We all agree that our work matters. An important aspect to work is its influence and impact within a local community and culture. I have recently read a short book that is, in my opinion, an excellent treatment of culture engagement and I would like to recommend it for your reading. The eBook is titled The Voting Booth: A new…
By Greg Forster; part seven of a series. In his masterpiece, Work: The Meaning of Your Life, Lester DeKoster said that work is the primary way in which we, empowered by the Spirit, form ourselves into Christlikeness. “God has so made us that through working we actually sculpt the kind of selves we each are becoming, in time and for eternity.” That’s…
I was privileged to attend the Avodah Summit this past week at Trinity International University. The purpose of this conference was to give pastors and leaders theological vision and practical tools to help believers connect their faith to their daily work and the flourishing of their communities. The conference speakers included Skye Jethani, Steve Garber, Katelyn Beaty, Greg Forster, Jimmy…
By Greg Forster; part six of a series. This is a post about ruling the world. This series on suffering began with the two horns of the dilemma facing the faith and work movement: we want to help people suffer but without helping people suffer. Then it went through the three major theological areas where there is, in general, a…
By Jennifer Woodruff Tait A few months ago, I attended the Acton Institute (you can read more about my trip here) as part of my work with the Theology of Work Project. One of the things I did was attend a lunch where some other folks from TOW presented some of the resources on our site and talked about how…
By Will Messenger Fewer men are working now than used to. A long-term trend, which accelerated in the wake of the global economic meltdown of 2008 is that labor force participation by working-age men in the US has declined significantly since 1950 (see https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS11300001). Undoubtedly, there are many causes behind this, and no single intervention is likely to change a…
By Greg Forster; part five of a series. You don’t work in this movement for long without hearing about eschatology. But we don’t connect eschatology to suffering as often as we should. If we did, I think we might find that our differences over eschatology can be fruitful rather than destructive. So, let’s bicker about eschatology! (The previous post in…
By Nathan Roberts; originally published at Patheos. As I took the Amtrak up to the Faith@Work Summit in Boston, I was working on a paper about the Mind-Body Problem. I don’t want to bore you with academic details, but the gist of the problem is: how do we talk about how the brain––an electrically charged lump of meat––relates to a…
By Will Messenger We’ve been having a lively debate in the Theology of Work Project about how many chapters there are in the biblical narrative. Are there 4? 3? 5? This question comes up, for us, in the context of engaging our audiences as fully as possible, especially the Reformed, who seem always to speak of 4 chapters, and the…
The Green Room 