WOF 475: How to Balance Work and Leisure

A debate has been raging on social media recently about the role work should play both in our individual and communal lives. One side argues that Americans are not only spending too few hours at work, but at a deeper cultural level, they believe the United States and much of the West has become lazy and prone to immediate gratification that undermines efficiency, personal wealth, and national power and prosperity. The other side maintains that, although work is good and necessary for individual and societal wellbeing, time spent at work also compromises individuals’ creativity and ingenuity. This debate is not only rhetorical; how we conceive of the relationship between work and leisure has very real cultural, economic, and even political consequences. What principles should we appeal to to get the balance right?

A listener asks: Does Jesus have a last name?

00:00 | Introduction
01:36 | Word on Fire turns 25!
02:54 | What is work?
04:53 | Understanding work within a fallen world
09:46 | Connecting human dignity and the dignity of work
12:59 | Prosperity vs. the prosperity gospel
15:28 | Is intellectual work better than manual, or vice versa?
17:37 | What if I’m unwilling to work?
20:50 | What if I’m unable to work?
21:35 | Understanding leisure
25:38 | How the Mass relates to play
29:57 | Relating work to leisure
32:24 | Listener question: Does Jesus have a last name?
33:50 | Join the Word on Fire Institute

Links:

• Word on Fire Institute: https://institute.wordonfire.org/

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