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Literature Review on Topic 3: Workplace Issues

Johnson (ref 099) sees the PSE identifying with the work people experiencing the same contention taking blame carrying anxieties being among those needing forgiveness and releasing him/herself with compassion as well as the institution organisation or system.

Nevertheless that institution organisation or system may operate in a harshly competitive environment (ref 040) which inhibits Christian contact at the particular point of need and acts to disconnect people from God while performing work functions. A sensitive reading of the Dilbert cartoon (ref 123) reveals a great deal about the environment in which our service-industry workers (two-thirds of us) spend their 40 hours a week. For them Dilbert is not comedy but documentary.

Here is the bite of being a priest 'in secular employment'. PSEs as employees work at the employer's premises or a place the employer specifies are paid a set rate and work set hours or a given number of hours weekly or monthly (ref 060) . They are constrained to accept limiting conditions of time venue duration and work intensity (ref 054) that may not be to their liking or conducive to their Christian ministry. They are not free to choose these intruding aspects of their work since they are under contract to perform certain things and their work is instrumental to some other goal.

It is the constraints of employment which set PSEs apart from retired persons and unconstrained occupational workers who may be free to choose the time the venue the duration and the intensity of their work activity. It also sets them apart from the self-employed -- defined by the IRD (ref 060) as workers whose routine and timeframe are usually not controlled by others and who may hire others to do the work -- so in Marxist terms PSEs are proletarian by definition (ref 139) . It is no accident that in CHRISM's list (ref 041) of 50 theological questions the PSE needs to address 37 of them directly reference the workplace constraints within which the secularly employed person exercises their ministry.

The most positive aspect of all this is emphasised by Davis (ref 082) : that exemplary performance on the job is a prerequisite for a ministry in secular employment. Bickers (ref 086) agrees and provides scriptural support for his contention.
  1. energy - 2 Thess 3:6
  2. enthusiasm - Col 3:23
  3. wholeheartedness - Eph. 6:5-8
  4. excellence - Prov. 22:29
Adrian Furnham (ref 068) addresses the role of the work ethic in economic development the importance of work values in non-work activities and the morality of attempting to manipulate work values. Claiming the centrality of work in the Christian ethic Furnham quotes Barclay (1972) in identifying four themes:
  1. our work is what we are and where we are
  2. there is no better test of a person than the way they work
  3. the test of a person is whether they deserve their pay
  4. work should be seen as a contribution to the community as a whole.
In this Barclay is articulating the principles of the Protestant Work Ethic (ref 072) (ref 073) and the proposition -- deeply embedded in the value-systems of our day -- that for most people work is the most highly valued activity (ref 074) .

The obverse of this is that Christian ethics stress the right of a person to work a living wage and reasonable working conditions. (ref 075) The non-economic benefits of work to the worker - the latent functions of work - identified by Jahoda (ref 070) :
  1. Work structures time.
  2. Work provides regularly shared experiences.
  3. Work provides experience of creativity mastery and a sense of purpose.
  4. Work is a source of personal status and identity.
  5. Work is a source of activity."


The business world does have its own spirituality. Its spiritual values include integrity honesty accountability quality cooperation service intuition trustworthiness respect justice and service. (ref 093) Laura Nash identifies tensions (ref 149) between personal faith and seven basic elements of capitalism -
  1. Love for God/the pursuit of profit (the need to serve two masters)
  2. Concern for people/the competitive drive
  3. Care for employees/profit obligations
  4. Humility/the self-importance of success
  5. Family/work
  6. Charity/wealth
  7. Being God's agents in the secular city
She observes three different responses to these tensions -
  1. The generalist - who never gets down to specific examples so denies there's any real tension here.
  2. The justifier - who generally assumes that the business side of the equation is supported by the faith side anyway so there is no real ethical conflict.
  3. The seeker - who is acutely aware that there are points where the concerns of faith and business conflict so expects to struggle with difficult choices in order to do what is right.
PSEs we may imagine will idenitify with the seeker response. Nevertheless the PSE inhabits a different reality from that of secular discourse as Fox (ref 089) reminds us. Robson echoes this (ref 083) when she sees a need for the PSE on occasion to resist workplace authority to act out their belief and conviction by getting alongside those who are invloved and speaking in terms that the hearers can understand. Being a prophet is very much part of the tradition of what it is to be an ordained minister.

Davis grounds the PSE's ministry in the local congregation (ref 082) forming part of that congregation's missionary endeavour. Mackenzie agrees calling Christian workers 'the largest mission force that the church has' (ref 040) and bemoaning that churches do so little to equip and support Christians for their life in the workplace. This he sees as a major deterrent to church involvement for New Zealanders now find church irrelevant to their faith and life. Going to church does not connect with their work family world concerns or even their personal spiritual walk (ref 042) . Johnson concurs in this view seeing a particular place for the PSE as an ordained person (ref 099) claiming that the PSE's ministry shows the people that their workplace has within it an authorised presence of the Church. Johnson even suggests that liturgies may arise within the structure and organisation of the institution around rituals of promotion retirement celebration. Such authorisation will prove critical if secular spirituality -- which does not leave room for authority to exercise supervision of faith (ref 066) -- is to influence the Church's theology and be seen as no enemy of the Church.

The famous experiment with worker-priests in France (ref 014) (ref 015) (ref 034) (ref 035) (ref 061) aimed to 're-christianise the working class'. Vaughan (ref 012) says that social context and pastoral necessities there were unique enough that the model cannot be exported even to England. Reading their history from a kiwi viewpoint leads to similar conclusions for New Zealand. For many decades we cherished the myth of a classless society which made it difficult to identify any 'working class' who might be 're-christianised'. In any case conditions here make it difficult for a stable proletariat (ref 140) to emerge and be recognised as a target for mission. Our workplaces are small by international standards -- fewer than fifty employees in the main -- and a high proportion of those who actually engage in productive activity are self-employed (ref 120) . Our unions are small and weak and the last two decades have seen the rise of the 'portfolio worker' (ref 119) for whom the workplace is just a skills market and offers no solidarity of any kind much less membership of a social class.

Where the Church may have a new opportunity for ministry is be among the abovementioned portfolio workers. They defy classification in the Marxist manner (ref 140) and will slip through any demographic trawl. Yet the comment has been offered by one who should know (ref 119) that in these times in which uncertainty of employment is endemic portfolio workers may seek the consolations of religion as a stabilising influence in their chaotic lives. Anglicans have an opportunity here and the PSE may prove to be helpful or harmful to that ministry. Two questions will need to be resolved:
  1. will the definition of a PSE need to be modified to allow PSEs periods in and out of employment -- to become portfolio workers themselves
  2. what to do about New Zealand Anglicanism's ties to the hundred families (ref 120) who direct this country's business affairs ?

Head reference for 012 014 015 034 035 040 041 042 054 060 061 066 068 070 072 073 074 075 077 082 083 086 089 090 091 093 099 107 119 120 139 140 149