by David Shaw
“If you work hard, you’ll succeed.” “If you put in the time, God will reward your efforts.” “God loves a hard worker”. These are all sayings that we’ve probably heard at least once in our life, and they’re all used to motivate us to continue to put in just a little bit more time, energy, or effort into our jobs because with just a few more inches of effort we’ll hit gold. We’ve been taught from a young age about the importance of hard work, of finding a job and being successful at it as the keys to wealth and prosperity, and that God wants that for us. The problem with this line of thinking is that this isn’t a universal experience, and depending on when and where you were born, what skin color you have, your gender or sexual expression, your physical or mental abilities, or how much money is in your parents bank account, the “hard work = success” equation isn’t true at all.
While this may be a reality we must accept in the secular world, the capitalistic contradiction has found its way into religion, particularly the American brand of Christianity. The effect that it has had on Christians for generations are present but they aren’t mentioned nearly enough, because for many it’s seen as Christian belief functioning normally. However, the truth is that there is nothing normal about a belief which creates a mindset that contradicts the teachings of the religion. If you want proof of this, ask yourself the question “what is my purpose in life?”
The purpose of life is a complicated and long question. Thousands of years of philosophy have gone by and we still don’t have an answer that can apply to all humans across time. Religions have attempted to wrestle with this question too, and have produced their own answers which are accepted by their believers as the true answer. Christianity’s answer to the question can be found all over the Bible, sometimes explicit and sometimes alluded too. The most accepted answer to the question was said by none other than Jesus himself in Matthew 22:36-40. Every other answer given in the Bible revolve around this “love God and love your neighbor as yourself” theme. So to put it simply, our purpose in life is to love God and love each other.
But for many Christians, that answer isn’t satisfactory. If it was satisfactory then there wouldn’t be an entire industry of Christian self-help books dedicated to help Christian’s “find God’s purpose for their life”. If Christians believed such a simple answer as “love God and love each other” was truly their purpose in life, then Rick Warren’s “Purpose Driven Life” wouldn’t be one of the best selling books of all time. The reason that these books exist is because Christians don’t truly accept “love God and love each other” as their purpose in life, and they don’t accept this answer because “what’s my purpose in life” isn’t really the question they are asking.
The question Christians, and most people in a capitalist society, really mean when they ask “what is my purpose” is “what job/career should I have”. This is because for our entire lives we have been taught and conditioned to believe that our purpose in life is to find a job to work and be successful at until we’re able to retire. We are conditioned to believe that our lives only have meaning or purpose when we’re working. Capitalism has tainted our idea of purpose. When we become uncomfortable in our jobs, when we aren’t getting adequate pay, when the job isn’t making us happy, or when we find ourselves unemployed for a period of time, many Christians find themselves going down the “what is my purpose” rabbit hole. And where do many Christian’s turn to? To sermons, seminars, devotionals, and “God’s purpose for your life” books. All of the “find God’s purpose” outlets are popular because they teach how to be comfortable with our place within, or better yet survive in spite of, capitalism. And all it takes is a “change in mindset” or a “spiritual shift in our worldview”, or any religious code phrase for “see your current suffering as a test from God that we must overcome.”
But how did we get to this point? How did our idea of purpose become so twisted? There are three parts that have aided in correlating work and purpose. The youngest part is the American Dream. The idea that anyone who works hard will succeed. We already know that this isn’t true for everyone, and anyone that isn’t a white, Christian, able-bodied, straight, cis-gendered male will face more difficulty and their “success” will be less than if they fit the mold. But even knowing this, the dream is still pushed by marginalized communities that are searching for salvation from their oppression through capitalistic means.
The next part of the puzzle is the “Protestant work ethic” which is the foundation of the American Dream. The Protestant work ethic was a name given for a phenomenon that had been going on for almost a thousand years, in which Christianity was contributing to the growth of capitalism through its teaching. The teaching in question was about predestination, particularly “how would one know if they were saved”. The answer: “if you are rich, take that as a sign that God picked you to get into heaven”. But what if you’re poor? Then if you work hard enough, your work ethic will be a sign that you’ll make it into heaven. This thinking would be the catalyst for greed and inequality. Business owners would cut corners and lower wages to increase their own profits, and in turn the employees worked harder just to make ends meet. But on the bright side, both groups could rest assured that they would make it into heaven based on nothing other than capitalistic exploitation. This was the underlying thought process of the Christian capitalist world, which venerated the rich and pressed the poor to enjoy their suffering. This was so accepted, that when union organizers or communists threatened the capitalist idea of work, they were labeled as atheists, because if you don’t believe in capitalism you must not believe in God.
The final piece of the puzzle begins even farther back in time, thousands of years in the past in fact. This piece is the idea of “divine reward and punishment”. Divine reward and punishment are easy concepts to grasp. “If you do something God/the gods like, then you’ll be rewarded. But if you do something God/the gods don’t like, then you’ll be punished”. How strong is this thinking really? Imagine you’re a Bronze Age hardworking farmer that diligently takes care of their crops. God/the gods will reward your hard work, and come harvest time your harvest will be bountiful. But now imagine you’re a lazy farmer that doesn’t care to their fields. God/the gods will punish your laziness with a bad harvest. Obviously, this kind of thinking ignores real world conditions. What if I’m a hard worker but the soil was bad there was a famine, will the gods still punish me? Or what if I’m not that diligent but the soil is excellent and there were favorable rains, are the gods still blessing me?
This “good human action = divine reward” and “bad human action = divine punishment” thinking can fit to almost an scenario. Any human action could be perceived as good or bad and anything could be perceived as divine reward or punishment. Maybe being a hardworking farmer wasn’t what the gods were judging us by. Maybe it’s if we treat our family with respect, or if we pay our tithes, or if we give honor to the monarch, or if we worshipped the right god in the right way, or it may be all of the above. What if the gods didn’t reward us with a good harvest, they just sent a lot of rain, or they didn’t allow our country to be invaded, or maybe they allowed our army to conquer another country. We can mix and match any good or bad human action with any perceived divine action it will make perfect sense, as long as we ignore all other material possibilities.
Because the possibilities of “divine reward and punishment” are endless, it was incredibly easy for human beings to make anything fit its structure regardless of how much harm it produced. This was exploited by those with political, economic, and religious power to keep the lower classes in line. When those in power began to acquire and hoard more and more wealth through feudalism leaving less resources for those below them on the social ladder, the foundation of the“Protestant work ethic” was set. As feudalism evolved into capitalism, those of the lower classes that struggled to make enough money to survive were assured that if they just worked hard they could make it into heaven. All the while the rich lived in comfort, not having to worry about their salvation at all as their wealth was their ticket into the pearly gates. Later on in the United States, those in power spread that same message but changed it to match an ever-growing secular rhetoric. Instead of heaven/hell being the divine reward/punishment for our amount of work, it was now success or failure, ignoring the conditions many people live through and the multiple oppressions they may face. Just like the only escape that many had from their oppression a millennia ago was their belief that they might make it into heaven, many today believe that their only escape from their oppression is to be successful. And it is this capitalist idea of “being successful” that has become the purpose of our lives.
Is there a way to solve the capitalist problem within Christianity in regards to purpose? Even at my most optimistic, my best answer is “maybe”. While individual people can come to the realization that God’s purpose for their life has nothing to do with a job or a career but has everything to do with faith and how we treat other people, there are more factors at work. As a whole, Christianity has survived by becoming a valuable tools to those in power to control the lower classes, this is undeniable. If Christian institutions were to make a real effort to make their members see that their purpose is to love God and love each other rather than stressing over work, who knows how the political and economic powers would react. Without diving into speculation, it would take a wholistic effort to untangle capitalism from Christianity, as their are too many variables at play that reinforce the relationship. Without total effort, a true solution may be hopeless. Even still, it would be a greater comfort for the oppressed and lower classes to come to the realization that God’s purpose for them is to beings full of love rather than being complicit in capitalist exploitation.
“The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God, and keep his commandments; for that is the whole duty of everyone.”
Ecclesiastes 12:13 NRSV-CI