a theology of work
I've been reading Moltmann and Barth on work, and am left with some questions....
How do you define work, if you are a full-time mum? Or if you work part-time in a laundrette, but really your heart is in designing and making clothes? Or if teaching maths is what you get paid to do, but you call yourself a theologian?
Darell Cosden writes
Human work is a transformative activity essentially consisting of dynamically interrelated instrumental, relational and ontological dimensions.
His book unpacks that dense definition, offering some helpful insights about how a christian ethic of work needs the balance of all three of his dimensions, but I still feel he is presuming a neat, easily identifiable "job" which he calls work. Work for many of us today is less often a single job, career or vocation, than a portfolio of projects- some of which are paid and some voluntary; some of which are long term and some may be only a day or a few hours; some with a regular fixed timetable and some flexible; some separated by location or title from our personal, family life and some indistinguishable or pourous; some clearly either sacred or secular but some both; some which can easily be described as 'transformative' or 'activity', but some not.
The industrial revolution's legacy of "going out to work" is becoming less and less of a reality, and I'm waiting to find a theology that has caught up.
How do you define work, if you are a full-time mum? Or if you work part-time in a laundrette, but really your heart is in designing and making clothes? Or if teaching maths is what you get paid to do, but you call yourself a theologian?
Darell Cosden writes
Human work is a transformative activity essentially consisting of dynamically interrelated instrumental, relational and ontological dimensions.
His book unpacks that dense definition, offering some helpful insights about how a christian ethic of work needs the balance of all three of his dimensions, but I still feel he is presuming a neat, easily identifiable "job" which he calls work. Work for many of us today is less often a single job, career or vocation, than a portfolio of projects- some of which are paid and some voluntary; some of which are long term and some may be only a day or a few hours; some with a regular fixed timetable and some flexible; some separated by location or title from our personal, family life and some indistinguishable or pourous; some clearly either sacred or secular but some both; some which can easily be described as 'transformative' or 'activity', but some not.
The industrial revolution's legacy of "going out to work" is becoming less and less of a reality, and I'm waiting to find a theology that has caught up.
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