Even Jesus Wasn’t Always Spiritual: Do We Need a Theology of Boredom?

By Adam Roe I was recently sitting around the house on a Saturday afternoon in my customary t-shirt, socks, and boxers. It was one of those days when in a pinch I’d throw on shorts or jeans, but unless you’re answer-the-door-worthy, my attire isn’t changing. I flipped through TV channels and found a University of Kentucky game. I grabbed a…

Book Review: I’ve Never Pretended I’m Not Religious

This post was originally a participation in the Patheos Book Club on David Dark’s Life’s Too Short to Pretend You’re Not Religious. Since one of the things we in the faith and work movement are always agonizing about is the sacred-secular divide, I thought it was worth reprinting here too for further pondering of the lessons the book teaches about…

Missionaries in a Mercenary World: Apprehensive Individualism

In my last post, I talked about how many professionals, even Christian ones, define themselves in relation to the symbolic image of the Mercenary—a person who is oriented towards “apprehensive individualism.” What does that mean? Individualism isn’t simply self-centeredness; as many scholars such as Robert Bellah and Charles Taylor have pointed out, it can also be a moral vision. But…

Gender challenges in the workplace: What can individuals, organizations, and churches do?

[This post was originally delivered as a talk at the Faith@Work Summit in Dallas, TX. Read the first two posts in the series here and here.] There are things you can do at an individual level. Women often have a hard time being assertive or taking credit for their accomplishments. If you’re a woman you especially need to do this,…

A Kingdom Pure for Love, Part II

By Greg Forster: part seven of a series. In my last post I talked about how the underlying theology of fortification paradigm churches leads to cultural puritanism. Here are three specific ways fortification paradigm churches can overcome this: The Past: Where dominance paradigm churches overestimate both the moral and religious integrity of the American experiment, fortification churches tend to underestimate…

An interview with Katherine Leary Alsdorf, part iii: “There is no one-size-fits-all template”

Read part I of this interview here and part II here. David Gill: Tell us about the “Gotham Fellows”. Katherine Leary Alsdorf: The Gotham Fellowship grew out of our pilots of classes and discussion groups as a way to provide discipleship and public theology training at the same time giving an opportunity for the gospel to deeply change how people…

Professional Integrity In Uncertain Times

By Sarah Conrad Sours Professional integrity seems a straightforward matter, but it isn’t always. Many professions, organizations, and industries are currently in the midst of a period of–let us put it as mildly as possible–uncertainty. As a new administration attempts to seize the moment, enacting sweeping and sometimes confusing policies, people may suddenly find themselves confused about or needing to…

‘Hillbilly Elegy’ and the faith & work movement

Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis  has been read and reviewed in countless outlets from Barnes and Noble to Hearts and Minds Books and the New York Times.  There’s a reason why. It’s a well-written memoir describing the circumstances, deep challenges, victories, and struggles of a culture in crisis. This culture has been neglected in popular media…