Review for Ministers-at-Work by Rob Fox July 2004

With all the recent attention on the spirituality of work it is easy to overlook the paucity of studies of the theology of work. The appearance of this book, by an MSE, is noteworthy enough to flag up at the earliest opportunity. I make no apology for reviewing this book unread, and am very grateful to the National Center for the laity, Chicago, for drawing attention to it in the May edition of its newsletter, Initiatives. I also draw on the publicity material from Continuum. The ISBN given is for the US paperback edition, published in April this year, priced $21.95, and available from through the publishers on-line shop at www.continuumbooks.com. UK publication was due in June 2004.

Larive is a retired Episcopalian priest and carpenter, living near Seattle, and he draws on this and his earlier experience as both a University lecturer and Rector of St. James’ Church, Pullman, Washington, to chart out what he sees as challenges and directions for further study in this field. In the Introduction he writes that the book is “meant to be provocative, written with appreciation of what has gone before, together with the hope that more will be studied, discussed written and refined.”

The discussion begins with observations on the ambivalence of organised Christianity towards work. The heart of the book lies in the three following chapters on the relevance of the Trinity to work in the world. It concludes with a meditation on the meaning of ‘good work’ and suggestions for tying together work and Christian ministry.

Along the way Larive endorses the central conviction of the National Center for the Laity that “the best place for the laity to exercise their Christianity is in their occupations.” He continues that the laity are meant to be the core of the church “but in actual practice the laity are the clientele of the ordained. They are [assumed to be] people who need to be nurtured and assisted into a spiritual mode at worship, a social and ecclesiastical mode, and ushered toward heaven in the mode of a flock. The result is a church that is mostly self-absorbed with its own activity … If the church manages to break out of self-absorption and move outward toward the world, it usually does so with counselling and health efforts. The se are very laudable measures, but alas little or nothing is left for … the arena of secular occupations. Yet this is precisely where the most unique gifts lie among the laity. If the church is to look outward toward the world, then this unique gift must be given a place of honor and articulated in the church” Those who work – in paid jobs, in the community, around the home - are, Larive affirms, co-creators and co-redeemers under God. The church too should affirm this.

Continuum describe the book in the following terms: Many people devote themselves to their work. And it is an easy step from there to show that this devotion has a strong religious bent. But does it follow that devotion to work is bending the knee to idolatry, giving service to mammon? This book says no, not necessarily. In many cases human work is co-creative with the Creator. Why, then, is there so little effort to explore the theological dimension of everyday work?

The principal impediment to a proper theological understanding of work is the church's voracious appetite to concentrate everything onto Sunday and its own institutional needs. The kingdom of God gets foreshortened to ecclesiastical boundaries so that the shop floor, the foundry, or the lumberyard and all other places of work are out of bounds. Another impediment keeps the doctrine of the laity too anaemic to possess a creativity of its own. This book lays a positive theological framework for a Christian understanding of work, be it manual, intellectual, service-related or not. It does this chiefly around the doctrine of the Trinity. It then turns to show how this system can underpin an ethics and spirituality of work.