#everygoodendeavor

[lpsy]

It turns out that the Wall Street bonus pool in 2014 was roughly twice the total annual earnings of all Americans working full time at the federal minimum wage.You read that right: Just the annual bonuses for just the sliver of Americans who work just in finance just in New York City dwarfed the combined year-round earnings of all Americans earning the federal minimum wage.

Nicholas Kristof. "'Inequality Is a Choice.'" New York Times 8 May 2015.

[lpsy]

Eduardo Porter. "Big Mac Test Shows Job Market Is Not Working to Distribute Wealth." New York Times 22 April 2015.

Real McWages — the wages of McDonald’s employees measured in terms of the number of Big Macs they might buy — have declined widely across the industrialized world over the first decade of the millennium.

Even before the financial crisis struck, the McWages of McDonald’s workers in the United States, many Western European countries, Japan and Canada went nowhere between 2000 and 2007, a period of steady, though unspectacular, economic growth in most of the developed world. In the United States, real McWages actually declined.

In Canada, labor market earnings for the bottom fourth of the income ladder grew by roughly $25 a year between 1979 and 2007. Government transfers increased by $78. For Canadian households one rung higher — between the 25th and the 50th percent of the earnings distribution — there were no increases in labor market compensation. All gains came from the government.

In Germany — often portrayed as the gold standard of the postindustrial labor market — the entire bottom half of households experienced shrinking earnings from work. They only got ahead because of rising government benefits.

The wages from work are playing a diminishing role for a growing swath of the labor force, raising a fundamental question: If the job market cannot keep hardworking people out of poverty and spread prosperity more broadly, how will it be done? Is public assistance our future?

Prof. Richard B. Freeman, a labor economist from Harvard, argues we need entirely new mechanisms to distribute income across the economy.

“The best solution is that these people get their income through some citizen’s ownership of the capital stock so that they are like rich people with much nonlabor income,” he said. That “will take some policies to make the most highly unequal part of income — ownership of capital — more equal.”

Lawrence Katz, professor of economics at Harvard, argues that more must be done to ensure work pays — including achieving higher minimum wages. He suggests that government subsidize complements of work, like day care. Infrastructure investment and public employment also could help. He is skeptical that profit-sharing firm by firm is part of the solution.

“It generates inequality,” he argued. “Not everybody can work at Apple.”

Professor Freeman’s idea of societywide profit-sharing, to give all workers some share of the returns to capital that now only benefit the rich, should not be lightly discarded. Something is not working right for a majority of Americans. Maybe it’s time to try something different.

[tiqtalk]

Because Christians are never as good as their right beliefs should make them and non-Christians are never as bad as their wrong beliefs should make them, we will adopt a stance of critical enjoyment of human culture and its expressions in every field of work

Timothy Keller

[joekcowan]

I really thought this was a beautiful way to understand creativity and work and the purpose it serves: A page from Timothy Keller's Every Good Endeavor : If we are to be God's image-bearers with regards to creation, then we will carry on his pattern of work. His world is not hostile, so that it needs to be beaten down like an enemy. Rather, its potential is undeveloped, so it needs to be cultivated like a garden. So we are not to relate to the world as park rangers, whose job is not to change their space, but to preserve things as they are. Nor are we to "pave over the garden" of the created world to make a parking lot. No, we are to be the gardeners who take an active stance toward their charge. They do not leave the land as it is. They rearrange it in order to make it most fruitful, to draw the potentialities for growth and development out of the soil. They dig up the ground and rearange it with a goal in mind: to rearange the raw material of the garden so that it produces food, flowers, and beauty. And that is the pattern for all work. It is creative and assertive. It is rearranging the raw material of God's creation in such a way that it helps the world in general, and people in particular, thrive and flourish. This pattern is found in all kinds of work. Farming takes the physical material of soil and seed and produces food. Music takes the physics of sound and rearranges it into something beatiful and thrilling that brings meaning to life. When we take fabric and make a piece of clothing, when we push a broom and clean up a room, when we use technology to harness the forces of electricity, when we take an unformed naive human mind and teach it a subject, when we teach a couple how to resolve their relational disputes, when we take simple materials and turn them into a poignant work of art--we are continuing God's work of forming, filling, and subdoing. Whenever we bring order out of chaos, whenever we draw out creative potential, whenever we elaborate and "unfold" creation beyond where it was when we found it, we are following God's pattern of creatie cultural development. In fact, our word "culture" comes from this idea of cultivation. Just as he subdued the earth in his work of creation, so he calls us now to labor as his representatives in a continuation and extension of the work of subduing.

[treerz]

The Gospel and Business

how the Gospel can change/redeem Business from its fallen nature, destroying the idolatry in it:

"What are some of the idols of business, for example? Money and power certainly top the list. But remember that an idol is a good thing that we make into an ultimate thing. Corporate profits and influence, stewarded wisely, are a healthy means to a good end: They are vital to creating new products to serve customers, giving an adequate return to investors for the use of their money, and paying employees well for their work. Similarly, individual compensation is an appropriate reward for one's contributions and is necessary to provide for oneself and one's family. But it is not our identity, our salvation, or even our source of security and comfort. The Christian worker or business leader who has experienced God's grace--who knows "You are not your own; you were bought at a price" (1 Corinthians 6:19-20)--is free to honor God, love neighbors, and serve the common good through work."

"To be a Christian in business, then, means much more than just being honest or not sleeping with your coworkers. It even means more than personal evangelism or holding a Bible study at the office. Rather, it means thinking out the implications of the gospel worldview and God's purposes for your whole work life--and for the whole of the organization under your influence."

-- Tim Keller, Every Good Endeavor

Additional note on dangers of unbalanced emphasis on worldview (that privileges white-collar work over blue-collar work and leads to undervaluing the good work done by nonbelievers) in a later section.  

good reminder and food for thought thinking about faith and work! 

[lpsy]

Acedia: A Counterfeit Passion

Acedia is the sin which believes in nothing, cares for nothing, enjoys nothing, loves nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing and only remains alive because there is nothing for which it will die. We have known it far too well for many years, the only thing perhaps we have not known about it is it is a mortal sin.

...

It is one of the favorite tricks of this Sin to dissemble itself under a cover of a whiffling activity of body. We think that if we are busily rushing about and doing things we cannot be suffering from Sloth. ... Gluttony offers a world of dancing, dining, sports, and dashing very fast from place to place to gape at beauty spots. ... Covetousness rakes us out of the bed at an early hour in order that we may put pep and hustle into our business; Envy sets us to gossip and scandals, to writing cantankerous letters to the paper, and to the unearthing of secrets and scavenging of desk bins; Wrath provides (very ingeniously) the argument that the only fitting activity in a world so full of evil doers and evil demons is to curse loudly and incessantly: “Whatever brute and blackguard made the world”; while Lust provides that round of dreary promiscuity that passes for bodily vigor. But these are all disguises for the empty heart and the empty brain and the empty soul of Acedia. ... In the world it calls itself Tolerance but in hell it is called Despair.

Dorothy Sayers. Creed or Chaos? via

Timothy Keller. "Chapter Twelve: New Power for Work." Every Good Endeavour. Dutton-Penguin, 2012.

Keller goes on to distill the implications of a passion couched in acedia and offers a vision and an exemplar of an alternate, authentic, and true passion:

Without something bigger than yourself to work for, then all of your work energy is actually fueled by one of the other six deadly sins. You may work exceptionally hard because of envy to get ahead of somebody, or because of pride to prove yourself, or because of greed or even gluttony for pleasure. In short, acedia is the most subtle idolatry of all. It puts the cynical self at the center of your life. And when you do that you release all the worst vices and sins to be the main animating energies behind your work....

Romans 12 addresses this truth at a practical level. Paul starts this way: “I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifice” (Romans 12:1). Paul is using temple language; he’s leading us to think about a worshipper coming with an offering. But he’s not talking about a sin offering, where you’ve sinned and are now reconciling with God. Rather, he’s talking about a burnt offering, which had to be a choice animal from your flock—a strong one, without blemish. The burnt offering was offered as a way of showing your absolute commitment to God, as if to say, “Everything I have is yours, with no reservations.” In other words, it was an expression of passion.

In fact, the term “living sacrifice” is deliberately paradoxical because sacrifices were dead. That’s part of what it meant to be a sacrifice. To say to God’s people, “I want you to be a living slain thing,” is meant to be a jolt; it’s a way of saying you have to continually be in the rhythm of dying to your own interest and living for God. That’s the passion God asks of you. What might this look like? The rest of Romans 12 spells it out, but there is one particular verse from the passage that puts a fine point on what it means to be a living sacrifice: “Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord” (Romans 12:11).

There are two specifics in this verse. First, the word “zeal” is the translation of a Greek word meaning a combination of urgency and diligence. It is possible to be frenetic—to be urgent without focus and discipline. It is possible to be plodding, or diligent without a sense of urgency. But God’s charge means that you are to be both urgent and disciplined. Second, when the verse says, “keep your spiritual fervor,” the Greek literally says, “as to your spirit boiling.” So we are asked to bring emotion, discipline, and urgency to the task of being living sacrifices in the lives we lead and the work we do. We are asked to live with passion.

So where does this true passion come from? Paul starts the whole chapter with, “I urge you ... in view of God’s mercy to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice.” What is it about God’s mercy that, if you viewed it, would allow you to become a living sacrifice—into a person who died to your own needs, who stopped doing the work under the work, and who transferred your passion to God? The answer, of course, is Jesus, the ultimate living sacrifice and the ultimate form of God’s mercy. When you see Jesus suffer and sacrifice for you, when his passion is burned into your imagination, it will become very clear whether the things you are passionate about are just forms of the other six deadly sins.

But why was Jesus suffering? Where was his passion and sacrifice coming from? In John 17, Jesus Christ looks at his disciples and says to the Father, “For them I sanctify myself” (John 17:19). The original word “sanctify” meant to set yourself apart like an Olympic runner. We know what it means to train for the Olympics. It means that absolutely everything in life is subordinated to one goal. It means that every minute of the day, every activity is done in such a way as to contribute to that aim. There is a great deal of pain every day, but it is endured without complaint. Only that level of passion and commitment can earn the gold.

And so it was with Jesus and his passion. He set himself apart for the goal of our salvation. He lost everything, endured everything, to obtain it. Jesus Christ’s passion was for you and for his Father—not for himself. There is our model. When the extent and depth of Jesus’s passion for you fully dawns on your heart, it will generate passion for the work he has called you uniquely to do in the world. When you realize what he has done to rescue you, your pride and envy begin to disappear because you don’t need to get your self-worth from being richer, cooler, more powerful, or more comfortable.

Instead of working out of the false passion of acedia, which is born of selfishness, you are working out of true passion, which is born of selflessness. You are adopted into God’s family, so you already have your affirmation. You are justified in God’s sight, so you have nothing to prove. You have been saved through a dying sacrifice, so you are free to be a living one. You are loved ceaselessly, so you can work tirelessly in response to a quiet inner fullness.

[lpsy]

Surveying the United States’ privileged 'knowledge classes,' Dr. [Timothy] Keller describes a population that is 'work obsessed,' holding their jobs to be the fount of 'self-fulfillment and self-realization,' seeing leisure as merely 'work stoppage for bodily repair' and allowing office principles like 'efficiency, value and speed' to infuse and overwhelm their personal lives. In this world, where work becomes the chief source of identity and meaning, families ache and — from Wall Street to elite sports to political office — dishonesty abounds, because professional loss can sink a person’s sense of being. 'They just have to keep their spot,' Dr. Keller said.

Anand Giridharadas. "Keeping One's Work in Perspective." New York Times 2012 Dec. 28. On Keller's Every Good Endeavor — first book I am picking up for 2014.

Giridharadas continues:

Dr. Keller argues for a centrist understanding of work as calling — work that lends life meaning but doesn’t monopolize it, work that is performed not for personal glory but in service of others. He challenges the idea, as he puts it in the book, that “work is a curse and that something else (leisure, family, or even ‘spiritual’ pursuits) is the only way to find meaning in life”; and he criticizes “the opposite mistake, namely, that work is the only important human activity and that rest is a necessary evil — something we do strictly to ‘recharge our batteries’ in order to continue to work.”

...

The pastor insists that God is a centrist on the question of work. “When I read my own religious texts and the Scripture,” he said, “I see warrant for both the suspicion of capital and the celebration of work and wealth creation. I see them both in the Bible.”