Faith at Work (Religious Perspectives): Protestant Accents in Faith and Work

Abstract

All roads do not lead to Rome, and despite the wishful thinking of many, all religions do not believe the same thing. To be sure, there is a lot of shared belief among the world’s religions. A global ethic: the declaration of the Parliament of the World’s Religions. London: SCM Press Ltd), particularly in prescriptions for how we ought to live our lives, and what constitutes a good life (Stackhouse ML (1995) Introduction: foundations and purposes. In: ML Stackhouse, DP McCann, SJ Roels, P. N Williams (eds.) On moral business: classical and contemporary resources for ethics in economic life (pp. 10–34). Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. N. Eerdmans Publishing Co). Differences between religions begin to emerge when discussing questions of the culmination of history or end times (eschatology), the aim (or telos) of life, and the cultural manifestations (orthopraxy) of religious beliefs (orthodoxy). This is particularly relevant when considering how religious beliefs, customs, and traditions shape and inform workplace behaviors. Historic and contemporary Protestantism is not monolithic; it has many faces today, shaped in large part by its dialectical development over the centuries between itself and culture (Niebuhr HR (2001) Christ and culture. New York, NY: HarperCollins (Original work published 1951)). We explore the role of Protestant thought on the faith at work movement (Miller D (2007) God at work: the history and promise of the faith at work movement. Oxford: Oxford University Press) by beginning with a brief history of Protestantism, the emergence in North America of Protestant accents concerning a theology of work, followed by a consideration of the limitations and revisions of corresponding contemporary contextual definitions. With this foundation, we denote five primary Protestant theological accents seen today that shape and influence faith at work in the modern workforce. (The authors also wish to thank David Fernandez for his research and editing assistance.)