Drawn into worship : a biblical ethics of work
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Date
04/07/2014Author
Kidwell, Jeremy
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Abstract
In the 20th-century, the advent of Taylorism led to a radical reconceptualisation in the
organisation of human work. The formal scientifically-conceived aim of increased
“efficiency” behind this project masked the moral and psychological changes which
were also inherent in the project which is still ongoing. Now, at the turn of the 21st
century, given the profusion of corporate scandals and the complicity of
unscrupulous business practice in the current ecological and economic crises,
researchers in a number of fields focused on work and its organisation have begun to
warm to the possible relevance of religious ethics to social responsibility in business
practices, offering some promise for a new rapprochement. In this dissertation, I
offer a close study of the biblical texts that have nourished a moral vision of work for
Christian and Jewish communities. I seek to nuance my study of these texts in
Hebrew and Greek with an agrarian sensibility in order to highlight the moral vision
of human / non-human interaction in the forms of work described and the ecological
sensibility which undergirds this ancient vision of “good work” which is preserved in
these texts.
More specifically, I explore the moral relationship between work and worship
through a close study of two related themes. In Part 1, I begin with a sustained look
at the details of “good work” as narrated in the Tabernacle construction account in
Exodus 25-40. This study of Exodus provides a platform upon which to explore work
themes of volition, design, tacit knowledge, and interaction between the sociality and
agency of work. In subsequent chapters, I go on to analyse subsequent temple
construction accounts in 1 Kings, Jeremiah 22, Isaiah 60, Zechariah 14, 1-2
Chronicles, and across the New Testament. In this deliberately intertextual study, I
attend to the transformation of the meaning of the Tabernacle/Temple across the
Hebrew Scriptures and New Testament, as temple building texts in particular assume
an eschatological aspect. My study of these subsequent construction accounts also
adds nuance and texture to my account of moral making in conversation with several
contemporary theorists, particularly with regards to work agency, aesthetics,
sociality, skill and wisdom, and the material culture of work. This section culminates
with the conclusion that in the New Testament, the church becomes both the product
and the site of moral work building a new “temple”.
Following this conclusion, in Part 2 of the dissertation, I develop a more
detailed account of the relational dynamic between work and worship as it is
delineated in Hebrew and Christian offertory practice. For this study, I turn to close
readings of offertory practices in the Hebrew Scriptures (with special focus on
Leviticus 1-3 and other Pentateuchal offertory texts), the New Testament and early
Christian (1-4c.) moral philosophy. I highlight the relationship between worship and
work in these liturgies and argue that in their practical logic, work is “drawn into
worship.” In particular, I argue that three aspects of offertory practice may provide a
framework for rehabilitating contemporary worship so that it may once again draw
work into a morally formative dynamic. These three aspects correspond to the
material and practised details of specific offerings and include: (1) the relativisation
of utility with the burnt offering (2) the engagement of work quality and aesthetics
through consecratory firstfruits offerings and (3) the sociality of liturgical work with
the shared meal in the peace offering. These texts and the early Christian practices
through which their liturgies were deployed hint at possible avenues for a
rehabilitation of the moral work life of contemporary Christians. I argue that the
proper performance of worship must “draw in” and engage the ordinary work of the
people of God, and that a rehabilitation of offertory practice, particularly in light of
the rich range of practices demonstrated in the Christian tradition offers a promising
place for the reconceptualisation of work.