: Faith as Moral Compass for Work Human rights are grounded in knowledge that people are made in God’s image and in the Christian virtue of love Throughout the Old Testament, we see the call to ethical living, both as individuals and in society “He has told you…what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8)
- 13. Redeeming Systems: Globalization & Capitalism Globalization bringing the world closer together than ever before Bringing up incomes in many parts of the world, yet… Negative effects: ◦ Homogenization of culture, loss of cultural uniqueness ◦ Inequality within some nations ◦ Environmental harm ◦ Breakdown of traditional communities Globalization rooted in capitalism, which has great benefits but doesn’t necessarily operate by ethics other than profit maximization
- 14. Redeeming Nature: Dominion as Stewardship “The tree in the field is to be treated with respect. It is not to be romanticized as the old lady romanticizes her cat (that is, she reads human reactions into it)… But while we should not romanticize the tree, we must realize that God made it and it deserves respect because he made it as a tree... Christians who do not believe in the complete evolutionary scale have reason to respect nature as the total evolutionist never can, because we believe that God made these things specifically in their own areas” and He made them for a purpose. - Francis Schaeffer
- 15. Redeeming the Professions: Worldview in Work Education Psychology Medicine Community development Law Politics
- 16. Redeeming Art: Worldview as a Way of Seeing Christian worldview can correct one’s vision, point to “the true, the good, and the beautiful” “Your beliefs will be the light by which you see, but they will not be what you see and they will not be a substitute for seeing.” ~Flannery O’Connor
- 17. Christians in the Workplace: Four Roles “Mole”: identify sins of the organization Witness: compel people to accept Christ, attend church Tentmaker: earn enough to support one’s church work Servant / Steward: work well, “as to the Lord and not men” (Col. 3:23), seeking to transform the workplace as possible
- 18. Nature of a Servant Leader Humble, yields decision-making authority to others Retains responsibility but yields power Serves a higher purpose than one’s own
- 19. Nature of a Steward Pursue truth, goodness, and beauty Live out God’s priorities: care for creation and the powerless Recognize that all that we have is a gift from God
- 20. Putting on the Mind of Christ “Do not be conformed any longer to the measure of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” (Rom. 12:2) God gives wisdom because He gives us the Holy Spirit to transform our character (Keller) Christ-minded people are salt and light in the world, people like those whom Jesus calls blessed in the Beatitudes (Matt. 5:3-12)
- 21. The Church’s Role in Culture & Society Church often: ◦ Opposes itself to wider culture, is isolationist ◦ Fails to affirm those in secular vocations Church should engage with broader culture because God’s common grace means things are not completely fallen (Keller) Church calls people together in order to send them back in the world: a place of worship, restoration, and equipping (Tink)
- 22. The Sabbath: Rest, Leisure, and Finding Balance Sabbath is: ◦ Time for worship (prayer, preaching, praise, sacraments) ◦ Time for rest & renewal ◦ Time for community ◦ Time for service (“works of necessity and mercy”) Leisure: ◦ Not sinful, but necessary ◦ Time for appreciating creation (Josef Pieper, quoted in Keller) ◦ Time for engaging in re-creation Sabbath cycle shows that God knows our need for balance, so He gives us rest
- 23. Consummation: Hope in the Midst of Work’s Disappointments Illustration of “Leaf by Niggle” by Alan Lee, from Tales from the Perilous Realm. Retrieved from http://www.dana-mad.ru/gal/image.php?img=708 on 2/5/2016. “‘There really is a tree!’” – J.R.R. Tolkien, “Leaf by Niggle”
- 24. Consummation: The Reward of the Master’s Joy Illustration of “Leaf by Niggle” by MirachRavaia Retrieved from http://ladyanaire.deviantart.com/art/Leaf-by-Niggle-257403095 on 2/5/2016.
- 25. Conclusion: Beginning with the End in Mind As you consider your calling, ask questions such as these: What gets you out of bed in the morning? What inspires you? Imagine your funeral & what people will say: ◦ How will you be missed? What vacuum will you leave? ◦ What kind of legacy do you hope to leave behind? ◦ Will anything have been transformed? Given the limitations of your circumstances, how can you advance your calling from what you are doing today?
- 26. For Further Study Fletcher Tink, “Theology of Work for the STEM Professions,” weeks 1-8 slides (http://www.slideshare.net/techmission/tow- week1) Tim Keller, “Every Good Endeavor” presentation (in course) Tim Keller, Every Good Endeavor R. Paul Stevens, The Other Six Days
Notes de l'éditeur
- Welcome to the final presentation on worldview and work. In this presentation we’ll discuss: How to find meaning & value in work How your ethics & worldview affect your conduct at work How you find balance between work and rest How Christians can work in a secular workplace – “in the world but not of it”
- These are taken from Keller’s book and the talk from last week. I’ve matched them up with the parts of the Christian story, the meta-narrative, that gives us these insights.
- We serve a loving God who cares for us as individuals He has placed us in multiple roles in life; we’re not meant to just derive our worth from just one - as Christians we’re supposed to derive our worth from Him, the one who created us in His image and is even now renewing us according to that image, as we have been joined to Christ by faith. “Our lives are hidden with Christ in God” (Col. 3:3)
- Because God has created us in His image, as we discussed in the presentation on calling, we have a responsibility to live as representatives of Him in all of our life. We who are Christians are not just concerned with saving our souls or those of others, but of being faithful in whatever occupation we find ourselves in – whether that be an artist, a brain surgeon, or a sweeper. Participation in any moral occupation is participation in the work of God. Christians are all called, of course, both to support missions and the work of the institutional church and to be a witness for Christ in their personal lives, but we also have a basic human calling – the Creation Mandate – in common with all other people, since all people have been created in the image of God. Because the image of God is not lost completely even when humanity has fallen into sin, everyone still has the potential to reflect some of the glory of their Creator, and Christians can partner in their work with those who do not share their faith. Theologians would call this an effect of God’s “common grace” as He makes His sun shine on the evil and the good alike (Matt. 5:45).
- Creator – Work has dignity because the material world was created good (Keller) - this is different than the Greeks, and many who followed after them Sustainer - help keep things in being Martin Luther – God uses us to feed others (his commentary on Ps. 145:16, quoted in Every Good Endeavor this shows that not just “brain work” is valuable to God – all work has dignity and worth, as stated earlier Luther - God uses rulers to make peace in the borders (Ps. 147:14) Luther aimed to end the sacred/secular divide in work by proclaiming the priesthood of every believer – that all Christians have direct access to God and that there are not intrinsically better lifestyles in which to serve Him. As it says in 1 Peter 2:9, together we are all a “royal priesthood”. We are called to a “ministry of competence”, as Keller says. Take pleasure in what you do and in doing it well, for the sake of the work itself as well as for the people who benefit from it. If you are a Christian pilot, Keller says, make sure to land the plane.
- You can further see the dignity and importance of work by looking at four key institutions of society: the family, work, church, and government. Only the first two of these existed prior to the Fall. Both were specifically mentioned in the Creation Mandate. This shows just how foundational work is to the Christian view of the world. What a contrast from the Greeks’ view that only the spiritual was important, as described by Keller, or the common view today that values only relaxation – “working for the weekend”.
- Work itself has not been cursed in the fall, but the ground has been cursed (broken relationship with creation) and the people who work have become alienated from themselves, each other, and God. This has made work much more difficulty, and often seemingly futile.
- There are several ways in which these broken relationships can play out, as shown here. Some (those in gold) are more of a problem in majority culture, others (those in red) in minority culture. The story of the Tower of Babel in Gen. 11:1-9 shows that these have been a problem ever since the introduction of sin. When people failed to steward God’s creation, it has caused environmental crises and social inequality. The failure to see people as made in God’s image has caused people to use power to control others, rather than serve them. Disconnection from how the self is meant to be in God has led people to based their identity on things and achievements. Ultimately, all this is rooted in a disconnect from God Himself, the source of every good thing.
- The book of James refers to systemic evil as the “world”, personal evil as the “flesh”, and cosmological evil as the “Devil”. Various Christian traditions have unfortunately focused on one of these to the exclusion of the others. Evangelicals have often focused on personal evil – conversion followed by cleaning up one’s life. Mainline Protestants today focus largely on systemic evil – addressing the systems of the world that have become corrupt and oppressive through prophetic advocacy. Pentecostals, on the other hand, retain a sense of cosmological evil that the others frequently forget, stressing the importance of spiritual warfare, expressed often through prayer and fasting. The passage from Paul’s letters shown here illustrates that Christ’s redemptive work addresses all three simultaneously. [Read passage.]
- “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. 21For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, 22coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. 23All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.” (Mark 7:20-23) “What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you?” (James 4:1)
- “For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.” (Col. 1:19-20) “[I]f anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come…All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.” (2 Cor. 5:18-19) “For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration…in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.” (Rom. 8:19-21)
- The laws of the Bible can help discern what justice and mercy look like in many situations, but, as Tim Keller points out, wisdom covers the 80% of life when what to do is not entirely clear. The Holy Spirit and our fellow Christians can help guide us as we evaluate God’s Word, our experience and our conscience to see what is best to do in a certain situation. Fletcher Tink, in his original presentations for this course, offered 10 questions you can ask yourself that help point toward wisdom in personal and collective ethics: Is it against the rules and professional values of your organization? Does it feel right to do this? Is it legal, not contrary to any law? Can it reflect negatively on you or your organization? Who would suffer most as a consequence? Would you feel shame if others know of your action? Is there an alternative that is less ethically problematic? How would you action look if it had been described in the media? What would a reasonable person think of your action? Are you able to sleep contently if you were to do this?
- Question for the 21st century: Can the West can discipline capitalism morally now that its roots in the Protestant work ethic have been lost and it is largely about hedonism and people pursuing whatever they can get, without a sense of vocation (Os Guinness) globalization could be the Tower of Babel repeated, as humans try to build one uniform society without God; the alternative is Pentecost, one Spirit in many tongues, or the New Jerusalem, all peoples worshipping around the throne capitalism and globalization can be “powers” in the New Testament sense and it is our calling to dethrone and discipline them when they step out of bounds.
- Christians have a unique perspective that can provide answers in the disciplines that shape culture - “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ...does not cry, ‘Mine!’” (Abraham Kuyper, theologian & prime minister of the Netherlands, early 20th century) Education - what does it mean to develop as a person? Psychology - what is human well-being? is there a moral or a spiritual component? Medicine - do we need to treat people as whole persons to heal them, or can we deal with them piece by piece? Community development - what is a flourishing community? what is development anyway? (GDP vs. happiness index) Law - what is justice? Politics - what is a well-ordered society? the Christian concepts of the image of God and of shalom, among others, help point us to answers in these fields, though it still takes wisdom to apply these insights
- is there such a thing as goodness and beauty, and can art help point to it? Lewis’ sehnsucht: the "inconsolable longing" in the human heart for "we know not what” - “That unnameable something, desire for which pierces us like a rapier at the smell of bonfire, the sound of wild ducks flying overhead, the title of The Well at the World's End, the opening lines of "Kubla Khan", the morning cobwebs in late summer, or the noise of falling waves.” Christian worldview guides us in creating and appreciating art but it doesn’t dictate everything. Really it is a correction of vision, what we lost in the Fall
- The last of the roles as the superior one. Being a witness or a tentmaker is not inherently bad, but it is not sufficient.
- God is our power source. Power is not to benefit us as stewards but to accomplish the will of the power source. Furthermore, the ultimate power is in giving power away, paradoxically, as Phil. 2:5-11 shows with Christ’s self-emptying of divine authority and death on the Cross Here we see God, the power source, emptying Himself of power, since Christ is God. This is the mystery of perichoresis, in which the Father and Son delight in yielding to each other in mutual love (John 17:21)
- Steward knows what to do with the resources that God has entrusted him or her with: “’Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom his master has set over his household, to give them their food at the proper time?’” (Matt. 24:45) Stewardship is a collective goal as well as a personal one. A successful organization will live out the values of stewardship, while sustaining itself (and making a profit, if it is a for-profit entity). We are called to holistic stewardship in all the spheres of life: family, church, government, commerce, and non-profits.
- Studying Christ’s teachings and imitating His actions in the Gospels can help us to reform our minds and our whole personality according to His likeness. This will help our faith to make a difference in all of life. Fletcher Tink offers some characteristics of the Christ-minded: Love the Father Love and think of others first and build them up Faithful stewards of God’s calling for their loves Seek justice, love mercy Forgive as they have been forgiven Are pure in heart: honest, responsible, of highest integrity, vulnerable, and accountable to others Are peacemakers Rejoice in the Lord, knowing that He loves us, knows us by name and cares for us
- Sabbath is not the cessation of activity, but rather the culmination of it. Fletcher Tink notes that Adam and Eve experienced the Sabbath after their creation but prior to their work - the Sabbath precedes work, and is not just the reward at the end of work.
- As Tim Keller discusses in Every Good Endeavor, we never manage to get done all that we want to get done in work. The cares and distractions of life creep in, the fallenness of ourselves and our colleagues, the brokenness of the world’s systems – all these limit our accomplishments. Sometimes this can lead to despair. Yet the story by J.R.R. Tolkien that Keller retells, the story of a man named Niggle who has visions of a tree but only paints a leaf, ultimately gives us hope. For Christians can say with confidence, there really is a tree, there really is another world that fulfills what we only see dimly in this world. The book of Revelation describes the world to come as the new Jerusalem and it is better than this world, but it is not a denial of it. It is a material world, just as this is, but without the effects of sin and the curse. And it says in Revelation that the nations will bring their glory into it (Rev. 21:26). Our work matters now and it matters for eternity. In 1 Corinthians 3, Paul promises that anyone who builds in their work on the sure foundation which is Jesus Christ, their work will last. The fire of the last day will test the quality of our work and those who serve Christ in it will receive reward.
- Sometimes, even in this life, we feel like we are doing exactly what we were meant to be doing; we are perfectly absorbed in our work. It is at times like these that we could echo the words of Olympic runner and missionary Eric Liddell, “When I run, I feel God’s pleasure.” But God’s delight in His people is more than we can feel or know until Christ returns. C.S. Lewis called this the “weight of glory”, referring to what the Apostle Paul speaks of in 2 Cor. 4:17 when he writes, “Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For our momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.” We should never deprecate that which is seen, or stop seeing, but we should know, when we are suffering or when we are frustrated in our work, that there is a reality beyond what we can see now that satisfies our longing for truth, goodness, and beauty completely, since in it we are united with the Source of all truth, goodness, and beauty.
- Whether you agree with the story presented here or not, I hope that this has been helpful in getting you to think about the story, not just of your life, but the story behind the story. The questions on this slide are intended to provoke you into deeper thought about your calling. Christians are continually encouraged to live lives “worthy of the calling to which we have been called” (Eph. 4:1). We have a great calling offering an eternal weight of glory. As you seek to discover the story of your own life, my hope is that you find a calling worthy to be answered.