Two Excellent Books on Revelation

Posted on November 6th, 2009 under Book Review

Things are going swimmingly here in St. Andrews (that’s true on several levels with all the rain we’ve been getting).  We’re right at the midpoint of the semester now, which is really hard to believe.  I’ve been working through the book of Revelation, which has been really rewarding. As I’ve said before, Revelation had never been a book I particularly enjoyed. The violence, imagery and immanence of it all in the near future had always been something that made me nervous.  Through this study, I’m starting to appreciate the beauty and intricacy of this book.  Revelation is meant to encourage the seven churches, which represent all of God’s people, to remain faithful and bear witness to the truth in the face of persecution oppression.  The book tells the story of history from God’s perspective.  Through an elaborate, interlocking, escalating plan, Revelation recapitulations what the story of the world means.

Saying anything about Revelation is difficult.  It’s hard to even know where to begin, but I am convinced that my time studying this book has already deeply affected the way I understand what it means to follow God.  Rather, than try to navigate Revelation here, I’ll recommend two excellent books on Revelation that I’ve found to be extremely helpful: The Theology of the Book of Revelation, by Richard Bauckham and Jesus, Revolutionary of Peace, by Mark Bredin.

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Labor Day Reflection on Good Work

Posted on September 8th, 2009 under Book Review

Small is Beautiful, Econonics as if People Mattered, by E. F. Schumacher is a wealth of insight for those trying to make sense of the modern economy and the unsaid presuppositions at its heart. Readers of Wendell Berry will recognize that many of Schumacher’s views follow many of the same lines of thought. This post, originally written to a friend, will look mainly at the concept of good work, though many other topics could be explored with Schumacher’s insights as a guide.

First of all, good work is essential for human growth, or, in other words, for character development. But, this concept of good work is a slippery fish. For most people today, the term “good work” is an oxymoron. How could there be good work, when work is just something someone gets through with the aid of coffee or other less benign substances in order to afford the empty pleasures of idle weekends? For these workers, work is something to be avoided at all costs. You work to afford time not to work. Conversely, employers simply and divide tasks to reduce employees. Employers want to replace human labor with mechanized work to increase profit.

This phenomenon has grown because the work now offered by big business has reduced the human elements of work. There is no skill involved. There is nothing human about this work. In fact, this type of work is incredibly dehumanizing because it involves no skill, no opportunity for character development and provides no satisfaction. Schumacher calls this type of mindless work, “a crime against humanity” and goes on to elaborate on this type of work, calling it, “soul destroying, meaningless, mechanical, monotonous, moronic work (that) is an insult to human nature which must necessarily and inevitably produce either escapism or aggression, and no amount of ‘bread and circuses’ can compensate for the damage done.” (38) I’ve reproduced this section for you because having no work is just as damaging to having ’soul destroying’ work, to use Schumacher’s words. I’ve written this because it’s important to diagnose the problem before looking for a solution.

Schumacher continues by quoting J. C. Kumarappa, “If the nature of work is properly appreciated and applied, it will stand in the same relation to the higher faculties as food is to the physical body. It nourishes and enlivens the higher man and urges him to the produce the best he is capable of. It directs his free will along the proper course and disciplines the animal in him into progressive channels. It furnishes an excellent background for man to display his scale of values and develop his personality.” (56)

What Kumarappa is getting at in this quote, Schumacher says directly. There is a spiritual element of work, whether it is acknowledged or not. This is seen clearly because character is forged through good work; it can be wrought no other way. He writes, “Character, at the same time, is formed primarily by a man’s work. And work, properly conducted in conditions of human dignity and freedom, blesses those who do it and equally their products.” (55) Work is, or should be, an offering to God. Wendell Berry once quoted the proverb, “To work is to pray.” The intimate connection between work and the spiritual life cannot be denied. But this connection is a blessing and not a burden, because if work is carried out as prayer, it becomes joyful. As work becomes joyful, it becomes a humanizing endeavor of the highest kind. Schumacher observes that “one of the basic truths of human existence” is that “work and leisure are complementary parts of the same living process and cannot be separated without destroying the joy of work and the bliss of leisure.” (55)

Of course, not all work is joyful, it is work after all. But there is freedom that comes from the character forged by work and from the work itself, because through good work man is made more human. To become more human is the highest freedom because to become more human is to become like God in whose image we are made.