It is not only prayer that gives God glory but work. Smiting on an anvil, sawing a beam, whitewashing a wall, driving horses, sweeping, scouring, everything gives God some glory if being in his grace you do it as your duty. To go to communion worthily gives God great glory, but a man with a dung fork in his hand, a woman with a sloppail, give him glory too. He is so great that all things give him glory if you mean they should.”
(quoted in Cornelius Plantinga’s Engaging God’s World)
Recently I read Tim Keller’s latest book, Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God’s Work (Dutton), which he co-authored with Katherine Leary Alsdorf. So far, it’s the best book I’ve read on the important topic of integrating faith and work.
You may recall that in early October, before the book’s release, I shared an excerpt on common grace along with the book’s trailer.
Keller was on Morning Joe this morning discussing the book, something I’d been hoping would happen (earlier interviews on the show about his other books, like this one, have always impressed me). Here’s today’s clip:
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To see how Keller’s church in New York puts these ideas into practice, check out its Center for Faith and Work.
I recently had the privilege of interviewing Mary Andringa, CEO of Vermeer Corporation and chair of the board for the National Association of Manufacturers (she’s kind of a big deal). We talked about the influences that shaped her “theological imagination” and how it relates to the way she operates her business. If you’re of the opinion that manufacturing and theology are two unrelated entities, I hope you’ll read what Mary has to say.
The story was published late last week by Fieldnotes in two parts, available here and here.
For those unacquainted, Fieldnotes is an online magazine offering “practical wisdom for emerging leaders.” Be sure to check out the great stuff they’ve published from the likes of Alissa Wilkinson, Christy Tennant Krispin, Gideon Strauss, and others.
By the way, Mary was recently featured on NBC’s Rock Center with Brian Williams, talking about the manufacturing “renaissance” that’s currently going on in our country. Did I mention she’s a big deal?
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Earlier this year I heard Christopher J.H. Wright speak here in Phoenix about “saints in the marketplace” – what it means to be a Christian whose work does not take place inside a Christian bubble.
I’ve been reading Wright’s excellent book The Mission of God’s People: A Biblical Theology of the Church’s Mission (Zondervan), which includes a chapter on mission in the public square, on which (I assume) his talk was based. For those unacquainted with the term public square, a synonym might be marketplace, though what Wright has in mind is broad: “the whole world of human cooperative effort in productive projects and creative activity.” He writes:
If society becomes more corrupt and dark, it’s no use blaming society. That’s what fallen human nature does, left unchecked and unchallenged. The question to ask is, Where are the Christians? Where are the saints who will actually live as saints — God’s different people, God’s counterculture — in the public square? Where are those who see their mission as God’s people to live and work and witness in the marketplace, and pay the cost of doing so?
Moral integrity is essential to Christian distinctiveness, which in turn is essential to Christian mission in the public arena. Integrity means that there is no dichotomy between our private and public “face”; between the sacred and the secular in our lives; between the person I am at work and the person I am in church; between what we say and what we do; between what we claim to believe and what we actually practice. This is a major challenge to all believers who live and work in the non-Christian world, and it raises endless ethical dilemmas and often wrenching difficulties of conscience. It is indeed a battlefield — internally and externally. But it is a struggle that cannot be avoided if we are to function with any effectiveness at all as salt and light in society.
He goes on to say that to do our work with missional distinctiveness, we must remember the story in which we are living, a story in which all of creation — the public square included — has been tainted by the fall, and yet is being redeemed by God even now.
Learning to discern the public square’s fallenness and learning to resist its temptations is crucial, he says, and it will not be easy, but it’s what we’re called to do as the people of God. And we can be assured that as we seek to participate in God’s mission in the public square, he will be faithful to us.
I recently read A.W. Tozer’s classic The Pursuit of God (WLC) as part of a book club at our church. It wasn’t my first time through the book, but like many classic devotional works, there’s plenty to learn on second (and third and fourth…) readings. But while it’s wise to learn from those who have gone before us, I think it’s also wise to read their work critically.
I love the big message of the book, that there’s more to the Christian life than memorizing certain core beliefs — the Christian life is to be lived! Even more, God is to be known, not just known about. These are important and timeless reminders for church people.
This time I was especially struck by the book’s final chapter, “The Sacrament of Living.” In it he challenges the all-too-pervasive, unfounded and unhelpful sacred-secular divide many of us live with. It’s been challenged by others in recent years, but that Tozer was calling the church out on it in the 1940s is impressive:
One of the greatest hindrances to internal peace which the Christian encounters is the common habit of dividing our lives into two areas — the sacred and the secular.
I find most of the chapter (and the book as a whole) very encouraging and challenging. Here’s where he suggests that all of life can be a sacrament:
Every act of [the Christian’s] life is or can be as truly sacred as prayer or baptism or the Lord’s Supper. To say this is not to bring all acts down to one dead level; it is rather to lift every act up into a living kingdom and turn the whole life into a sacrament. If a sacrament is an external expression of an inward grace, then we need not hesitate to accept the above thesis.
I like this idea of viewing all of life as a sacrament, or at least having that potential. But I’m not sure about some of his conclusions in the chapter. Though he couches his critique by saying he has “no desire to reflect unkindly upon any Christian, however misled,” he argues that “the Roman Catholic church represents today the sacred-secular heresy carried to its logical conclusion” by driving a wedge completely between religion and life. I’m not convinced by what he chooses to focus on: sacraments and the church year.
While urging us to consider “the sacramental quality of everyday living,” he takes issue with the number of sacraments the Catholic church recognizes; he prefers the Protestant two to the Catholic seven. It’s a bit puzzling, in my mind, to insist that all of life is to be a sacrament, but then to make a big deal about the fact that to him, the Catholics have too many. But my bigger beef is with his dismissal of the value of celebrating or observing the church year. He laments the Protestant return to what he calls “spiritual slavery,” saying,
The observation of days and times is becoming more and more prominent among us. “Lent” and “holy week” and “good” Friday are words heard more and more frequently upon the lips of gospel Christians. We do not know when we are well off.
Celebrating or observing the events of Holy Week, in my view, doesn’t constitute spiritual slavery, and ignoring them doesn’t make us any more “well off.” Now, if he’s worried that by observing “days and times and seasons” and considering some more holy than others, we’d be in danger of further reinforcing the sacred-secular divide, I’m at least sympathetic. But I don’t think that’s the biggest danger we’re facing in this regard. There’s so much that could be said about this, but I’ll make just one point.
All of us live lives according to certain rhythms, whether those rhythms have anything to do with our faith or not. By opting to refrain from observing Lent or Advent or the rest of the Christian calendar, we’re not simply leveling out the year into 365 equally holy and “sacramental” days. For one thing, we set Sundays apart as a day of worship and rest. But more than that, in the absence of “Christian” rhythms, our lives are shaped by the “secular” rhythms of our world — the school year, or sports seasons, or perhaps by the opportunities and limitations of fall, winter, spring and summer, respectively.
To put it starkly, if we refrain from observing Good Friday, do we likewise refrain from observing Black Friday? Or are we content to live with that sort of sacred-secular dualism?
Our lives will be shaped by rhythms of one kind or another; my contention is simply that I think we’d do well to shape them primarily according to the rhythms of our faith, rather than merely marching along, unthinkingly, in parades of consumerism, materialism, nationalism, or any of the other isms that are constantly competing for our allegiance. But moving on…
Tozer concludes,
It is not what a man does that determines whether his work is sacred or secular, it is why he does it. The motive is everything. Let a man sanctify the Lord God in his heart and he can thereafter do no common act.
As Tozer says, our motive for our work has a lot more to do with whether it’s sacred or secular than whether it’s formally considered a ministry, or business, or education, or politics, or science or art. Our motive really matters, but I think that beyond motives, the bigger question is whether our work is contributing to the common good. Consider these big questions for business leaders — and for all of us — to better think through how our work can serve the common good. Yes, motive matters. And yes, there is sacred work to be done in every sphere of society. But good motives aren’t sufficient to guarantee good results.
Once again, I love that Tozer challenges the sacred-secular divide, and this theme of the integration of faith and work is a big one. I plan to explore it a bit more soon, in conversation with a couple of more recent books.
If you’ve read any of Tozer’s work, what did you most appreciate? What do you think of my affirmations and critiques?
