A debate of unexceptional proportions rages around the casual observer every waking minute. It is a clash of ideals, of reality, of love, of purpose, and of allegiance. The very clothes we wear upon our backs carry with them mangled stories of modern oppression, slavery, and mistreatment. The faces we gaze into while ordering food at neighborhood mainstays and global multinational conglomerates often hold stories of immense poverty and neglect. Our streets are populated by ever-growing populations of homeless men, women, and children, who are often discounted as too lazy to be afforded compassion. Despite its ‘advanced’ artifices, we live in a society replete with grave disparity. Although surrounded by opportunities for compassion, we have grown numb—vacillating between apathy and condescension. The impoverished neighbor has become unexceptional and the better-endowed neighbor has become indifferent.
If we confess rightly, the Christian, not immune to such impulses, often denies his or her obligation to the Gospel—the vital truth that Christ has made all things new through His death and resurrection at the cross—and the resultant Christian work ethic by unsullied indifference. Contrary to some interpretations, the Christian work ethic not only places a moral imperative upon the believer to “work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men,” but also to “remember the poor” and to “not harden your heart or shut your hand against your poor brother” (Col. 3:23; Gal. 2:10; Deut. 15:7). Put differently, the Christian well knows and lauds the calling and work ethic of Colossians 3:23 (working diligently for the Lord) and 2 Thessalonians 3:10 (“If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.”), but little knows nor heeds its dual nature in James 5:1-6. This passage condemns the exploitation of the poor by those in positions of authority, saying, “Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts” (James 5:4). Thus, the Christian work ethic is not alone one’s dedication to working to the glory of God, but also caring well for those under his or her authority and acting with integrity for the same glory of God. This passage and the duality of the Christian work ethic that it exposes have been objects of fascination for some and ignorance—both deliberate and unintentional—for others. If truthful, we often find ourselves more affixed to the latter sentiment than the former. Among many others, the English Puritans, admired by many modern Christians, parsed passages related to labor and their contents fastidiously. Their thoughtful consideration and congregational response which flowed from it do much to inform current theological discourse on Christian
labor and the plight of the poor.
The English Puritans were well known for their emphasis on “well-ordered” lives and labor of the same character [1]. From such a cloth is cut Richard Baxter’s exhortation to, “Be laborious and diligent in your callings … ; and if you cheerfully serve [God] in the labour of your hands, with a heavenly and obedient mind, it will be as acceptable to him as if you had spent all that time in more spiritual exercises” [2]. In such a way, the Puritans “invested labor, through the doctrine of calling, with a high level of corporate purpose” [3]. Thus, if one’s work was done unto God and for His purposes, to partake in any form of idleness was disparaged. In fact, in an English society afflicted with an ever-growing ‘idle poor,’ “Disciplinarian” (as their Anglican opponents dubbed Puritans) writers were not immune to “fear and loathing […] for [what some viewed as] the idle, vagrant, threatening poor” [4]. This contempt and an overemphasis on passages such as those which encourage hearty work led to the conflation of Puritanism with the fiery excoriation of workers and the poor. In fact, some have gone as far as to claim that the Puritans were actively “hostile” or discriminatory to the poor [5]. To be sure, there were those—perhaps many—who did engage in fiery rebukes of the idle poor and even discriminated against those workers whom they disdained. However, such a frame inherently denies the foundational theology upon which the Puritan clergy hung their hats. To have contempt for the idle, the vagrant, and the working poor was tantamount to having contempt upon oneself—for all are bankrupt without Christ’s work in their lives. Further, to loathe the most vulnerable was to deny the very heart of Christ, which bends most eagerly towards all—regardless of labor capacity or socioeconomic status.
Many Puritan writers and preachers rightly identified this inconsistency. Unfortunately, this was not always the case for their congregations—the common believers. They often had little trouble viewing working well and working to the glory of God as central to the Christian work ethic. However, “the theme of love for and compassion towards the common people among English protestant writers [in this period] is a neglected one,” with recent scholarship suggesting that many Puritan followers “filtered out […] the hard things about the spiritual peril of riches, and about the obligation of those with means to do so to give without stint” [6]. Modern Christians, with little appetite for such hard things, have fallen prey to a convenient filtration that bereaves us of the full Christian work ethic as well. Thomas Carew, in a sermon on James 5:1-6, entitled A Caveat for Craftsmen and Clothiers, warns, “ritches beeing gotten by good meanes are the blessing of God […] but the Text shewes that hee speakes of such ritch men as got their ritches euill, and vsed them not well” [7]. Carew writes that the text’s injunction is not against the wealthy, but rather those who use their wealth for ill purposes. In the same way, Carew applies the text to those in positions of authority at the workplace and within the local economy. It is not participation in posts of authority, but the misuse of such status which goes against the very commands of scripture. These have not used their power and headship over labor for the glory of God, but for themselves. To this effect, the Puritan Matthew Henry writes, “The rich we here find employing the poor in their labours, and the rich have as much need of the labours of the poor as the poor have of wages from the rich, and could as ill be without them; but yet, not considering this, they kept back the hire of the labourers; having power in their hands, it is probable that they made as hard bargains with the poor as they could, and even after that would not make good their bargains as they should have done. This is a crying sin, an iniquity that cries so as to reach the ears of God” [8]. Such a tactic, Matthew Poole, another Puritan, urges, actually “taxe[s] here [the poor] with injustice, as well as covetousness, in that they lived upon other men’s labours, and starved the poor to enrich themselves” [9]. Not only is the Christian manager faulted for the usury of the poor, but, according to Henry, for the very lack of consideration throughout the whole affair. Thus, Henry admonishes the Christian in any position of power to, “Take heed of this sin of defrauding and oppressing, and avoid the very appearances of it” [10]. Thus, according to the Puritans, the misuse of those in one’s care is fundamentally contrary to the central moral claims made by the Gospel.
In substantiating their claims, the Puritans do well to turn their audiences to the
commands of Leviticus 19:13, “You shall not oppress your neighbor or rob him. The wages of a hired worker shall not remain with you all night until the morning,” and Deuteronomy 24:14, “You shall not oppress a hired worker who is poor and needy, whether he is one of your brothers or one of the sojourners who are in your land within your towns. You shall give him his wages on the same day, before the sun sets (for he is poor and counts on it), lest he cry against you to the Lord, and you be guilty of sin.” Here, the Puritans rightly extracted that the Christian work ethic not only pertains to the work produced by the ‘hired worker’ but also to the manner in which he is treated, both in wages and otherwise. Thus, the Christian, both Puritan or otherwise, is charged with a critical obligation to the worker entrusted to his care.
Thomas Carew answers as to why he addresses the ‘creeping’ “common injustice” of the clothier in his sermon [11]. It is not that he disparages the clothiers themselves—in fact, these are fundamental to the functioning of the local economy. Rather, one of “the greatest sinnes that in our age hath beene committed in this countrie,” he writes, had been committed by their hand [12]. They had extorted, mistreated, and underpaid their workers and their ears had been nothing but deaf. In the same way, the Christian must not find his or her ears deafened in the face of injustice either at our hands or those that surround us. The moment that happens, the Christian begins to deny the Gospel itself, failing to live in ways that are most glorifying to the Lord and edifying to those around us. Opponents of early Christianity understood this well. The Roman pagan, Diognetus wrote in the mid 100s A.D., “They share their table with all, but not their bed with all. They are poor and make many rich; they are short of everything and yet have plenty of things” [13]. Three hundred years later in the early 400s A.D., the Roman Emperor Julian complained of the Christian faith as being “specially advanced through the loving service rendered to strangers […] It is a scandal that there is not a single Jew who is a beggar, and that the godless Galileans care not only for their own poor but for ours as well; while those who belong to us look in vain for the help that we should render them” [14]. Such care, such “promiscuous [charity]” distinguished the early Christian and should characterize the Christian now—not only to strangers, but particularly to those who have entrusted themselves to our care [15].
The English historian Patrick Collinson’s words, likely intended to possess little
theological weight, should sink deeply into the heart of the reader. He writes with regard to the vacillating Puritan work ethic that, “Exceptional godliness could have interesting if not quite exceptional social consequences” [16]. Much as in the days of English Puritanism, we stand at a precipice of grave consequence—the interesting versus the exceptional. Bygone are the days of an exceptional Christian work ethic, leaving our society in the throes of that which is ultimately interesting, but woefully incomplete. For the Christian, a profound opportunity in working and loving well is found lost. In his or her own pursuits, the Christian is called—from the doldrums of fast food hospitality to the managerial posts of a corporate society—to labor for the glory of God. Just as importantly, whenever he or she is placed in a position of power—as manager, professor, or business owner—the Christian is called to steward those under his authority for the glory of God. The Puritan Thomas Gouge urges that we should “so spiritualize our hearts and affections that we may have heavenly hearts in earthly employments” [17]. Why? “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). After all, in the sterling words of Puritan minister Peter Bulkeley, “If God be God over us, […] he must be over us in every thing” [18].
Endnotes
- Leland Ryken, “The Original Puritan Work Ethic,” Christian History Magazine,
(Christian History Institute, 2006),
https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/article/original-puritan-work-ethic. - Ibid.
- Mark Valeri, “Religious Discipline and the Market: Puritans and the Issue of Usury,” The
William and Mary Quarterly, vol. 54, no. 4, 1997, JSTOR,
https://doi.org/10.2307/2953881, 750. - Ibid, 754; and Patrick Collinson, “Puritanism and the Poor,” Pragmatic Utopias: Ideals
and Communities, 1200–1630, edited by Rosemary Horrox and Sarah Rees Jones,
(Cambridge University Press, 2001), EBSCOhost,
https://search-ebscohost-com.proxy.library.vanderbilt.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=e0
00xna&AN=112463&site=ehost-live&scope=site, 245. - Eamon Duffy, “The Godly and the Multitude in Stuart England,” The Seventeenth
Century, vol. 1, no. 1, 1986, ProQuest,
https://www.proquest.com/docview/1300238914?accountid=14816&imgSeq=3&parentS
essionId=yt5YX6uw%2BTnwdZKVIHvjviX1tiInq2QQfhou9uxNo8c%3D&pq-origsite=
primo, 32. - Ibid, 33; and Patrick Collinson, “Puritanism and the Poor,” Pragmatic Utopias: Ideals and
Communities, 1200–1630, edited by Rosemary Horrox and Sarah Rees Jones,
(Cambridge University Press, 2001), EBSCOhost,
https://search-ebscohost-com.proxy.library.vanderbilt.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=e0
00xna&AN=112463&site=ehost-live&scope=site, 242. - Thomas Carew, Certaine Godly and Necessarie Sermons, Preached by M. Thomas Carew
of Bilston in the Countie of Suffolke, (R. Read for George Potter, 1603), Early English
Books Online Text Creation Partnership, 2011,
http://name.umdl.umich.edu/B11962.0001.001. - Matthew Henry, Matthew Henry Commentary on the Whole Bible (Complete), Vol. 6,
1706, Bible Study Tools,
www.biblestudytools.com/commentaries/matthew-henry-complete/. - Matthew Poole, A Commentary on the Holy Bible, Vol. 3, 1685, Bíblia Plus,
https://www.bibliaplus.org/en/commentaries/150/matthew-pooles-concise-commentary-o
n-the-bible/james/5/4. - Matthew Henry, Matthew Henry Commentary on the Whole Bible (Complete), Vol. 6,
1706, Bible Study Tools,
www.biblestudytools.com/commentaries/matthew-henry-complete/. - Thomas Carew, Certaine Godly and Necessarie Sermons, Preached by M. Thomas Carew
of Bilston in the Countie of Suffolke, (R. Read for George Potter, 1603), Early English
Books Online Text Creation Partnership, 2011,
http://name.umdl.umich.edu/B11962.0001.001. - Ibid.
- Tim Keller, “The Gospel and Giving,” Redeemer Report, (Redeemer Churches &
Ministries, Dec. 2019),
https://www.redeemer.com/redeemer-report/article/the_gospel_and_giving. - John Piper, Inspired by the Incredible Early Church, (Desiring God, 6 Apr. 1994),
https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/inspired-by-the-incredible-early-church. - Tim Keller, “The Gospel and Giving,” Redeemer Report, (Redeemer Churches &
Ministries, Dec. 2019),
https://www.redeemer.com/redeemer-report/article/the_gospel_and_giving. - Patrick Collinson, “Puritanism and the Poor,” Pragmatic Utopias: Ideals and
Communities, 1200–1630, edited by Rosemary Horrox and Sarah Rees Jones,
(Cambridge University Press, 2001), EBSCOhost,
https://search-ebscohost-com.proxy.library.vanderbilt.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=e0
00xna&AN=112463&site=ehost-live&scope=site, 243. - (Leland Ryken, “The Original Puritan Work Ethic,” Christian History Magazine,
(Christian History Institute, 2006),
https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/article/original-puritan-work-ethic. - Ibid.