Worth Doing
Worth Doing, W. David Buschart and Ryan Tafilowski. IVP Academic (ISBN: 9781514009482) 2025.
Summary: Addresses unrealistic theologies and ideas of work that do not reckon with our finitude and fallenness.
During seminary, I studied the theology of work. I remember discussions with a good friend who worked on an assembly line at an auto plant. When I talked of the dignity and intrinsic value of work, he wasn’t buying it. As it turns out, I was talking about the world of Genesis 1 and 2, where many of our theologies of work are based. He lived in Genesis 3. He found ways to serve God in his work, but not through the work itself. And he used his earnings to support family and church and pursue mission. But he wasn’t buying my talk of “dignity” and “intrinsic” worth.
Our conversation exemplifies the theme of this book. The authors of this work believe our theologies of work focus heavily on the creational intent of work. Even so, they ignore human finitude, something true of us prior to the fall. More egregiously, most treat lightly the effects of the fall on human work. Instead, we indulge sub-biblical slogans like “You are what you do” and “Do what you love.” We are far more than what we do, and many do not have the option of doing what we love, and none of us does that all the time in work we love.
First of all, they address the idea of creational finitude both more generally and then as it pertains to work. They discuss how finitude is a gift and not a limit and precedes the fall. In work, we are limited in both space and time, including the span of lives in which we work, or work for paid compensation. The chapter includes helpful insights on retirement, challenging the “Bible knows nothing of retirement” narrative.
Then, they turn to our fallenness. They focus on the phenomenology of sin, addressing the conditions it creates: absurdity, enmity, and tragedy. Then they show how this works out in the real world of work. They offer examples of the bad, absurd, enmitous, and even tragic work that is the lot of too many.
The final two chapter explore how we may constructively and realistically engage the world of work, reckoning with our finitude and fallenness. They call this a quotidian theology of work, a theology for the everyday, not the eschatologically ideal, whatever that is. Often, what we achieve in work is the “good enough,” what my friend Steve Garber, calls the proximate. They note how Paul speaks of work as simply a means of support, calling his own work “toil.” The authors also helpfully differentiate work and vocation, often collapsed into the same thing.
In addition, an appendix offers a helpful history of the faith and work movement, including many of the books I read on this over the years. They follow David Millers division of the movement into three waves: 1890-1940, the social gospel; 1946-1985, the rise of lay involvement and parachurch movements; 1985- present, the faith at work era, integrating faith and work. I found that a helpful framework.
More than that, I found the whole book helpful in addressing the lacuna in theologies of work, mine included. We address finitude in spiritual formation, but not in workplace theologies, where we live it out. And the discussion of the ways the fall manifests in work will hopefully prepare the rising generation not to be gob-smacked by the workplaces they encounter. Rather, it is hoped they might be better equipped to engage redemptively. This book is a refreshing, original contribution to the theology of work conversation!
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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.
