The Heavenly Good of Earth Work (links)
Posted by Paul | Filed under work
I should have posted these at the start of my on-going review of The Heavenly Good of Earthly Work:
There are extracts available on the publisher’s site.
The is a LICC review & related article in the July ‘Workwise’.
Curtis Chang has written an article which touches on the same sort of issues/ideas.
Tags: books, eschatology, The Heavenly Good of Earthly Work, work
The Heavenly Good of Earth Work (2)
Posted by Paul | Filed under work
After the initial section looking at the problem of our current perspective on work, The Heavenly Good of Earthly Work switches to looking at the Bible. Cosden comes from two angles — first resurrection and new creation, then Genesis and the creation narrative.
Looking at New Creation, Cosden’s basic thesis is this: that the work we do — of any type — can have eternal consequences. So, when God re-creates creation, our work is not wiped out, but is redeemed and transformed along with everything else. Not that it remains as-is, but somehow it forms a part of the resurrected world. [For some reason, I imagine this (very very roughly) in terms of architecture -- aspects of designs that fit with God's justice, love, enhance creation, etc. find a place; things that are oppressive and disruptive don't.]
Cosden bases this on Jesus’ resurrection, plus 1 Cor 15, Col 1, Rom 8 and Rev 21-22. This section is going to take me a while to think through properly, but let’s go for a first shot. For me the interesting starting points are Jesus’ resurrection and the Revelation passages. Jesus’ resurrection is typically taken as a preview of our resurrection & new creation. So, an interesting observation is that the wounds from the cross are still evident. As Cosden points out, it seems that “… the results of this particular ‘human work’ are guaranteed to carry over into God’s as well as our own future and eternal reality.” Of course, there is the possibility that he is looking at a special case, but it is thought provoking.
At the other end of the discussion is the Revelation image of the new heavens and the new earth. The key here is that the new creation includes ‘the glory and splendor of the nations’. “It will be forever open to include the best of human culture (achievements past and possibly ongoing). And although this is not in any way limited to our work, it will thus include what we have accomplished through work.” For me this is the facinating observation. It seems to be the clearest expression of the idea that new creation includes, in some way, what has gone on in the old creation. This opens up all sorts of thoughts and possibilities (and discussions…)
These are the top and tail of Cosden’s discussion, In between he looks at the discussions of new creation and resurrection in Paul. Although these are very helpful, they don’t quite get all the way for me, on first reading at least. The basic approach is ‘New Creation is transformed creation; work and its products are an integral part of creation, so they get included and transformed.’ The discussion is great on the first step, but then relies on assertions such as “That this salvation of the natural world incudes our work follows logically. Work, which has further shaped nature, is now just as much a part of nature as what God made originally.” I can see this is a reasonable move to make, but I think it would have helped to have discussed and argued the point in more detail. It is, after all, a key step in the argument. (I may come back to this in a later post.)
The other half of this section is looking at Genesis. In this Cosden looks at the idea that mankind’s orginal purpose was to be an apprentice of God. That we were to work with Him in stewarding and developing creation. In this way we image God. This seems to me to be far less contraversial, but is equally important to join the dots between our original purpose and the long term effects that we have.
From these two aspects, Cosden lays the ground work for a theology of work, which leads onto his discussion of a spirituality of work and a rethinking of mission in the final part…
Tags: books, eschatology, The Heavenly Good of Earthly Work, theology, work
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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