For many Christian Labor Association of Canada supporters this is the most common as well as most-revered of all truisms: “Life is religion.” We love the very sound of this pithy, punchy saying, and we love to see the effect which its implications and applications have on life. For we believe that life on this North American continent will never be the same because a few re-discovered its vision and dared to hold it aloft on its banners.
It was not a new discovery.
It has been around “from the beginning” when God created the heavens and the earth. It was the great issue when Adam and Eve faced their initial crisis and their undying enemy, the Evil One. It was the great re-instatement when God gave a hopeless race the assurance of the Mother Promise (Gen. 3:15). Over and again in the time of the Old Covenant the people of the Promise find themselves re-instated into God’s favour as they relearn the simple lesson of Gen. 1:1, that lesson which always adds up to this: Creaturely life is religion.
The great point of departure for us in this program of re-discoveries is the Reformation which God wrought by way of such as Martin Luther and John Calvin in the 16th century. Theirs was the world of the Middle Ages. A popular description of its character might be to say that it was a world fashioned upon the distinction between the sacred and the secular. Man’s work in that world was so distinguished. A sacred calling or profession (such as the priesthood in the church) was not only a high or important work, it was also regarded as indispensable. It represented the true service of God, a life of total devotion and self-sacrifice, an existence which usually demanded something like the regimented program of worship, meditation and hard labor found in the cloister.
And then there were the common people. These lacked the faith, the conviction, the strength to pursue the self-sacrificing life assigned to the religious. It was their lot, therefore, to butcher the animals, man the armies, drive the ox-carts, or, if they were fortunate, to rule or to play. All such effort was really the lot of the weak, and to get such into the Kingdom of Heaven the religious or the spiritual took it upon themselves to intercede by means of prayer and good works.
The Reformation challenged this world, and won! Luther cried, “What you do in your house is worth as much as if you did it up in heaven for our Lord God. For what we do in our calling here on earth in accordance with his Word and command he counts as if it were done in heaven for him. Therefore we should accustom ourselves to think of our position and work as sacred and well-pleasing to God, not on account of the position and the work, but on account of the Word and faith from which the obedience and work flow. No Christian should despise his position and life if he is living in accordance with the Word of God—that is a right and holy life, and cannot be made holier even if one fast himself to death.”
Calvin, too, pointed out that it was not necessary to enter a monastery to serve God, for the whole world was God’s monastery. God’s man could only serve his God within the world. This could be an ascetic life in the sense that it might involve discipline and self-denial, but it was what Ernst Troeltsch called “intra-mundane asceticism,” that is, a disciplined life lived to God’s glory in the world. It was not only unnecessary, it was in fact impossible to leave the world in order to serve God. The place, the only place for New Testament believers in this life to serve God was precisely in the midst of this world which he created and his Son redeemed as a dwelling place for his people.
Out of this vision came a new world. It was no longer the world of the two-story house with an upstairs full of prayer closets and a downstairs for the kitchen, servants’ quarters, living room and recreation room. It was a ranch house, all on one floor, with the whole family of God living and working and worshipping together in the service of the King.
Life in a Secularized World
The heroism of the Luthers and the Calvins is not to be minimized! And yet I wonder if we recognize the fact that the situation in today’s Western world is much more difficult and will require even greater courage if the “life is religion” principle is to be honored by faithful application in all spheres of life. What is today’s situation?
Unlike the Middle Ages, modern man does not see life as related to the God of the Scriptures. The contest today is not between Romanist and Protestant. Harvey Cox in his important book. The Secular City, says something which might give us a taste of the flavor of today’s world:
Secularization simply by-passes and under-cuts religion and goes on to other things. It has relativized religious world-views and thus rendered them innocuous. Religion has been privatized.
It has been accepted as the peculiar prerogative and point-of-view of a particular person or group.
Secularization has accomplished what fire and chain could not. It has convinced the believer that he could be wrong, and persuaded the devotee that there are more important things than dying for the faith.
If Cox is saying anything he is saying that we are called of God to affirm his primary relevance and importance in a time when this message is no longer considered to be something that really matters. We are spinning our wheels on the icy streets of the secular city, and although our motor is racing and our wheels are whining, we make no progress. For we are outmoded, old-fashioned, hide-bound traditionalists, and ridiculous. Of course it is really unnecessary for me to add that this is intolerable for a Protestant Christian with any kind of reformational spirit. He’d rather be shot!
The Temper of the Times
So it’s a hard, cold world in which we live. A world which shows in a thousand ways the soul-chilling and soul-killing effect of modern secularization. A world without much regard or respect for the traditional, historic Christian Faith.
But we won’t and can’t quit. And so we plunge on to ask. “What is the temper, the mood, the atmosphere of this Age?” A partial answer is all we could possibly muster, of course, but maybe something will be better than nothing. Here goes: this Age is marked by occupational boredom, by occupational apprehension, and by moral despair.
The occupational boredom of today’s worker is traceable to the Industrial Revolution. In the 16th Century it was perhaps plausible to suggest that a man turn his work bench into an altar, but today this is absurd. Instead of a skilled tradesman at a bench we find now a workman sitting or standing before a moving belt, repeating a certain flick of his wrist 32 times a minute, 1920 times an hour, 15,360 times in an 8-hour day. He never sees the finished product, and seldom sees just how his wrist-flicking operation is related to all the other tasks involved in creating that finished product. To that man we must say, “Glorify God in your calling,” but we know that these words must ring hollow in his ears.
Occupational boredom is a soul-destroying feature of modern life for countless thousands of factory employees. The mood of the bored is easily recognized in the bitterness of the modern strike, carried out often even though the net profit of wage increases and other benefits will never catch up with the time lost by striking.
Not only has there been an Industrial Revolution since the days of the 16th century Reformation, there has been an Atomic Revolution as well. Its significance can be demonstrated readily if we think of the potential disaster resulting from “the dropping of the bomb.” How shall we counsel our bright young men doing research in physics and related disciplines when they are troubled by the possibilities their findings create, possibilities so horrible as to beggar description? Shall we glibly say, Don’t be concerned about these things since yours is only to glorify God in your calling? Hardly!
The deep anguish of occupational boredom and occupational apprehension comes today at a time when man’s moral moorings are all but lost. And the depth of this predicament is appreciated only if we see that much of its modern expression in the form of riot and rebellion is a reaction to a church without a message and to Christians without integrity. ]t is despair which moves men to make such shocking pronouncements as “God is dead” and “the Moral Law is rot.”
But what could we expect of people who see no sense in their daily vocations except a pay check? of people who can only wonder just when the next Great War will erupt with atomic fury? of a people whose Christian foundations have long been undermined by the disappointments of an optimistic modernism and the discouragements of a brilliant but deathly irrationalism?
A Few Suggestions
The CLAC is evidence that there is a way to live that right kind of religious life now. If I’m not mistaken, inherent in the kind of action which the Christians of our CLAC are taking is the answer to the problem raised by this article. We sec four things here:
(1) It calls us to be re-dedicated to the truth that the Christian must work out his own salvation by obedient and responsible involvement in the difficulties and tasks found within the world rather than by retreat from the world. Our world is God’s world! It is never enough, therefore, simply to attack the inequities and injustices of this time. Even the enormous pressure of modern social ills may not give us excuse to deal with them except in terms of God, and in recognition of the fact that they are evils in his world, and must be analyzed and uprooted for his sake.
(2) It calls upon the church to rethink its message and its role in such a time as this. We all know that church and CLAC, for example, are not identical. But we all know as well that if the one suffers the other does too. Communal Christian living in any age is almost impossible apart from the fearless testimony of a church that dares to prophesy. Easy membership in an easy church is no answer to the cry of the hippie and the yippie, no answer to the anguish of the age. We need a vision of church membership which sees it as the basis of our existence, and a vision of Christian calling which sees it as something supported by a communion and companionship which goes with us everywhere.
(3) It implies that man’s daily work is a very serious responsibility, and that the Reformers’ assumption that God can be served in any kind of job requires fresh analysis in our time. We cannot use the sickly distinction between “full-time” and “part-time” Christian service, I know. But can we really encourage Christians to accept just any kind of work? Ought we to be engaged in the manufacture of useless things? of dangerous things? Can we lightly dismiss the fact that there is a general decline in the number of candidates for the Gospel ministry in the churches of our continent? This is not to suggest that we can despise anyone engaged in any worthwhile occupation, but is any occupation worthwhile for a Christian? May we accept a job for its own sake, and accept the premise that work is just to make a (financial) living?
(4) In line with the spirit of the Reformers and in complete endorsement of “the priesthood of all believers,” it says that we ought to seek effective cooperation between believers in all vocations in today’s world. How we need to restore a high level of spiritual communion in all humility between Christian scientists, theologians, sociologists, trade union leaders, farmers, department store clerks, etc. What does the Bible say about automation, bureaucracy, depersonalization, competition, the soil-bank, etc.? Together believers could produce many answers. To that end the work of the Christian Action Foundation seems most promising! To that end the CLAC stands ready with competence and experience to render a very valuable service.
In other words, if two or three gather in his Name he will be in their midst, and his presence and his guidance will make it impossible for the gates of a secularized world to prevail against them!
Rev. John H. Piersma is pastor of the First Christian Reformed Church, Pella, Iowa.
It was not a new discovery.
It has been around “from the beginning” when God created the heavens and the earth. It was the great issue when Adam and Eve faced their initial crisis and their undying enemy, the Evil One. It was the great re-instatement when God gave a hopeless race the assurance of the Mother Promise (Gen. 3:15). Over and again in the time of the Old Covenant the people of the Promise find themselves re-instated into God’s favour as they relearn the simple lesson of Gen. 1:1, that lesson which always adds up to this: Creaturely life is religion.
The great point of departure for us in this program of re-discoveries is the Reformation which God wrought by way of such as Martin Luther and John Calvin in the 16th century. Theirs was the world of the Middle Ages. A popular description of its character might be to say that it was a world fashioned upon the distinction between the sacred and the secular. Man’s work in that world was so distinguished. A sacred calling or profession (such as the priesthood in the church) was not only a high or important work, it was also regarded as indispensable. It represented the true service of God, a life of total devotion and self-sacrifice, an existence which usually demanded something like the regimented program of worship, meditation and hard labor found in the cloister.
And then there were the common people. These lacked the faith, the conviction, the strength to pursue the self-sacrificing life assigned to the religious. It was their lot, therefore, to butcher the animals, man the armies, drive the ox-carts, or, if they were fortunate, to rule or to play. All such effort was really the lot of the weak, and to get such into the Kingdom of Heaven the religious or the spiritual took it upon themselves to intercede by means of prayer and good works.
The Reformation challenged this world, and won! Luther cried, “What you do in your house is worth as much as if you did it up in heaven for our Lord God. For what we do in our calling here on earth in accordance with his Word and command he counts as if it were done in heaven for him. Therefore we should accustom ourselves to think of our position and work as sacred and well-pleasing to God, not on account of the position and the work, but on account of the Word and faith from which the obedience and work flow. No Christian should despise his position and life if he is living in accordance with the Word of God—that is a right and holy life, and cannot be made holier even if one fast himself to death.”
Calvin, too, pointed out that it was not necessary to enter a monastery to serve God, for the whole world was God’s monastery. God’s man could only serve his God within the world. This could be an ascetic life in the sense that it might involve discipline and self-denial, but it was what Ernst Troeltsch called “intra-mundane asceticism,” that is, a disciplined life lived to God’s glory in the world. It was not only unnecessary, it was in fact impossible to leave the world in order to serve God. The place, the only place for New Testament believers in this life to serve God was precisely in the midst of this world which he created and his Son redeemed as a dwelling place for his people.
Out of this vision came a new world. It was no longer the world of the two-story house with an upstairs full of prayer closets and a downstairs for the kitchen, servants’ quarters, living room and recreation room. It was a ranch house, all on one floor, with the whole family of God living and working and worshipping together in the service of the King.
Life in a Secularized World
The heroism of the Luthers and the Calvins is not to be minimized! And yet I wonder if we recognize the fact that the situation in today’s Western world is much more difficult and will require even greater courage if the “life is religion” principle is to be honored by faithful application in all spheres of life. What is today’s situation?
Unlike the Middle Ages, modern man does not see life as related to the God of the Scriptures. The contest today is not between Romanist and Protestant. Harvey Cox in his important book. The Secular City, says something which might give us a taste of the flavor of today’s world:
Secularization simply by-passes and under-cuts religion and goes on to other things. It has relativized religious world-views and thus rendered them innocuous. Religion has been privatized.
It has been accepted as the peculiar prerogative and point-of-view of a particular person or group.
Secularization has accomplished what fire and chain could not. It has convinced the believer that he could be wrong, and persuaded the devotee that there are more important things than dying for the faith.
If Cox is saying anything he is saying that we are called of God to affirm his primary relevance and importance in a time when this message is no longer considered to be something that really matters. We are spinning our wheels on the icy streets of the secular city, and although our motor is racing and our wheels are whining, we make no progress. For we are outmoded, old-fashioned, hide-bound traditionalists, and ridiculous. Of course it is really unnecessary for me to add that this is intolerable for a Protestant Christian with any kind of reformational spirit. He’d rather be shot!
The Temper of the Times
So it’s a hard, cold world in which we live. A world which shows in a thousand ways the soul-chilling and soul-killing effect of modern secularization. A world without much regard or respect for the traditional, historic Christian Faith.
But we won’t and can’t quit. And so we plunge on to ask. “What is the temper, the mood, the atmosphere of this Age?” A partial answer is all we could possibly muster, of course, but maybe something will be better than nothing. Here goes: this Age is marked by occupational boredom, by occupational apprehension, and by moral despair.
The occupational boredom of today’s worker is traceable to the Industrial Revolution. In the 16th Century it was perhaps plausible to suggest that a man turn his work bench into an altar, but today this is absurd. Instead of a skilled tradesman at a bench we find now a workman sitting or standing before a moving belt, repeating a certain flick of his wrist 32 times a minute, 1920 times an hour, 15,360 times in an 8-hour day. He never sees the finished product, and seldom sees just how his wrist-flicking operation is related to all the other tasks involved in creating that finished product. To that man we must say, “Glorify God in your calling,” but we know that these words must ring hollow in his ears.
Occupational boredom is a soul-destroying feature of modern life for countless thousands of factory employees. The mood of the bored is easily recognized in the bitterness of the modern strike, carried out often even though the net profit of wage increases and other benefits will never catch up with the time lost by striking.
Not only has there been an Industrial Revolution since the days of the 16th century Reformation, there has been an Atomic Revolution as well. Its significance can be demonstrated readily if we think of the potential disaster resulting from “the dropping of the bomb.” How shall we counsel our bright young men doing research in physics and related disciplines when they are troubled by the possibilities their findings create, possibilities so horrible as to beggar description? Shall we glibly say, Don’t be concerned about these things since yours is only to glorify God in your calling? Hardly!
The deep anguish of occupational boredom and occupational apprehension comes today at a time when man’s moral moorings are all but lost. And the depth of this predicament is appreciated only if we see that much of its modern expression in the form of riot and rebellion is a reaction to a church without a message and to Christians without integrity. ]t is despair which moves men to make such shocking pronouncements as “God is dead” and “the Moral Law is rot.”
But what could we expect of people who see no sense in their daily vocations except a pay check? of people who can only wonder just when the next Great War will erupt with atomic fury? of a people whose Christian foundations have long been undermined by the disappointments of an optimistic modernism and the discouragements of a brilliant but deathly irrationalism?
A Few Suggestions
The CLAC is evidence that there is a way to live that right kind of religious life now. If I’m not mistaken, inherent in the kind of action which the Christians of our CLAC are taking is the answer to the problem raised by this article. We sec four things here:
(1) It calls us to be re-dedicated to the truth that the Christian must work out his own salvation by obedient and responsible involvement in the difficulties and tasks found within the world rather than by retreat from the world. Our world is God’s world! It is never enough, therefore, simply to attack the inequities and injustices of this time. Even the enormous pressure of modern social ills may not give us excuse to deal with them except in terms of God, and in recognition of the fact that they are evils in his world, and must be analyzed and uprooted for his sake.
(2) It calls upon the church to rethink its message and its role in such a time as this. We all know that church and CLAC, for example, are not identical. But we all know as well that if the one suffers the other does too. Communal Christian living in any age is almost impossible apart from the fearless testimony of a church that dares to prophesy. Easy membership in an easy church is no answer to the cry of the hippie and the yippie, no answer to the anguish of the age. We need a vision of church membership which sees it as the basis of our existence, and a vision of Christian calling which sees it as something supported by a communion and companionship which goes with us everywhere.
(3) It implies that man’s daily work is a very serious responsibility, and that the Reformers’ assumption that God can be served in any kind of job requires fresh analysis in our time. We cannot use the sickly distinction between “full-time” and “part-time” Christian service, I know. But can we really encourage Christians to accept just any kind of work? Ought we to be engaged in the manufacture of useless things? of dangerous things? Can we lightly dismiss the fact that there is a general decline in the number of candidates for the Gospel ministry in the churches of our continent? This is not to suggest that we can despise anyone engaged in any worthwhile occupation, but is any occupation worthwhile for a Christian? May we accept a job for its own sake, and accept the premise that work is just to make a (financial) living?
(4) In line with the spirit of the Reformers and in complete endorsement of “the priesthood of all believers,” it says that we ought to seek effective cooperation between believers in all vocations in today’s world. How we need to restore a high level of spiritual communion in all humility between Christian scientists, theologians, sociologists, trade union leaders, farmers, department store clerks, etc. What does the Bible say about automation, bureaucracy, depersonalization, competition, the soil-bank, etc.? Together believers could produce many answers. To that end the work of the Christian Action Foundation seems most promising! To that end the CLAC stands ready with competence and experience to render a very valuable service.
In other words, if two or three gather in his Name he will be in their midst, and his presence and his guidance will make it impossible for the gates of a secularized world to prevail against them!
Rev. John H. Piersma is pastor of the First Christian Reformed Church, Pella, Iowa.