What do the churches have to say today about the meaning and dimensions of work? In view of the crisis in which work finds itself today, it is timely to ask this question anew. The helplessness of churches is considerable. What is meaningful work in light of the destruction of the planet as humankind continues to develop the earth? What tasks do the churches face in view of growing unemployment and its far reaching social consequences? Up until now, churches have by and large said that it was the destiny of humankind to work. One works, not only to survive, but, seen from the perspective of faith, one's work becomes service to God and to one's fellow creatures. Work lends meaning to our lives and fulfills us. Does this simple view of work hold up in an age when we hear more and more often of the "end" [Jeremy Rifkin, The End of Work, New York 1995] of work or even of the "collapse" of work. [1.2  Clive Jenkins and Barrie Sherman, The Collapse of Work, London 1979] 

In fact, does the above concept of work interfere with finding answers which lead us beyond this impasse?

The crisis surrounding work forces churches to turn anew to the biblical witness for answers. How do the pronouncements of the churches about work hold up when checked against statements concerning work found scattered throughout the Bible? Is the conventional wisdom about work really the Christian response? Or, over the course of time, have we developed preconceptions which simply do not stand up against the biblical testimony? To reveal the answer at the outset: What we hear from our churches today about the role of work is remarkably contradictory to the biblical testimony. Of course one can not simply interpret these texts in terms of modern day circumstances. However, the discrepancy between conventional wisdom and the witness of these texts is cause for serious reflection. My suspicion is that this discrepancy is due to a process of gradual accommodation of our way of looking at work to the social project of the modern era, namely that humankind's nature and destiny are to apply technology to develop the earth. Although we cannot simply turn the clock back to biblical views, it is fruitful to listen once again to the testimony of those writers.

1. The topic of work in the ecumenical movement

Strangely enough, there has been little discussion of the topic of work in the ecumenical movement during the last few decades. When we consider the importance of the role of work in modern life, this is truly amazing. Why this lack of attention? Have we been of the opinion that work is uncontroversial, or were other questions simply more important? The truth is, that aside from a few efforts, the ecumenical movement has not bothered with questions about the sense and meaning of work.

An important exception is the study initiated by J. H. Oldham which the World Council of Churches began after World War II.

This topic had already been raised at the Conference for Church and Society held in Oxford in 1937. Concern was growing over how difficult it is to bring work and a spiritual sense of life into some kind of fruitful relationship. One can read in the conference bulletin, for instance, "The ordering of economic life has tended to enhance acquisitiveness and to set up a false standard of economic and social success. The only forms of employment open to many men and women, or the fact that none is open, prevent them from finding a sense of Christian vocation in their daily life." ["The Churches Survey Their Task",   1937 on Church, Community and State, p. 60]  Or one reads in a section report that "While the irrelevance one to another at the present time is partly because much of the work is pagan and unworshipful it is also due to the fact that the daily life ... is not sufficiently woven into the liturgy and worship of the church."  [ibid. p. 127]

This same tension between Christian faith and the role of work in a modern technological society was discussed by J. H. Oldham in his treatise which appeared in the preliminary documents for the first General Assembly of the World Council of Churches in Amsterdam in 1948. He said, "We are confronted here with a fundamental contradiction between the claims of the human person and the whole structure of modern industry." [Man's Disorder and God's Design, vol. III: The Church and the Disorder of Society, London 1948, p.133]   Oldham starts out from the conviction that work by its nature serves God. "The complete, self-forgetting absorption of a man in his task can be at the same time an act of worshipping God. The giving of the self to God in his work of creation may be a form of prayer." [ibid. p. 131]  Oldham's ideas found resonance in the general assembly itself. The bulletin pragmatically states that "We have to learn afresh together what is the duty of Christian men and women in industry, in agriculture, in politics and in the home." [The First Assembly of the World Council of Churches Amsterdam 1948, Report, London 1949, p.10]   The proceedings of the Third Section emphatically stated, "There is no inescapable necessity for society to succumb to undirected developments of technology and the Christian Church has an urgent responsibility today to help men to achieve fuller personal life within the technical society." [Man's Disorder and God's Design, vol. III, p. 198]

This recommendation of the General Assembly was pursued in two directions. Within the framework of the Department of Studies of the World Council of Churches, J. H. Oldham undertook a thorough study of the Christian understanding of work. A different perspective was applied by the Lay Department; they were less concerned with the meaning of work and more concerned about the presence of the church in the modern work place. Since then this second approach has captured much more attention than the first.

In 1950 J. H. Oldham published a study guide entitled, "Work in Modern Society." Published in German as well, it enjoyed wide distribution due to the relevance of the question. Shortly thereafter another study appeared which had apparently been prompted by Oldham's work; it was Alan Richardson's, The Biblical Doctrine of Work. [SCM, London 1952]   In the German language world it was Karl Barth who took up this theme independently in his Kirchliche Dogmatik in 1951. [Kirchliche Dogmatik III/4, Zollikon-Zürich 1951, p. 558 ]  A few years later Walther Bienert's, Die Arbeit nach der Lehre der Bibel appeared. [Stuttgart 1954]  He expressly credits Oldham as the stimulus for some of his reflections. [ibid. p. 14]

Influential though it was, Oldham's study guide remains curiously self-contradictory and most readers are not clear what the actual point was. Oldham's basic tenant apparently is that the chasm between the church and the modern world must be bridged. Two main questions are taken up, "First, does Christianity provide an understanding of life by which men can live, not in the parsonage or manse or in sheltered occupations, but in the pressures and conflicts of political and industrial life today? Secondly, does this understanding make a real and important difference to the actual choices which men have to make in every-day work?" (p. 5) The answer, as he repeatedly emphasizes, cannot come solely from theologians. More than ever, the church must listen to the voices of those most affected by developments in the working world. Oldham's study is a call for churches to break out of their ivory towers and dialog with working people.

At the same time, in a number of places Oldham voices doubts that this chasm can ever be bridged. Is not the very sense of human work placed in question by modern developments? "In so far as man in his work is reduced to the position of a mere functionary...work ceases to be a sphere of personal and moral activity".(p. 14). "It is the divorce of work from the personal life and from life in community that deprives it from meaning, and this is the heart of the problem of work in modern society" (p. 15).

The task of the church is thus clear: it must help people master developments in their work world. Will the church succeed? "The transformation of industry in this sense is plainly a colossal undertaking; it involves the widespread acceptance of ways of thinking and of a scale of values very different from those which are now dominant. The change that is called for goes deeper than the oppositions between capitalist, socialist and communist economies. Surrender to the autonomy of technical processes is possible in all of these" (p. 29). Yet this task must be faced even if it is not yet clear to us which steps must be taken. The churches must venture forth and take up this challenge.

With that we are confronted with the fundamental question – how shall we evaluate scientific and technical advancement? Here again we find only conflicting opinions. On the one hand the church is admonished to find a more positive attitude towards modern society's credo of progress. "In particular, Christian thought may have to define more clearly than it has yet done its attitude to the great adventure in which mankind is attempting through science and technics to control and shape its destiny. Is the Christian attitude to this vast enterprise to be purely negative or also affirmative? Are we to regard it as a demoniacal assertion of man's pride, a 'monstrous collective repetition of the crime of Prometheus'? Or can Christianity find a place within its view of the world for the demonstrated fact of man's capacity to discover the hidden forces of the world and to transform his environment" (p. 35)? "Man is commanded in Genesis to subdue the earth and to exercise dominion, and the question is whether the conception of work as a transforming, creative activity is not implicit in the biblical view of man as co-operator with God in his creative work. It may be that the full meaning of this element in the Christian conception of man has been left for our age to apprehend" (p. 52). Put even more clearly, "Technical rationality can have disastrous effects, when the attempt is made to bring the whole of life within its scope, but in subordination to the higher ends of human existence, and in its own proper sphere, its requirements have not only to be respected by Christians but joyfully accepted as God's order of creation" (p. 43). "We need, that is to say, a wholly fresh interpretation of man's calling to co-operate with God in his creative work"(p. 54).

In this context Oldham returns to the thought that work involves a spiritual dimension. "In spite of the danger of hypocrisy and illusion, it remains true that work acquires a depth of meaning in proportion as it partakes of the nature of prayer (p. 55)."

On the other hand, however, the inconsistency between God's intention and humankind's self fulfillment in this arena is clear to see. "It does not at all follow, however, from the truth that work is God's decree for man that everything that is called by the name of work in our present disintegrated society, which has to so large an extent lost all relation to God and His purpose for man and the world, must be regarded as a necessity of divine appointment... There may be forms of work that are without meaning and cannot be given meaning (p. 49.)." "The one thing that a valid theological doctrine of work will not do is to tell the great mass of men that God wants them to go on doing for theological reasons what they are already doing for economic reasons... The Christian doctrine of anything human must not only illuminate it with meaning but also be a criticism of its existing forms (p. 60)."

The dilemma posed here is clear: on the one hand the churches need to enter more into these new developments, yet on the other hand call them into question. Oldham's study guide does not take us past this dilemma, it simply describes it. We are left with these large questions: How do we go about realizing God's purpose in the modern working world? Which aspects of this arena shall we consider to be divinely prescribed? At what point is our resistance called for? To what extent are the churches charged with helping construct a more humane world? Oldham's study barely goes beyond the call for us to attempt a new beginning at bridging the divide.

Few heeded the call. However in the years that followed, the subject of work was pursued further in the Department of the Laity of the World Council of Churches. At the General Assembly in Evanston in 1954, work was considered under the rubric of the witness of the laity in the world. Here the emphasis is even more clearly upon the affirmation of the role of humankind in God's creation. The basis for all further reflection is the following assertion that "A right understanding of the doctrine of Creation will remind him that God has given to man an awesome capacity to change the face of nature by his work; the wonderful achievements of man in his work must neither be ignored nor regarded as sinful pride ... The gulf between the Church and the life of the world can be bridged by those who have a Christian view of work." [The Evanston Report, Report of Section VI "The Laity: the Christian in his Vocation", New York 1955, pp. 164-167]   Work is a necessity which is part of daily life. The sense of work is found in the fact that it serves society. To deny this insight is to fall short of the target. "When this happens the very rewards of work, greater wealth and increased leisure, are wasted in selfish enjoyments which bring no benefit to society at large" (p. 164 ). Human beings are intended for higher purposes. Care must be taken, however, that one's capabilities not be overestimated. "Yet, properly understood, man's spontaneous joy in the creative element in work is a sign of that freedom for which creation longs and of the truth that man shall subdue the earth and have dominion over it. That his freedom and dominion are achieved only in Christ and His new creation is the profound biblical truth to which all human 'creative' aspiration points, even though men often do not know this"(p. 165).

The text then goes on to identify a number of problem areas which are part of the modern work world. The problem of unemployment is the first to be taken up. "There is an obligation upon society to provide all its members with opportunity to work (p. 167)." Here Christians have a role to play as advocates. "The Christian view of the nature of work lays upon the laity the duty of promoting measures which will ensure the opportunity of all whose who wish to work to secure employment (p. 167)." The report closes with the succinct statement that "All work honestly done, whether undertaken for the sake of earning a livelihood, or for the sake of the community, or out of spontaneous joy in creative effort, has genuine value and meaning in the purpose of God" (p. 167).

For a long while this remained as the final word from the World Council of Churches on the subject of work. Other topics were addressed and, of course, whenever social themes were treated, the question of the meaning of work always came up. In and of itself the meaning of work however was never taken up again. We were left with the generally accepted outlook that God had ordered human beings to work, that through this work they were to serve society at large and to transform the world in striving towards the goal which God had set for history. As for J. H. Oldham's study and his questions about the meaning and sense of work, they have been forgotten. There is no mention of him under the rubric "Work" in The Dictionary of the Ecumenical Movement.  [Dictionary of the Ecumenical Movement, Article 'Work' (Gregory Baum), Geneva 1991, p. 1076-1077]

During the following two decades, the ecumenical movement struggled with the question of how to overcome or at least to mitigate the glaring injustices which the industrial society had propagated. How could the "rewards of work, greater wealth and increased leisure" in the world be more fairly distributed? How could one avoid the fact that achieving wealth always seemed to engender the poverty of others? What would it take to disrupt the mechanisms which divide the world into rich and poor nations? How might the poor nations of the world today come to have their place in the sun as well? However, the process of industrialization itself was scarcely called into question.

This situation began to change at the end of the 1970's. Industrialized countries had begun to experience increasing unemployment, and it became clear that this was more than just a passing phenomenon. The churches found themselves confronted with a new social problem and found that they must take a stance. The World Council of Churches again took up the subject. A conference entitled "Technology, Employment and Rapid Social Change" was held in Glasgow from 10 to 14 September 1984. [Howard Davis, David Gosling, Will the Future Work? Values for Emerging Patterns of Work and Employment, Geneva 1985]   The purpose was to arrive at a better understanding of the new dynamics. "How can churches evaluate and make informed and practical responses to the problems and opportunities created by emerging patterns of work (p. vii)?" The goal was to understand more clearly what effect new technologies would have on working people in industrialized countries. Opposing voices were heard, and the report reflects the complex and bewildering nature of these questions. The consequences of development were not easily praised nor easily condemned. The inherent dangers of development were however clearly recognized. The task of the churches was rather vehemently described as follows: "The fragmentation, dehumanization and manipulation of people by technology should be actively resisted in the name of Christ. Personal, local and global wholeness ("shalom") should be our aim. Creatures are accountable to the Creator, and this relates directly to our technological praxis as we anticipate the new creation (p. 109)." Nonetheless, guidelines for implementing this program remained rather general, basically simply admonishing the churches to get more deeply involved with these questions.

Some of the papers presented addressed the ethics of work. Of particular note is David Bleakley's paper. He proposed that a new definition of what constitutes work was needed. "What is required is a shift away from materialistic notions which measure profitability basically in terms of a financial calculation. We need a new and truer measurement of the value of work which will take us beyond equating work only with a job, a paid position supplied by the market (p. 79)." It is precisely because the churches are involved in setting the boundaries for an ethics of work that they must also continually critique them. "Below the level of consciousness there is a stirring of alternatives which comes to the surface long before they are capable of conceptualization. The offering of these "alternatives" is now proceeding as pressures to transform the work ethic build up. Three areas of dogma behind the work ethic are particularly under attack: the glorification of the individual, the suggestion that a person's chief aim is work, and the competitive base for economic activity"(p. 83).

As sharp as this criticism is there are scarcely any theological reflections to be found about the necessary alternatives. Only the introduction briefly touches upon a theological rational for work. It is David Gosling who proposes the idea that rediscovering the "eucharistic meaning of work" (p. xvii) could open new pathways. He refers to the offering or sacrifice of bread and wine as the fruit of our labour. Serving God and work must be one and the same. "It is therefore perhaps not inappropriate to hope that the implementation of some of the practical measures recommended to churches in the closing section of this book – especially with regard to the need for a redefinition or replacement of Protestant work ethic – will go hand in hand with a rediscovery of the relationship between worship and work"(p. xvii).

The following year the World Council of Churches held a second conference in Geneva from 10-13 October 1985, this time focusing was on "Labour, Employment and Unemployment". [Reginald Green (ed.), Labour, Employment and Unemployment: An Ecumenical Reappraisal, Report of the Meeting of the Advisory Group on Economic Matters, Geneva 1987]   On the one hand, the conference sought to gain an overview of the new situation and to establish the reasons for growing unemployment. On the other hand, it sought to propose recommendations for the future, in particular for the witness of the churches in these matters. The goal of the study is made unmistakably clear in the preface: "Every person has to have the opportunity to be co-worker with God; therefore the Christian commitment is to full and fully adequate employment, here and now and not in the New Jerusalem or in the year 2000" (p.3).

A theological chapter is also found in this report. Even its title "Some Theological Assumptions" shows that it is less concerned with reflections about the sense and meaning of work and more concerned with the theological assumptions which underlie the study. The introduction summarizes the chapter as follows: "Work is seen in the context of God's purpose in Creation. It is God's intention to bless human work, but he can only do so when justice, not exploitation, prevails and when work is part of human fulfillment not merely arduous dehumanizing toil. God has made humankind master over all Creation, but as people work, they should start and finish by glorifying the Lord: worship and work must be one. Where people cease to be co-workers of God in His Creation, work becomes dehumanizing and destructive. Here we have to acknowledge the existence of sin. Christian theology must be a theology which affirms life and hence, also the adequacy of work" (p. 7). The chapter then develops these thoughts further. The starting point is that men and women are called to be co-workers of God. "As workers, we must look to God as the main worker in whose work we may share (2 Corin 6:1!)...In the beginning work is part of the act of completing Creation" (p. 63). Work is fundamentally a "liberating experience" (p. 64). It can however become a curse, particularly when the "conditions under which production takes place" are characterized by exploitation and alienation. Through Christ we are freed. "We are called to become again co-workers with God in manifesting and sharing life in all its fullness" (p. 65). The conclusion is drawn that "it is vital for all Christians to understand, and for the churches to proclaim and teach, that God calls human beings to participate through their labour, in the preservation and the ongoing work of creation and thus of life" (p. 65).

In summary, one can say that both conferences were marked by great uneasiness over the course of development of modern industrial society. Foremost, the churches saw growing unemployment as a major challenge not to be ignored. They set themselves the tasks of initiating and pursuing every conceivable measure to relieve the suffering and injustice which accompany unemployment.

Nevertheless, this discussion of possible solutions remained largely within the usual framework. Aside from a few incomplete overtures, one had hardly addressed the fact that the phenomenon of unemployment itself invites a rethinking of the very understanding of work. Unemployment tended to be considered as an isolated problem. The more fundamental crisis which modern striving towards progress has led us into has hardly been addressed. The adventure of modern technology has been accompanied by the destruction of the environment. The scant discussion of this theme indicates how difficult it is to take a holistic view of such bewildering and complex terrain. Failing to do so will yield few solutions.

Theologians have had nothing new to report on these matters. Instead, we hear again and again the familiar wisdom about the meaning of work that, "people are meant to be fellow workers with God"; "in that job she is helping transform the world according to God's will;" "his work brings him joy and fulfillment and he sees it as service to the Lord." Just how far are these expressions really to be seen as "Christian testimony"? Just how much support do they find in the scriptures? Or to turn it around, to what extent are we dealing here with theological thinking? The so called "Protestant work ethic" has been occasionally criticized, but the publications in the ecumenical movement do not say just what should take its place.

[The Confession of the Presbyterian Church in Cuba (1977) is a good example of the way in which the Biblical witness is often used to glorify the role of work:
"II. A. Work: A Principle of Human Spirituality

The Holy Scriptures teach us, that work is the means by which we exercise our calling as caretakers in the production and administration of material and spiritual goods.
"The Holy Scriptures teach us also that, when we affirm that the human being is primarily a worker we affirm that he is created 'in the image and likeness of God'. In the Old Testament he is ordered 'in the image and likeness of God 'work six days so that he can rest the seventh. In the New Testament we are called to be workers in the image and likeness of Christ ... In the New Testament they go so far as to deny the right to eat - which is like denying the right to live - to anyone who will not work. Idleness is the sacriligious vice of the 'old man'.
"The Church is faithful to the Holy Scriptures and to the Gospel when it invites all human beings, and, especially believers, to enter in to the historical project of 'dominating nature through creative work and administration of the goods produced. These human activities must be carried out so that justice and peace prevail as the singular manifestation of the redemption and solidarity of God's love for all mankind."
Lukas Vischer, Reformed Witness Today, A Collection of Confessions and Statements of Faith issued by Reformed Churches, Berne 1982. p. 174]

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