Posted on 09/02/2012 5:42:32 PM PDT by CHRISTIAN DIARIST
On the first Monday of September, America honors working stiffs by taking a paid day off. But does Labor Day celebrate an enterprise that God intended to be a punishment?
In a recent New York Times essay on the frenetic hustle of modern life, humorist and author Tim Kreider took the Puritans and their infamous work ethic to task. They had turned toil into a virtue, he argued, whereas God had invented it to chastise the disobedient Adam and Eve.
In an interview, Kreider explained that he was referring to Genesis, in which God tells Adam “by the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat thy bread.” In the same chapter, the serpent is sentenced to an eternity of belly slithering and Eve condemned to severe childbearing pains.
“Coming as it does on the heels of the infamous Illicit Fruit Incident, the details of which there’s no need to re-hash, certainly makes it sound punitive,” said Kreider, who said he’s a veteran of 18 years of Sunday school, but no Bible scholar.
The idea that original sin ushered in a lifetime of toil is a fairly common Christian view, said Gilbert Meilaender, a professor of Christian ethics at Valparaiso University in Indiana. “Work doesn’t lose a kind of dignity it had even prior to sin, but it takes on that burdensome aspect as well,” he said.
The Creation story makes clear that Adam and Eve were expected to till and maintain the Garden of Eden, said David Jensen, author of “Responsive Labor: A Theology of Work.” The happy couple were, in a sense, co-creators with God. But after the Fall, labor turns toilsome. “It becomes something that oppresses people,” Jensen said.
Even as they acknowledged the often wracking pains of work outside Eden, some evangelicals insist that labor remains, on the whole, a good thing.
“From time to time, I hear someone characterize work as a result of the Fall of man,” Karen Swallow Prior, a professor of English at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., wrote in a school publication. “But this is a great error: for, indeed, we were created to work.”
After all, humans were made in the image of God. And the biblical God worked -- unlike those lazy Greek gods who only occasionally descended from their high-peaked home on Mount Olympus. And Jesus was a carpenter, a first-century handyman.
Nobody took work as seriously, though, as the early Protestants, especially the Puritans, who tore down distinctions between sacred and secular. All work, therefore, was on behalf of the Big Bossman in the Sky.
For Calvinists, there was another motivation: a mortal fear that God would leave them off the list of people predestined for salvation. This “salvation anxiety,” in the words of German sociologist Max Weber, led them to seek tangible signs of divine favor, such as frugality and worldly success. Weber’s influential 1905 book, “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism,” might be summarized: “By working hard and seeing the effect of God’s blessings in my life, I acquire confidence that I am among God’s elect.”
Theology also sets the stage for Mormons’ renowned work ethic, said Matthew Bowman, author of “The Mormon People: The Making of an American Faith.”
Unlike most Christians, Mormons don’t believe in original sin. Rather, they subscribe to the theory of the “fortunate Fall” -- that is, Adam and Eve’s mischievous meal was a good thing. It inaugurated free will and set the world’s wheels in motion.
So, when God tells Adam that he’ll have to work for his food, Mormons interpret that as sound advice for spiritual progression, not a punishment. “Mormons subscribe to the idea that work is something that will refine your soul, make you a better person and fine tune your human potential,” Bowman said.
“Work is a key to full joy in the plan of God,” reads a Mormon Sunday school lesson. “If we are righteous, we will return to live with our Heavenly Father, and we will have work to do. As we become like him, our work will become like his work.”
The Sunday school lesson also cites the New Testament's parable of the talents, in which a servant who failed to invest his master's money is cast into outer darkness.
Meilaender, whose book “Working” explores the spiritual side of labor, takes his cue from Luke's Gospel: The parable of the good Samaritan is Christian charity personified. But in the very next passage, Jesus praises Mary, who has left the housework to her sister Martha in order to simply sit beside Jesus.
“The two stories back-to-back illustrate loving your neighbor and loving God, which involves resting from your labors,” Meilaender said. “Somehow the whole Christian life involves both of these.”
No,it’s a lesson.
wow, talk about a crazy idea.
First, man worked in the Garden of Eden, so work was not a punishment. Wait, even before man worked in the Garden, God had worked for six days. What was God being being punished for?
Second, with the expulsion, man’s work was made burdensome
Third, the Bible says this was “for man’s sake.” The Hebrew words could equally be translated “because of man” (i.e., because he sinned), and “for man’s sake” (i.e., work is redemptive). I think both translations are valid.
C’mon now, w-o-r-k is the WORST of the 4-letter words to a large, large segment of the population...
Because it is not fun it is called work and not play. Easier to rest on one’s large, large posterior for a large, large segment of the population than it is to work.
Heck, they might lose a pound or two while working instead of inhaling chips, sodas, Twinkies, and Big Macs.
“My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.” — John 5:17
‘Jesus said unto them, “My meat is to do the will of him who sent me, and to finish his work.”’ — John 4:34
Lots more than those verses, too. Does God punish Himself when he creates (far more work in all senses than the human body is capable of)?
Wow, there’s no dearth of degrees and certificates and publications and public acclaim and money you can achieve by ignoring context.
How’s this: Work when you’re a passenger on an ocean liner is punitive.
But if you fall off the ocean liner, and have to work to swim to a boat, and then paddle the boat, to get to the place where the ocean liner can pick you up again, that’s not punitive, it’s a reward - when you compare it to the alternative.
If you trust in God and Believe the story of Adam and Eve then yes work is a Punishment of sorts !
Amen, Olog-hai.
The creation account goes deeper than just “work”. God commanded man to subdue the Earth and procreate. Despite man’s fall in the Garden, God never revoked those first two commands. Sin introduced “sweat” into the subduing of the Earth and “pain” into child birth but we are still supposed to carry out those commands.
He who doth not work shall not eat.
When we die and go to Heaven, it is my understanding that we don’t have to work, food stamps and generous pension checks for everyone.
I have a somewhat different theory:
I believe we work because it is necessary for our survival. Given our “druthers” we would play instead. So the goal of mankind is not to find work but to put work behind us and free up time for play.
This is no joke. Play can mean climbing Mt. Everest. It is to some folks while to others it is the worst kind of work. Then again, writing software is work for a lot people and to some, it is quite fun.
In the long run, mankind will work to eliminate human work. Let the machines do the work while we spend our time hiking around the Sierras and swimming at Malibu beach.
Caution: This may not happen in this century or the next but it is coming.
It seems to me that what you are describing is retirement.
“Before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood and carry water.” - Buddhist saying.
In physics, a force is said to do work when it acts on a body so that there is a displacement of the point of application, however small, in the direction of the force. Thus a force does work when there is movement under the action of the force.
Good works, or simply works, within Christian theology are a person’s external actions or deeds, contrasting with interior qualities such as grace or faith.
To be is to do. - Immanuel Kant
To do is to be. - Frederick Nietzsche
Do be do be do. - Frank Sinatra
Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life. - Confucius
Work is love made visible. And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy. - Khalil Gibran
It’s a shame that the only thing a man can do for eight hours a day is work. He can’t eat for eight hours; he can’t drink for eight hours; he can’t make love for eight hours. The only thing a man can do for eight hours is work. — William Faulkner
To Democrats, hard work is racist.
I’ve done some work that seemed like training for Hell, but hunger and unemployment is worse.
I’ve worked, designing and operating nuclear power plants. I subsequently designed building automation systems.
So is retirement a sin? Or is work only redeeming up until one is 65? Work is what it is, a means to put food on the table. To those of you who have a job you love. You are the luckiest people on the planet.
I have lived through a recent combination of coming back to the Lord and then being diagnosed with cancer and having major surgery to remove it. When I was separated from the Lord, work was a daily drudgery that I did because I love my family and because it the way I was raised. After getting my spiritual life straightened out, I realized that work was a blessing, an opportunity to live and interact with others as a Christian man.
I haven’t been able to work for the last couple of months and for the first time as an adult I truly miss it. I will finally be able to return later this month and I praise God that I have the opportunity.
In a strange way, getting cancer has brought me closer to the Lord and everyone I interact with, I am more at peace now than I have been in decades. Each day is a blessing and opportunities to interact with others is now cherished rather than avoided.
I don’t want to hijack your thread but the whole experience has been profound to me and I wanted to share my experience.
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