The Church After Innovation

Authenticity tells me no judgment is allowed, but uniqueness can be substantiated both culturally and existentially only by the fire of judgment.

even with all this attention, the priestly quality of work remains submerged; it has not made its way back to the surface. Luther’s own views on vocation are interesting, even inspiring, but of little help in postindustrial societies. Even in our time, the priestly dimension of work seems to be swimming against a stiff current. This current pushes

It seems obvious that mission is innovation because there is a canal, dug in the earliest days of Protestantism, that connects the church with work. But what hasn’t been explored, and therefore has allowed for the unreflective equating of mission as innovation and Applebee’s with the church, is that the flow has reversed directions. The water the s

The ethic of authenticity and the affirmation of the particularity of the self rightly check the oppressive overreach of collectives. But they also run the risk of turning these very collectives into enemies of the self.

The mystical had to be stripped of personal transcendence, of any real, direct encounter with a personal God. For Hegel, history held together reason and a driving Romantic impulse for the mystical (particularly in nature). Spirit (Geist) was still in the world, but it was inextricably bound in the unfolding of history, not in transcendent othernes

Money, unlike a gift, is self-propelling. Money has a power beyond personal wills. Money seems to do something only God could do before money’s arrival.

For us, there is a sense that entrepreneurship and innovation can save, as Applebee’s Boy says.4 But what we mean is that entrepreneurship and innovation can save us from decline in the market, not from sin, damnation, or the brokenness of the human spirit (living in a secular age allows us to sidestep these realities).

Work became a place to work on the self. And working on the self became your motivation to work hard.

Money’s drive to universally measure the value of everything by its price in turn means its only discrimination is money. Money doesn’t see anything else but money.