work – Acton Institute PowerBlog

December 22, 2021

This Advent, the Christmas child calls you and me

We arrive at the Christmas stable. We have prepared. The Christ child is come to us—Immanuel. We begin by taking a step back. The candle that is lit for the final Sunday of Advent reminds us of Mary, the one who brings the Lord into the world. Continue Reading...

December 09, 2021

When bookshops were miraculous, romantic places

I began a series of essays on Christmas movies last week with The Bishop’s Wife (1947), a story about church, the community of the faithful, and spiritual responsibility. This week, I’m writing about a less lofty subject, the community of the workplace and the life of commerce, but a much better movie, The Shop Around the Corner (1940), one of the classics of old Hollywood, directed by Ernst Lubitsch and starring Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullavan as shopkeepers who fall in love over Christmas. Continue Reading...

November 29, 2021

Advent: Dig deep for freedom, liberty, and love

Christmas is a busy season for the entrepreneur, the business owner, and the worker. There are the demands of production, the management of the supply chain (a significant problem in the contemporary business world), and the need to sell products, especially so if they are seasonal. Continue Reading...

October 13, 2021

We need a ‘Forbes 400 Poorest Americans’ list

In the 1936 film My Man Godfrey, an oddly well-spoken “forgotten man” whose temporary lodgings are a city dump, finds himself the object of a game played by a pair of rich sisters, one of whom takes a fancy to him. Continue Reading...

October 09, 2021

Rising to the challenges of ‘so-so automation’

Fears about job loss and human obsolescence continue to consume the cultural imagination, compounded by ongoing strides in artificial intelligence and machine learning. The job-killing robots are almost at the door, we are told, mere moments away from replacing the last traces of human inefficiency and heralding the dawn of a world without work. Continue Reading...

September 21, 2021

For nature and neighbor: A Christian vision of work and the economy

Abounding in freedom and plenty, Americans continue to grapple with competing forms of workism and careerism, struggling to find meaning and identity in an increasingly secular age. In response, many Christians have rightly taken a renewed interest in vocation and calling, reflecting on God’s original design for economic life. Continue Reading...

August 25, 2021

Finding meaning in the menial

In the opening pages of Roald Dahl’s acclaimed children’s book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, we meet the Bucket family, which includes young Charlie, his parents, and his four grandparents. Continue Reading...

July 26, 2021

A biblical theology of work, Part 4: Enterprise and entrepreneurship

Why does business matter to God? Well, if business does not matter to God then we render a large part of human existence meaningless. The church, however, seems to be incapable in so many ways of understanding business resulting in words such as “profit” or “incentive” being seen as dirty. Continue Reading...

July 21, 2021

How a bamboo entrepreneur cooperates with nature and neighbor

Rekha Dey wasn’t always passionate about bamboo, but after touring an innovative production facility, she saw its potential. With the right business model, bamboo could be used to provide high-quality, environmentally friendly housing across India. Continue Reading...

July 20, 2021

A biblical theology of work, Part 3: Call and vocation

Are we meant to lead meaningless or purposeful lives? Ecclesiastes shows us that meaninglessness, rather than purposefulness, will fill our lives, if we are not productive. With God that cannot be so. Continue Reading...

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