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Course Description

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According to the Bible, human beings are made for work, as much as they are made for prayer. If this is so, to attend to our spiritual lives, we have to attend to the work we do. Yet the last 200 years have changed the world so much, we hardly know what “work” means, much less what good work is.

Is work the bane of human existence, to be minimized as much as possible? Or is it all-important, the mark of divine favor, holiness, and social respectability? Do we want to be never working, or always working? Our culture gives us both answers at the same time, throwing us into a world that, from top to bottom, is one huge, ceaseless factory, with the apparent purpose of trying to eliminate toil altogether.

This course explores this fundamental contradiction at the heart of our social, spiritual and practical lives by placing work in historical and theological perspective, including especially the Catholic social tradition. Topics include work’s relation to Scripture, the Church, the economy, community, capitalism, industrialism, technology, the digital revolution, marriage, family, and gender.

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Each two-hour class will include two 30 minute talks, plus time for discussion, and a break between the talks.