Religion & Liberty Online Archives

Faith and work

August 08, 2014

Learning To Mourn Amid Work That Wounds

I recently wrote about “wounding work,” a term Lester DeKoster assigns to work that, while meaningful and fruitful, is “cross bearing, self-denying, and life-sacrificing” in deep and profound ways. Take the recent reflections of a former Methodist minister, who, upon shifting from ministry into blue-collar work at a factory, struggled to find meaning and purpose. Continue Reading...
August 07, 2014

G.K. Chesterton on the paradox of Christian exile

In Episode 1 of For the Life of the World, Stephen Grabill and Evan Koons lay the groundwork for viewing Christian cultural engagement through the lens of exile. “We are strangers in a strange land,” Grabill explains, and yet “we are meant to make something of the world.” Continue Reading...
July 15, 2014

Baptists and Wesleyans on Faith and Flourishing

In the latest issue of Faith and Economics, a bi-annual journal from the Association of Christian Economists, Dr. Robert Black reviews two of CLP’s four tradition-specific primers on faith, work, and economics: Chad Brand’s Flourishing Faith (from a Baptist perspective), and David Wright’s How God Makes the World a Better Place (from a Wesleyan perspective). Continue Reading...
July 03, 2014

Beware of Self-Willed Religion

Last week, I wrote about the danger of self-chosen sacrifice, channeling evangelist Oswald Chambers, who warns us to “never decide the place of your own martyrdom.” “Always guard against self-chosen service for God,” he continues. Continue Reading...
July 02, 2014

Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places

In the latest video blog from For the Life of the World, Evan Koons reads a beautiful poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins over some striking visual imagery. Watch it below: Hopkins begins by highlighting the wondrous and mysterious pulse of nature, moving eventually to the acts of we “mortal things,” prone to appease the self, and bent on crying, “Whát I dó is me: for that I came.” Continue Reading...