The Heavenly Good of Earth Work (1)
Posted by Paul | Filed under work
I’m coming to the end of the book ‘The Heavenly Good of Earth Work’ by Darrell Cosden. It’s a very interesting read & I’m inspired to attempt a multi-part review. It neatly falls into three parts, so we’ll try and follow those…
In the first part of the book Cosden looks at the problems we have with ‘secular’ employment. In a very good analysis he talks about the frustration that Christians in everyday work feel and the reasons for this.
His argument is that we have a conflict. On one side we affirm that all are called by God and that every calling is equal — it sis simply that some are called to ‘secular’ jobs and some to ‘full-time Christian ministry’.
People typically think that God frees up a few believers to focus their energies on the ministry more directly than others who have a different, more general calling.
All fine… until we bring in our beliefs about eternity. We believe that things of heaven and eternity are ultimate. So, things related to these are of ultimate importance. But, what do we consider will last into eternity? Most likely, not the products of everyday work. It’s the explicitly Christian activities that we believe count long-term.
But if we follow this path we begin to see an implicit hierarchy in roles and potential for the majority of Christians to feel second-class. After all, why has God called me to a job that has minimal eternal impact, when there are other possibilities? Cosden develops this with an entertaining description of the hierarchy of jobs and a look at why we approach things this way.
The analysis seems pretty accurate to me, both in looking at my own feelings and in noticing the way people around me talk. Obviously we have a problem…
In my last post I talked about mis-matches in our theology when you start from the beginning or the end. It seems to me that this is what is happening here (obviously the book influenced the previous post!) — ‘we are have equal callings’ comes up against our eschatology and doesn’t quite fit. You have to wonder if there is a hole in our theology somewhere…
Tags: books, eschatology, The Heavenly Good of Earthly Work, theology, work
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