Christians working in a late modern workplace face considerable pressures to ‘conform to the pattern of this world’.  Globalised competition, and the way it has shaped modern workplaces mean that employees today will face longer working hours, greater uncertainty about their future employment and pressure to perform consistently to meet demanding targets.   Alongside this, more subtle pressures are exerted to think in a certain way (functional rationality) as well as see their faith and work in separate compartments (privatisation).  Christians find themselves inducted into a set of practices whereby their imaginations are captured by a way of seeing the world that depreciates faith and enhances a secularised perspective on life.  To stand in this place, Christians need to make use of the resources in the gospel that will help develop a deeper sense of vocation; enable a richer reflection on, as well as a more constructive engagement with their work and have a clearer understanding of what faithfulness means in such a context.  Over time, this will enable them to become what James Davison Hunter refers to as the practice of ‘faithful presence’ in their workplaces.

Introduction

Just imagine the following scenario.  A bright young Christian leaves school, attends a theological seminary and then, with a passion for seeing the gospel preached in the third world, decides to become a missionary to Africa.   After two years of intensive study, learning the language and culture he flies out to deepest darkest Africa.  Three years later he returns.  There has been little contact, partly because of the inaccessibility of the place he was sent.  The local church rejoice on his return and can’t wait to listen to how the gospel has triumphed in another unevangelised corner of the globe.  But to their shock he turns up to church in the tribal dress of the people group he was sent too and can hardly speak English any more.  After some weeks the church discovers he is meeting with a group of African’s in a local suburb who meet for the worship of the local tribal deity of the place he was sent.

Imagine the shock to all who were concerned in sending him on this mission.  This would be seen as a massive failure of his initial training.  There would be deep soul searching to discover why it was that he was so unprepared for the challenge that awaited him. In the many questions that would need to be asked, one of the most central would be  ‘how was it that the culture managed to so comprehensively shape this young persons mind and heart?’

The reality for those of us in the West is that our workplaces are the cultural space which exerts an enormous influence on who we are as persons.  To go to work today is to engage in a process of cultural formation every bit as powerful as the experience of the young missionary noted above.  However there is a significant difference between our missionary and the average Christian going to church.  The former will have extensive training to discern the cross cultural issues that they must deal with;  the latter will have none.  This despite the fact that most sociologists would recognise that modern Western culture is far more lethal to faith in Christ than any other culture since the First Century.

The direction that this essay will take is to firstly look at the changes to our working lives that have come about as we now engaged in a globalised economy to understand why these changes have come about and then to explore the impact that they will have in forming us to be a certain type of people.  I will then look at some of the resources we have in the gospel to discern what aspects of this process of cultural formation we need to resist.

The Late Modern Workplace

Western nations have been undergoing a marked transformation in their economies over the last 40 to 50 years.  In 1996 the Australian Financial Review[1] ran a 3 part series on the revolution that was occurring in our working lives as a result of these changes.  Some of the things that were reported included:

• The standard working week – a stable 38 hour week with regular starting and finishing times is no longer the dominant form of employment in Australia.
• A quarter of the working population are subject to the ‘casualisation’ of the workforce.
• While jobless figures grow, full time employees are working longer and longer hours.  The article cited that 37% of the full time working population were working 49 or more hours a week.
• In broad terms there is an inverse relationship between employment growth  and wage rates.  In high wage, high skilled industries, jobs are disappearing, in low wage, low skill  industries, employment is rising. The latter however are marked by boredom and a lack of career opportunity.
• The number of people holding more than one job has almost doubled.
• The standard working life of continuous employment from school leaving age to retirement is a thing of the past.
• That innovations in industrial relations, with the deregulation of the labour market and the introduction of enterprise bargaining has not resulted in a ‘win/win’ for both employers and employees.  The majority reported that they were working harder, felt more stressed, less secure, and found it more difficult to balance their work and family responsibilities as a result of changes at the workplace.

This was over 15 years ago.  The trend has not only continued but accelerated.  The environment is now shaped by what Richard Sennett, professor of sociology at New York University refers to as the ‘new capitalism’[2].  This is the globalised, hyper competitive free market economy which has delivered such affluence and growth in the West.  Whilst it has many benefits Sennett identifies the way in which the emerging economy in North America is socially corrosive in weakening the relational links that hold communities together.

A major reason for this shift in the way we work is that we are now enmeshed ‘globalised’ markets and competing with other nations.  With the advance of communication technologies, transport, global market networks we now do business and politics conscious that we are part of a world wide network.  As a consequence life is governed more and more by economic considerations, and our future well being is seen in terms of how well we adapt to this new economic environment.

The implications of the change for our working lives are very dramatic.  Organisations now realise that they are competing internationally.  Goods and services made on the other side of the world are cheaper to buy in Australian than the locally produced equivalent.  Indeed my own employment has been shaped by this shift.  I began an apprenticeship in the late seventies at Chamberlain John Deere which produced tractors.  At that stage the chassis was produced in Australia, whilst the more sophisticated technology came from Germany or America.  Within 8 years the company would disappear as the Australian product eventually lost ground to overseas imports.

To respond to this new economic order businesses are required to restructure to reduce costs in order to stay competitive.  Across the world companies are shrinking in size whilst at the same time increasing the quantity and quality of their product.  Charles Handy in his book The Emply Raincoat notes

A chairman of a large pharmaceutical company had summed up his policy… ½ x 2 x 3 he said; half as many people in the core of his business in five years time, paid twice as well and producing 3 times as much, that is what equals Productivity and Profit.  Other businesses may not formulate it so crisply but that is the way they are all going;  good jobs, expensive jobs, productive jobs, but much fewer of them.  It makes good corporate sense.[3]

This then shapes the type workplaces we enter.  Those of us who have full time jobs will find ourselves working longer hours.  Others will have part time or casual roles which will bring other challenges.  People work longer hours and take fewer holidays.  At the same the material rewards have improved. All of these pressures, and many more conspire to have a formative influence on people.  These become the ‘habit forming practices’ slowly shape the way we live our lives.

What I have described above has a profound effect not only on our workplaces but also in shaping the type of society we live in.  We have all been shaped by forces which have now become the features of modern life in general.   Darrel Guder, a noted missiologist notes the following distinctives of modern Western society:

• Urbanised life with its complex patterns of social relationships
• Multiple tasks and responsibilities that fragment time and space.
• An economy shaped and driven by technology and its advances
• Job, career, and identity defined by professionalised roles and skills
• Submerged racial and ethnic identities in a stew pot society
• The pervasive influence of change and rapid obsolescence
• Bureaucratic organisations run by rules and policies
• Individualised moral values concerning such matters as divorce and sexuality
• Radical forms of individuality producing isolation and aloneness
• Hunger for some overarching story to give meaning and structure to life.[4]

The World Squeezing You Into Its Mould

Christian’s entering these workplace are not exempt from the pressures noted above.  Sustained exposure to such an environment has the potential of forming a type of person that will find it difficult to engage with their faith in Christ.

James KA Smith in his book Desiring the Kingdom has reworked the Augustinian notion of desire and applied it to life in the modern world.  He notes that we are surrounded by ‘secular liturgies’ that not only shape desire but reorient us to a different notion of what the good life is.  In short we become what we love.  He begins the book by looking at how a shopping mall shapes the way we see the world and ultimately forms our desire.  The same reflection could equally be applied to a workplace;

Because our hearts are orientated primarily by desire, by what we love, and because those desires are shaped and moulded by the habit forming practices of the mall – the liturgies of mall and market – that shape our imaginations and how we orient ourselves to the world.  Embedded in them is a common set of assumptions about the shape of human flourishing, which becomes and implicit telos, or goal, of our own desires and actions.  That is, the visions of the good life embedded in these practices become surreptitiously embedded in us through our participation in the rituals and rhythms of these institutions.  These quasi – liturgies effect an education in desire, a pedagogy of the heart.[5]

To give a specific example of the sort of formation that Smith is talking about, listen to the a recent account concerning employees in Apple stores:

Apple stores have it down pat.  Often crowded with people, old and young, these bright white minimalist interiors are more gallery than shop.  Employee’s do not sell.  They “enrich lives”.  The creed is printed on a wallet – sized card that staff are encouraged to carry.  They are taught to create memorable moments  for their customers.  A-P-P-L-E becomes an acronym for five pillars of service:  Approach with a customised warm greeting: Probe politely to understand the person’s needs; Present a solution; Listen and address unresolved questions; End with an invitation to return.  Combined with a quality product, Apple’s almost cultish attention to the customer experience drives retail success.  [6]

Any employee entering into this workplace would need to submit to its ‘rituals and rhythms’.  This is not necessarily a bad thing for the product in question has so many uses that are socially beneficial.  The point that needs to be made for Christians in this context is that they need to be aware of the way one’s identity could be moulded by sustained exposure to this context.

What then could be some of the dangers involved in a modern workplace?

Firstly people are employed on the basis of their skill in what the sociologists call ‘functional rationality’[7].  Reason and technique hold sway in business, nothing is left to chance and all is subject to meticulous calculation.  When consistently exposed to this over long stretches of time this will make it much harder to believe in an invisible God revealed in Scripture and to walk by faith and not be sight.

Secondly identity is now, more than ever, tied to our economic utility.  When we are asked to identify ourselves we commonly respond by talking about our work.  As many have noted the culture of modernity has shaped us to locate our identity in terms of our achievements in the economic order.  Success in this context is often seen in terms of the size of salary or the position one holds in an Organisation.  Faithfulness to Christ and his gospel will not come high on the ladder of what is important for success in one’s career.

Thirdly we are now chronically ‘time poor’.  This is the obvious reality that we all regularly experience.  There are at least three aspects to this.  Firstly, as noted above, the reduction of the size of organisations mean that those who are left will now work longer hours as well as having more demanding and complex jobs.  This will drain one’s energy particularly over the long haul.  Whilst there are many techniques that are put forward to help people cope with these pressures will mean that there is very little energy available for much else after our working day/week is finished.

The second aspect of time deprivation is the fact that technology now invades every nook and cranny of our existence.  Hence work keeps on spilling over into one’s leisure time through emails and text messages.  As most observe we are the most distracted of all generations.

This fragmentation is often reinforced by a world of hyperkinetic activity marked by unrelenting interruption and distraction.  One the one hand, such conditions foster a technical mastery  that prizes speed and agility  and facility with multiple tasks  – for example, using email, I – M, the cell phone, the iPod, all the while eating lunch, holding a conversation, or listening to a lecture. But on the other hand, these very same conditions undermine our capacity for silence, depth of thinking, and focused attention.  In other words, the context of contemporary life, but its very nature, cultivates a kind of absence in the experience of ‘being elsewhere.’[8]

Lastly, we are impoverished in terms of time by virtue of the way in which organisations roster employees to be available in a 24/7 globalised economy.  In more recent times the Federal government have begun an inquiry into the impact of ‘fly in/fly out’ arrangements.  But consideration also needs to be given to the way that the traditional week end has now disappeared.  For example the introduction of 12 hour shifts, where employees will now work extended hours over weekends is likely to have a dramatic impact on the activities that were traditionally practiced by families and churches on weekends.

But is this dangerous?  Hebrews 2:1 warns of the subtle drift away from the faith that can occur gradually over time.  I am not aware of any hard evidence that outlines the extent of employees drifting away from the faith, but my own experience suggests that it is quite widespread particularly amongst professionals.  The demands of work and the allurement of career combined to make church attendance irregular and then eventually non existent.    In Smith’s words, they succumb to the secular liturgies that abound in the context outlined above.  As a result their hearts are directed to a different telos.  From the standpoint of the last day, this could be catastrophic.

Identity and Presence

In the context of such powerful cultural pressures, what should Christians do?  I suggest that we need to recognise that in any age, discipleship requires attention to the preservation of our identity as Christians whilst at the same time ensure we are a faithful presence in the context we find ourselves in.  In John’s words, we are to be ‘in the world but not of it’.  At its heart, Christians will maintain their identity only to the extent they have a deeper grasp of the gospel.

By the gospel I mean the work of Christ, in his life, death, resurrection and ascension.  This is the root from which the fruit of changed and transformed lives flows.  Our essential identity as Christians is formed by Christ and the gospel and not by our achievements or failures at the workplace.  It is Christ’s death and resurrection that has cleansed us from the guilt of sin and begun its process of transforming us and liberating us from sins power and dominion.  We are now his transformed people, set apart for his service and for a deepening transforming relationship with him.  In St Paul’s terms, and with direct reference to the first century workplace he notes – ‘You were bought with a price; do not become slaves of human masters’ (1 Cor 7:23).

What resources then can be found in Christ’s gospel to help Christians preserve their identity in the late modern workplace?

The first area where the gospel can help is in the area of vocation.  A fruit of the gospel is a deeper sense of vocation which gives a deeper integrity to our lives.  One cultural pressure that all Christians face is to compartmentalise their faith into the ‘weekend world’ and live an alternative existence from Monday to Friday.  This is seen in many ways but is highlighted in a comment made by Ray Crock, the founder of Macdonald’s.  He was reported in a New York Times as article as saying;  ‘On Sunday I believe in God, family and Macdonald’s – and in the Office the next day, that order is reversed’.

The Gospel, does not countenance any form of dualism.  The world is not divided into a public world where we go to work and a private world where we go to church, raise families and play sport.  Given Jesus Christ is Lord of creation every inch of both spheres belongs to him.

Vocation safeguards this by insisting that we are working before the face of God to whom we must give an account (see 2 Cor 5:10, Rom 14:12).  There has to be an essential integrity as to who a Christian is.  They cannot be one person on the weekend and another in their workplace.  In Paul’s words to the Colossian Christian’s,  whatever we do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him, to God the Father. (Colossians 3:17)

Sadly, the church undermines a sense of vocation by insisting that ‘full time’ ministry is more important that work in a secular job.  But this ignores the important emphasis Paul puts on the context in which we find ourselves.  Some may be missionaries or pastors in what we unhelpfully call ‘full time’ Christian service.  Others find themselves in ‘non religious’ roles; like raising families, factory work, law and so on.  Whatever place we find ourselves, Paul is clear, we are all called to Christ to work ‘as unto him’ (1 Cor 7:24, Eph 6:5-8, Col 3:22-24).  Given that Paul often addresses slaves in his letters, it is clear that no work is too menial or insignificant to be beyond the reach of service for Christ.

But if there is no place exempt from Christ’s Lordship the content of our work is just as significant as the way we work.   When asked about the really significant work they do, many lapse into a discussion about being honest, caring and diligent in their work.  These are essential virtues that we must cultivate.  But rarely do we hear of people who are thinking differently about the work they are doing.  Paul exhorts us to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ (2 Cor 10:5).  This includes much of the unbiblical thinking that pervades our workplaces.  We need Christians in the arts, the sciences and businesses thinking biblically about their professions or trades and practicing these disciplines in ways that cause life to flourish rather than to disintegrate. This would not only bring benefit to our culture but also promote the gospel to those outside the faith.

Christopher Wright outlines a helpful framework to think about how we might go about this task[9].  In his view the exilic narratives in the Old Testament now become our best resource to reflect on where we are, and what we are called to.  As with the exiles in Babylon, we are called to seek the welfare of the city (Jeremiah 29) but in a way that we don’t lose our distinctiveness and so fail to bear witness to the God’s redeeming work amongst the nations.  He suggests that Jeremiah 29 may have provided the encouragement for Daniel to engage with surrounding culture.

It must has have been such advice that created the freedom that Daniel and his friends felt to settle down in Babylon and accept jobs in its government service.  And their position in such office was clearly not “just a job”.  Nor are told that it was some form of “tent – making” to help them earn a living while they held Bible Studies in the office or evangelistic meetings in their homes….. But what the text emphasizes is that they were first class students, model citizens and hard working civil servants, and there were distinguished  for their trustworthiness and integrity….. The “welfare of the city” was what they pursued, as Jeremiah said they should.  And in doing so for a lifetime,  opportunities to bear witness to the God they served, and to his moral demands, judgment and mercy, came along at key points – one in each of the first six chapters in fact.[10]

We are therefore called to a constructive engagement in the world.  This is God’s world, created by Him, passionately loved by him, at the cost of the life of His Son and so valued and redeemed by Him.

But this should not be seen as a call to accommodation.  As Wright notes we are also called to a courageous confrontation with this world because it is in rebellion with its Maker and stands under His condemnation and ultimate judgment.  This is the tension we are called to in the marketplace.  Christians today need much more wisdom on what this will mean in the light of the many serious challenges that face humanity.  The book of Daniel gives some insight into what is involved, and it would seem that the central issue that he addressed is idolatry of the pagan society he was exiled within.

This raises the unpopular issue of suffering as disciples of Christ in the workplace.  We are to be salt and light as Jesus says in Matthew 5.  John Stott has made it clear that the images evoke a clear picture of the tension that should exist between the people of the Messiah and the world[11].  Without salt meat putrefies and without light we stumble and fall in a dark place.  Salt and light inevitably will promote a confrontation which, more than likely will involve disciples suffering for their faith.  In the context of a workplace, this may prove costly.

Conclusion

The above is the briefest description of the complex task of engaging a late modern workplace. In short it requires wisdom and resilience to negotiate the culture and to discern those areas which are to the ‘welfare of the city’  and those that are idolatrous and therefore detrimental to its life and vitality.

James Davison Hunter in this book To Change the World outlines the broad requirements of such a wise engagement.  He calls for a recovery of what he calls ‘faithful presence’. This is the set of practices that engages with the public square in a distinctively Christian way yet with a deeper sensitivity to our calling to be salt and light in modern culture.  Taking his cue from Paul’s exhortation to be ‘ imitators of God, and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Eph 5:1) he suggests we need a theology of faithful presence.  It is worth quoting him in full.

I would suggest that a theology of faithful presence first calls Christians to attend to the people and places that they experience directly.  It is not that believers should be disconnected from, or avoid responsibility for people and places across the globe.  Far from it.  Christians are called to go into all the world, after all and to carry the good news in word and deed that God’s kingdom has come.  But with that said, the call to faithful presence gives priority to what is right in front of us – the community, the neighbourhood, and the city, and that people of which these are constituted.  For most, this will mean a preference for stability, locality and particularity of place and its needs.  It is here, through the joys, sufferings, hopes, disappointments, concerns, desires and worries of the people with whom we are in long term and close relation – family neighbours, co-workers, and community – where we find authenticity as a body and as believers.  It is here we learn forgiveness and humility, practice kindness, hospitality and charity, grow in patience and wisdom, and become clothed in compassion, gentleness and joy. This is the crucible within which Christian holiness is forged.  This is the context within which shalom is enacted. …..

….Indeed, when our various tasks are done in ways that acknowledge God, God is present and glorified.  Such tasks may not be redeeming, but they can provide a foretaste of the coming kingdom.  What can be said of tasks generally can be said, for example, about specific professions. To manage a business in a way that grows out of a biblical view of relationships, community and human dignity before God has divine significance, irrespective of what else might be done from this platform.  Policy pursued and law practiced in the light of the justice of God is a witness to the right ordering of human affairs. Inquiry, scholarship and learning with an awareness of the goodness of God’s created order is a discovery of what is truly higher in higher education. And, not least, reflecting the beauty of God’s creation in art or music is nothing less than an act of worship.  It short, fidelity to the highest practices of vocation before God is consecrated and itself transformational in its effects.

As to our spheres of influence, a theology of faithful presence obligates us to do what we are able, under the sovereignty of God, to shape the patterns of life and work and relationships – that is the institutions of which our lives are constituted – toward a shalom that seeks the welfare not only of those of the household of God but of all.  That power will be wielded is inevitable.  But the means of influence and the ends of influence must conform to the exercise of power modelled by Christ.[12]

Davison Hunter writes to Christians in the American context.  Australians can draw from this wisdom but need to recognise that ours is a different context.  We need to see the cultural pressures that are applied to our lives as a result of working in a late modern workplace.  In responding to these pressures we must grasp the deep resources that are available to us in the gospel.  These include seeing our work as a place of calling, recognising that our ultimate worth is not in how well we perform in our workplaces and engaging with this in the long haul so that we are a faithful presence in the places we are working.