A consistent pattern in contemporary books about work is the emphasis on the expected acceleration of changes in the job market. They put forth a similar argument: advances in artificial intelligence and automation are sure to undermine existence as we know it, undermine the very fabric of our society, and spell the end of work as we know it. Usually,…
Our society is sick. The United States is obviously in tumult with sharp divisions between Red and Blue with the litmus test being which political party one thinks is treasonous. Surely there is some mush in the middle, but it would be a happier world if the simplistic generalization were farther from the truth. And, though the unhappiness of our…
I once knew an assistant coach who had a copy of a book entitled Your Body Believes Every Word You Say on his desk. It appeared to be both an old book with a dated cover photo and an unread volume with a pristine binding, which led me to ask him about it. He told me it was a great book and…
The proliferation of books on the topic of the integration of faith, work, and economics over the past decade has multiplied available resources to the point of confusion at point. Whereas a decade or so ago, there were a handful of recent, high quality books on the subject that were often targeted to academic audiences, there are now dozens of…
In a well-meant attempt to ascribe value to work beyond the instrumental contribution to a financial bottom line, the faith and work movement has tended to describe work as having intrinsic value. This is a move in the right direction, but it may unintentionally oversimplify the discussions of the value of work. Instead, I recommend setting aside the category…
Work has value beyond the paycheck that comes every other week. Those of us writing about faith and work have written about that fact for years. It is important, however, that we argue about the goodness of work with value terminology that provides a range of meaning sufficient to differentiate between different types of value. Many people, when writing about…
A few months ago something surprising happened to me. My wife came out of a book study with a group of Christian friends from our community and gave me an unexpected shock. You see, the topic of the theology of work had come up in the context of the discussion and my wife recommended a book about the topic. One…
The Green Room 