This blog is meant to be a space for faith and work leaders to think about the faith and work movement. We are generally not political (though we ask people to think about encouraging the ethical practice of politics for the common good of the polis) and we try not to post too frequently, because we know you’re busy people. We…
Green Room blogger Jon Malesic has a provocative post at The New Republic where he argues that we use the metaphor of job or work for anything that requires effort, including school and the human relationships of marriage and parenting: Americans struggle to describe worthwhile, long-term activities without turning them into jobs. We can’t imagine a good life that’s free…
We ran into this somewhat disturbing story at the website of the BBC recently: Even when they’re able to do the job competently, obese people routinely face discrimination in the workplace. While discrimination against employees because of their sex, age, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion or disabilities is illegal in a growing number of countries, including the UK, many businesses…
Managers are like small gods—they have the power to create or destroy worlds. —– I propose that the Christian faith and work community needs a theology of management to go with its theology of work. One of my dear friends has been nearly oppressed at work for several years. One day he was visibly frustrated by some workplace circumstance, and…
The faith and work movement can tend to celebrate the entrepreneurial, which by extension often means celebrating the young (because, after all, they’re usually the ones with the energy to start new things.) The Christian Century ran an excellent article a little while ago about what vocation looks like in older adults: If vocation is about God’s call to persons (and…
Recently, while enjoying a day away from the office, I was catching up on Madam Secretary. Madam Secretary is a television show that presents the day-to-day life of Dr. Elizabeth McCord, who serves as the Secretary of State. The show does a good job of presenting the entirety of her life, including work and family. One scene from this episode…
Story and metaphor are a powerful means for education on a variety of subjects, including faith & work. StoryCorps has published a book titled Callings: The Purpose and Passion of Work whose purpose is to tell the story of individuals at work. Callings is written by Dave Isay. Isay is the founder of StoryCorps and the recipient of numerous broadcasting…
Ray Bradbury’s dystopian story “The Veldt,” published in 1950, depicts a future in which technology does everything, leaving humans to enjoy their leisure. Of course, they do not enjoy it. The parents, bored and anxious, smoke and drink too much. The children, spoiled and detached, create disaster. The reader is duly warned. This and other dystopian stories (I, Robot; The Matrix; the…
When Yvonne Streit’s young daughter Vicki suffered brain trauma back in the 1960s as the result of complications from mumps, she found nowhere to turn for help. Programs to aid those with physical and intellectual disabilities in finding a way to contribute meaningfully to society were scarce at best. So Yvonne created one. While it began as a tiny project…
One of TGR’s bloggers, Jonathan Malesic, has a provocative essay over at Inside Higher Ed, where he diagnoses the recent well-publicized problems at Duke Divinity School as stemming, in part, from what might be called an over-adequate doctrine of vocation: Judging from his emails, Griffiths seems to think of academic work as an exceptionally high calling, a vocation. He is hardly…
The Green Room 