Our Biblical Ethic: Partners in
Creation
To THOMAS COBB
Who mended shoes
In this village
For forty years
TO THE GLORY OF GOD
— Epitaph on a tombstone
Because we Christians have failed to develop a biblical ethic for work, others have set the standard for us. In American history, we can trace an evolving work ethic which has moved farther and farther away from our biblical roots. We tend to react to these secularized ethics after the fact, but not until their influence is ingrained in the attitudes and values of our national character. A quick review of our evolving work ethic will not only help us understand what is happening to our national character, but may also prod us to the urgent task of developing a biblical ethic which sets our daily work in a spiritual context.
EVOLUTION OF AN ETHIC
Author Michael Maccoby traces five stages of the evolution of our work ethic in the course of American history.1
First is the well-known and oft-disputed Puritan Ethic
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which dominated Colonial times. Rooted in Calvinist theology, the motive for work was a sense of "vocation" or divine calling. With that motive our Puritan forefathers disciplined their lives and gave obedient service to their jobs. Most often, the nature of work in Colonial times represented a contest with the forces of nature on a small farm. Hard work equaled a holy task and responsibility, for success or failure depended upon divine will. Spurred on by the promise of God's blessing as the reward for their labor, the Puritans lived a simple, frugal, and reverent life in order to both survive and thrive. But the larger goal for their work involved more than personal prosperity. They also accepted the responsibility for contributing to the physical, moral, and spiritual quality of life in the community of faith and, in so doing, sought to glorify God. Perhaps John Wesley summed up the values of the Puritan Work Ethic when he advised, "Make all you can, save all you can, and give all you can."
As time went on and the Colonies formed a nation, the celebrated Puritan
Ethic gave way to the Craftsman Ethic of work in the era of Benjamin
Franklin. Poor Richard's Almanac became the bible for the new ethic,
with its shifting emphasis from the productive and communal Puritan to the
creative and independent Craftsman. A distant deity still endowed persons
with the gifts for work, but the motive and control now belonged to the
individual. Rather than being dependent upon a sovereign God and engaging
in work as a sacred calling, Poor Richard relied upon his own skills, thrift,
and industry to win his way in the world. Subtly but definitively, Benjamin
Franklin moved from a biblical to a humanized theology of work that was expressed
in the adage of the Craftsman, "Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man
healthy, wealthy, and wise."
With the coming of the Industrial Revolution in the nineteenth century, the
guiding ethic of work changed again. Maccoby identifies this change as the
Entrepreneurial Ethic with the "jungle fighter" as its hero. Others
have been less kind in their
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description of the heroes for this ethic. Cornelius Vanderbilt, J.P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, and Andrew Carnegie still bear the derisive title of "Robber Barons" in the rising industrial state. According to their critics, greed dominated their motives for work as they clawed their way upward over the bodies and through the blood of their economic victims. In any case, the independence of the Craftsmen gave way to dog-eat-dog competition and the creative skills of the Craftsmen were traded for the gambling instinct. Moving along the edges of the developing economic frontier like vandals invading new territory, the Entrepreneurs took the risks and played the odds in order to accumulate massive fortunes and wield monopolistic power. Spiritually their devil-may-care attitude made them gods unto themselves. When the aged Andrew Carnegie tried to meet and make amends with Henry Clay Frick, a partner whom he had wronged, Frick rejected his offer with the curse, "Tell Mr. Carnegie that I'll meet him in hell."
After the industrial frontier began to close around giant
corporations, the ethic of work shifted once again. The Career Ethic
personified by William Whyte's Organization Man and Maccoby's
Gamesman took over where the entrepreneur left off. Now the motive
for work became success in the system more than the accumulation of wealth.
Process took priority over product, conformity replaced courage, and cooperation
superceded competition. According to Maccoby, gamesmen who relished
playing the system took over from single jungle fighters who lived
and died by the bottom line. James McGregor Burns adds understanding to this
changing work ethic when he identifies the hero of this era as the
transactional leader, who masters the organizational process, rather
than the transformational leader, who inspires others to follow by
vision and charisma.2 President Lyndon Johnson
was one of those transactional heroes. He loved the in-workings of government,
learned to sniff out the center of power, mastered the art of compromise,
and relished making
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the move as much as winning the game. One successful bureaucrat summed up the character of the careerist this way, "If you want to succeed in the system, keep your head down and your mouth shut." Spiritually, this kind of organization man is hard to fault because he conforms to the system, sins only in spirit, and offends no one, not even the devil. Of his kind, C.S. Lewis has Screwtape scoff about "their very smallness and flabbiness."3 Even Satan would prefer the robber baron to the organization man.
Today, we are living with yet another change in the work ethic that is shaping
our national character. The Self-fulfillment Ethic is upon us. Rising
out of the Me Generation of the 1970s and building upon the demands for
individual rights, the Self-fulfillment Ethic makes the value of work secondary
to the desire for personal satisfaction. Surveys show that vestiges of the
Puritan Ethic are still with us in what is called a "giving/getting
contract."4 The person is willing to "give" work
to "get" self-fulfillment. The balance, however, is tipped toward getting,
not giving. The worker's priority demand is for a caring climate, job
satisfaction, guaranteed security, and of course, the opportunity for
self-realization. Entitlement or the belief that "You owe it to me" is the
motive and equality is the standard that drives the Self-fulfillment Ethic.
Young managers who were interviewed in a Bell System study epitomized the
Self-fulfillment Ethic. "They don't want to lead, they don't want to follow.
They want interesting work and satisfying emotional relationships, characterized
by 'kindness,' 'sympathy,' 'understanding' and
'generosity'"5
Spiritually, those following the Self-fulfillment Ethic are getters more than givers. If they enter into a giving/getting contract for work, their persistent question is, "What's in it for me?" Their question, however, only leads to another. As the authors of the Bell System study put it, "With all our respect to the virtues of human warmth and kindness, who is going to run our corporations and make the tough decisions in the future?"
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While the Self-fulfillment Ethic may dominate the view of work among the
younger generation, it is already being extended into new extremes of
self-interest. The Leisure Ethic is one of those extremes. Leisure,
by definition, is discretionary time over which we have control to use as
we choose. As we have gained technical efficiency in the production of goods,
our leisure time has markedly increased, especially among blue-collar workers.
At the same time, white-collar workers such as executive officers are putting
in sixty-and seventy-hour weeks. The trend is clear. In times past, we had
the leisure classes and the working masses. Today, the roles are reversed.
We have the working classes and the leisure masses.
Good or bad, leisure has become the end for which we work. Daily work is valued not for its own sake, but as the necessary eight-hour path which takes us into leisurely evenings. Likewise, weekly work is done with any eye fixed toward a long weekend of leisure. Not unexpectedly, then, the working years are undertaken with early retirement in mind. In fact, the Leisure Ethic is upsetting the statistics of work. Early retirement is the fastest-growing phenomenon in our national labor force. In what appears to be a complete contradiction in the drive to make work a means for self-fulfillment, early retirement puts the premium upon leisure, not work, as the earthly ultimate in self-realization. Of course, not all early retirements are voluntary and not all are driven by self-interest. Some persons retire early to open another chapter of creativity and service in their lives. But when leisure is sought as an end in itself, it becomes the idolatrous substitute for work as a savior.
So we have seen that self-interest carries the seeds of its own destruction, whether in work or in leisure. Under the terms of the giving/getting contract, the reality of "giving" hard work without "getting" self-fulfillment is producing a career-weary people.6 Early retirees who crowd our southern and southwestern states are still seeking self-fulfillment. Feeling as if they "paid
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their dues" in church and community service during their working years, they seek freedom from social and spiritual commitments that do not serve their leisure. Alas, they soon become leisure-weary. As one wealthy early retiree told me, "After six weeks of bowling, boats, and baseball, I went nuts." Too late, they learn that leisure is no more fulfilling than work when either is motivated by self-interest.
THE ETHIC OF A NEW AGE
Because Christians have failed to compose and communicate a biblical ethic of work, the false prophet of the New Age Movement have rushed into the vacuum created by the workers' search for meaning. Adopting a romantic view of work and neglecting its realities, New Agers extol daily work as an exciting and wonderful way for discovering the meaning of life. All of the New Age philosophy comes into play with the vision of re-creating ourselves and rediscovering our jobs. Meditative reflection raises consciousness to help us envision our full human potential on the job. Techniques of self-discipline and relational interaction guide us to reach the lofty, spiritualized state of a godlike nature.
The New Age approach to work should make us shudder. Its techniques are so close to the spiritual disciplines of Christianity that many innocent believers will be enraptured by its ideas. But its promises are patently false. Even though the New Age movement claims to be transcendental, it denies the supernatural and sovereign nature of a personal God. Instead, it assumes that a person can rise through semispiritual exercise to higher and higher levels of consciousness and ultimately arrive at self-fulfillment in a godlike nature. The movement twists the incarnational concept of "Christ in us" into the claim that each of us can be a god or Christ. Naturally, then, we have no need for a Redeemer.
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Grim realities are also left behind, including the curse of sin which infects our human nature — spirit, body, mind, and soul — and contaminates our social order with injustice. The New Age attitude toward all of life, including work, is best voiced by Shirley Maclaine in her book, Dancing in the Light, when she tells an underachieving friend, "You are unlimited. You just don't realize it."8
What has gone wrong? By tracing the evolution of the work ethic in American history on the following chart, we see how far we have come from our biblical roots.
Our work ethic has been separated from God. While the Puritan Ethic has been
criticized for its rigidity, at least it had ties to the will of God. Once
those ties were cut, workers began the long journey that has brought us to
the New Age philosophy which claims, "We too can be gods." Idolatry is the
end of our search for the meaning of work when we forsake God, rely upon
ourselves, and still hold to the hope for self-fulfillment. The New Age Ethic
is a bubble about to burst.
Our work ethic has become increasingly self-centered. Again, if we use the
Puritan Ethic as our base, the trend from communal responsibility to
self-interest sounds an alarm. To see our daily work as a contribution to
the physical, social, and moral quality of life in our community is the genius
of American democracy. Not even the rise of the Entrepreneurial Ethic with
its monopolistic capitalism could destroy the sense of communal responsibility.
However greedy they may have been, the Vanderbilts, Morgans, Carnegies, and
Rockefellers created charitable foundations which still represent their founder's
commitment to the good of the community. Nor can we forget that during the
tumultuous days of the Robber Barons, the long commitment of Americans to
their community was formalized in non governmental human service agencies
such as United Way, YMCA, YWCA, and Red Cross. Volunteerism for community
service has its roots in the Puritan Work Ethic and, deeper yet,
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in the biblical meaning of the moral community whose members give themselves away to help others.
While government intrusion into public welfare has not been able to destroy those roots, the Leisure Ethic or the New Age Ethic can twist them into idolatrous ends. Christians should represent a counterculture to self-interest, in commitment to their communities and to voluntarily serving others. A Christian spirit of self-sacrifice will stand out in sharp relief against the rising self-interest in the contemporary culture.
Our work ethic is becoming increasingly self-glorifying. According to the
Westminster Shorter Catechism, "The chief end of man is to glorify God and
enjoy Him forever." Sad to say, our revolving work ethic has strayed far
from that confession. At least the Puritans believed in working hard for
the glory of God. Self-glory began to rise immediately when the Craftsman
Ethic shifted the goal of work to personal pride in the product. From there
it was only a few steps into the pride of wealth, the lust for
success, and the demand for self-fulfillment. Today, the person who
follows the call of God in his or her work is judged as mildly fanatic or
slightly mad. Sometimes, Christians are the severest critics. When I followed
God's call from the Christian university to the seminary presidency,
non-believers commended me while believers scratched their heads and asked,
"Why leave the security of the university for the uncertainty of a new position?"
It is one thing to profess our desire to glorify God, it is quite another
thing to demonstrate it in our career decisions, especially our daily
work.
TOWARD A BIBLICAL ETHIC
Our need for a biblical ethic to guide us in our daily work is urgent. As a starting point, we can draw the contrast between the secular and biblical ethic. A biblical ethic views work as a natural, creative gift of God, but that gift, as with all creation,
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has been spoiled by our sin. Therefore, our work needs to be redeemed by the call of God, for the good of the community and for the glory of God. Such a realistic and promising view cannot be separated from the momentous events of divine and human history — God's Creation, our Fall, and Christ's Redemption.
The doctrine of Creation informs us that work is a gift of God inseparable
from our spiritual nature. In the very first verse of Holy Scripture,
we are introduced to God at work, "In the beginning, God created the heavens
and the earth" (Genesis 1:1). The word creation is synonymous with
the word work in the original Hebrew. Work, then, cannot be a
curse or it would contradict the holiness of God. At the same time, work
cannot be a savior or it would be disconnected from the creative purpose
of God. Rather, God's work is spiritual — reflective of His holy character
and representative of His divine purpose.
Creation unveils another momentous truth that underlies the biblical theology
of work. Because we are created in the image of God, work is natural to
our human existence and essential to our spiritual development. Even
in the Garden of Eden, God gave Adam and Eve work to do. In the first job
description ever spoken or written, God gave His created human beings three
work assignments. The first responsibility was reproduction, "Be fruitful
and multiply," the second was production, "Fill the earth and subdue
it," and the third was supervision, "Have dominion over the fish of
the sea, over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves
on the earth" (Genesis 1:28).
God expected a lot from His creation. Yet, true to His character and consistent with the form of a good job description, he backed up Adam's responsibility for work with the rewards of His promise: "See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed, to you it shall be for food" (Genesis 1:29).
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In the second Genesis account of Creation, God upgraded His expectations and rewards for Adam's work. The Garden, originally a wilderness to be "tamed," was now a workplace for the more sophisticated task of "tending" (Genesis 2:15). Still another upgrade on the meaning of work awaited Adam. God recognized the loneliness of the task to which He called Adam, so He promised him a helper. With the creation of Eve, God established the relational meaning of human work.
God then honored the intellectual capacity of Adam by bringing all living creatures before him and inviting him to classify them and name them as evidence of his dominion over them (Genesis 2:19). In this task, we see the image of God in Adam and Eve demonstrated by the work of observing, wondering, reflecting, discerning, remembering, and communicating — abilities which are reserved for God and His humanity.
Adam and Eve's job description was not yet complete. God had given them physical, relational, and intellectual work assignments. Now He drew these all together in the spiritual promise of eternal life, but with a condition. They were not to eat fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. If they did, they would die (Genesis 2:17). The meaning of our work therefore, has its limits. With the freedom of choice, the power of intellect, and the drive for self-realization which God has entrusted to us, we cannot tromp in the territory of His sovereignty by refusing to obey Him and pretending to be gods in our own right. Work which is separated from God, driven by self-interest, and finished in self-glory is condemned from the very beginning. For us, the spirituality of work must be confirmed as separable from God, motivated by His will, and done for His glory. In the doctrine of Creation, our daily work is dignified as a task with rewards that are inseparable from the image of God in us. No higher honor can come to our humanity than to exercise the privilege of being partners with God in the routine of our daily work.
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We cannot stop here. After the Creation came the Fall. The doctrine of the
Fall leaves no doubt but that our work is corrupted by our sin. Work
became one of the innocent victims of Adam and Eve's sin and no longer would
be an unmixed joy. Instead, God passed the sentence for our sin on to the
nature of our work: "Cursed is the ground for your sake, in toil you shall
eat of it all the days of your life" (Genesis 3:17).
No longer would nature be a partner with human work. God said, "In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread" (Genesis 3:19). Despite all that we might say about the spirituality of work, we cannot deny that it is hard. I have a friend who conscientiously prepares himself for his daily work with a quiet time of prayer, meditation on Scripture, and a plan for priority tasks. Yet, he confesses so honestly, "when I hit the office door, all hell breaks loose." We all know what he means. In my case, a "personal/confidential" letter in the mail ruins my day, a grumpy colleague spoils my disposition, and continual interruptions upset my priorities. Hardly a day goes by but that I have to force myself to do some routine work, resent the lack of efficiency someplace in the institution, or wonder if God has misplaced me.
Of course, our evolving work ethic promises just the opposite. Advocates of the Self-fulfillment Ethic demand a work environment that is guaranteed to be compatible, cozy, and cuddly. If work is hard, they want relief; if work is routine, they want excitement; if work is restrictive, they want freedom if work is lonely they want company. The truth is that all work has its moments of being hard, routine, restrictive, and lonely. Instant gratification is a demand of the Self-fulfillment Ethic that work itself cannot fulfill. The curse of the ground and the sweat of the brow remain with us.
Christians should entertain no illusions about work. Until all creation is redeemed, we must learn to work diligently, patiently, and faithfully on long-term tasks for which the rewards
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are often deferred. As a seminary president whose desk could feature Harry Truman's sign, "The buck stops here," I often mutter to myself, "If only someone would say 'Thank you.' " In those moments, I need to make sure that I am still trying to do what is right for the good of the institution and in God's holy will. With that assurance, I regain my perspective and find peace, if not always joy, in my daily work.
But there is hope. The doctrine of redemption informs us that work is
a resource to be redeemed. Of course, work is not sinful in itself. As
with all the gifts of God which were given to us in Creation, work is a victim
of human sin. Only a sinner can make work itself a curse which becomes an
excuse for sin, or a savior which becomes an idol flaunting God. Conversely,
only a Christian can make work a means of grace through which the gift of
God flows. Paul, for instance, used his skills at tentmaking as the way to
earn not only his living, but also to gain his credibility when he sought
to evangelize cities on his missionary journeys.
One of the most powerful portraits that shows the connection between work and spirituality is a painting by Holman Hunt which hangs in the city gallery in Manchester, England. Jesus is depicted at work with His tools, shaping the pieces of wood on the carpenter's bench. Fading light from the window picks up the silhouette of His work and casts it as a shadow against the wall. At the same time, Jesus stretches and raises both hands above His head. The pieces of wood become a cross in those shadows and Jesus becomes the crucified victim. In this awesome art, we see not only a prophetic picture of Jesus' death, but also an unforgettable symbol of the connection between His daily work and His spiritual mission.
Through Christ's redemption our daily work is restored to its spiritual meaning in the Creation story. The nature of work is redeemed as a gift of God and, once redeemed, our daily work becomes a means of grace. The end of our work is an
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offering given for the glory of God.
When we see our daily work as a means of grace, the highest truth comes home
to us. When accepted as a gift of God, done under the call of God, and finished
to the glory of God, our daily work involves us as partners with God in
continuing creation. Again, the distinction between the work of animalkind
and humankind becomes clear. Only human beings created in the image of God
can do creative work which is to:
envision a task to be done,
imagine a solution to a problem,
evaluate the quality of results,
communicate what has been learned to the coming generation,
feel satisfied with the connection to a larger purpose such as the good of the community
and the will of God.
Of course, these criteria apply to all work of human beings, Christian or not. Our daily work is intended to be natural, purposeful, and creative. But when sin undermines these intentions, our daily work becomes either a curse or a savior. What was intended to be a creative relationship with God has been broken. This brokenness can be redeemed only by grace. Once redeemed, however, our daily work becomes the means through which we rediscover the Creation Ethic, which defines work according to biblical principles, in partnership with God and toward the spiritual end of His declaration, "It is very good."
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SPIRITUAL REFLECTIONS
ON OUR BIBLICAL ETHIC
As each one has received a gift, minister it
to one another, as good stewards of the
manifold grace of God,
1 Peter 4:10
* * * * * * *
A PROVOCATIVE QUESTION
How do you think people perceive you in your daily work? Would you be considered a craftsman, a jungle fighter, a company man, or a gamesman? How about your work ethic? Are you primarily motivated by good pay, creative opportunity, compatible people, self-fulfillment, leisure time, early retirement, or some other incentive? How does being a Christian make a difference?
A PRACTICAL EXERCISE
Our attitude toward work is strongly influenced by our upbringing. What attitude toward work did your parents communicate to you? Did their model match their words? Did they impress you with mottoes such as, "Hard work never hurt anyone" or "Any job worth doing is worth doing well"? What connection did your parents make between work and spirituality?
A PERSONAL PRAYER
Lord, deliver me from the subtle and secular influence that steals the spiritual meaning from my daily work. Never let me forget that I am Your partner in creation every day. Amen.
Chapter Four || Table of Contents
1. Maccoby, Leader, 39-54.
2. James McGregor Burns, Leadership (New York: Harper and Row, 1978).
3. C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters and Screwtape Proposes a Toast (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1962), 156.
4. Yankelovich, New Rules, 8.
5. Maccoby, Leader, 41.
6. Ibid.
7. Dennis Jaffe, Take This Job and Love It (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988).
8. Shirley Maclaine, Dancing in the Light (New York: Bantam, 1985), 133.
