Resources
The books listed here are either free to download or can be purchase by going to the link provided. All documents are free to download.
Click on the + sign next to the title to find the links to download or purchase.
| Title & Author | Language | Links | Tags | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Boredom by R. Paul Stevens |
Boredom is part of The Complete Book of Everyday Christianity
"Charlie Chaplin’s film Modern Times expounds the dilemma of boredom in the workplace: routine, meaningless, repetitious, mindless work that results in fatigue. Such boredom at work has not been alleviated by increased technology or by the introduction of the information society—a cultural shift that may have escalated the problem by overloading people with information. Not even a challenging career can guarantee freedom from boredom. Executives reach the top and, with nowhere else to go, ask, “What is it all for?” Culturally North America is “bored to death,” “bored stiff,” “bored to tears,” “bored silly” and even “bored out of one’s skull.” Surveys indicate that up to half of North Americans are either temporarily or permanently bored (Klapp, p. 20), a trend that is all the more disturbing for a society that is saturated with fun industries. Perhaps that is part of the problem. Being “amused to death,” to quote Neil Postman’s penetrating analysis, does not seem to offer anything more than a cultural placebo. Klapp (p. 30) suggests the analogy of aspirin: frequent usage means not the absence but the presence of extreme pain. “Bored? How could you be bored when there is so much to do?” the exasperated father shouts at his teenagers. And for the Christian hardly any more damning comment can be made at the conclusion of a worship service than “It was boring.”"...
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| The Soul of Entrepreneurship by R. Paul Stevens |
Sample The Soul of EntrepreneurshipFROM MAX WEBER TO THE NEW BUSINESS SPIRITUALITY_______________________________________________________________________________ [There can be] no capitalist development without an entrepreneurial class; no entrepreneurial class without a moral charter; no moral charter without religious premises.[1] In the classic film “Wall Street” Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) typifies the entrepreneur for many. “The lesson in business,” he tells Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen), is “don't get emotional about stock, it clouds the judgment.” Gekko is constantly in a telephone conversation, using language such as “block anybody else’s merger efforts,” “Christmas is over, business is business,” and “I want every orifice in his body flowing red.” In a famous scene, Gekko redefines greed: “Greed is good, greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures that essence of the evolutionary spirit.” It is interesting that Gekko uses the word “spirit” in a film that exemplifies the secular humanism that has been the dominant cultural environment of business in the Western world for several decades. But there is a change in Western culture that makes the question of a moral charter for entrepreneurship and even the search for a religious/spiritual foundation apt if not urgent. [1] Gianfranco Poggi, Calvinism and the Capitalist Spirit: Max Weber's Protestant Ethic (London: Macmillan, 1983), 83. |
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| Toward A More Biblical View of Matter by L.T. Jeyachandran |
"C. S. Lewis has remarked that if he had not turned to Christ from atheism, his other alternative was Hinduism. This comment is striking because he made it in the 1930’s, long before eastern religions and philosophies had come to be the influence they are today. Lewis perceived that only these three alternatives are possible: No God; Christ is God; All is God. My plea in this essay is to identify the most plausible of these three views that would bring about the right perspectives on work. In rather paradoxical ways, both the atheistic and Hindu views deny hierarchy in matter. Atheism is reductionistic and therefore sees nothing other than matter in the entire universe. Hinduism, on the other hand, elevates all of matter to the level of the divine. It will be clear as we go along that views that deny hierarchy in the nature of matter eventually end up introducing hierarchy in work and thus ultimately affect our attitude to work. "
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| The Recovery of Creation Theology by Philip Wu |
Sample The Recovery of Creation Theology as the Horizon of Marketplace Theology Movement Philip Wu President, VocatioCreation Ltd., Hong Kong In this essay, I try to stretch in very brief terms the possible relationships between creation theology and marketplace theology movement from my experience as an advocate of the movement, a business executive, and a student of the Old Testament. There are at least three incidents or resources that cause me to consider the possible close relationship between OT creation theology and marketplace ministry. The first one goes back to my seminary years and in fact continues into the present moment. Over the past several decades, a shift in emphasis has taken place in OT theological studies. This change marks a paradigm shift from a once exclusive stress upon the mighty salvation of God in history to God’s formative and sustaining ways in creation. On a related front, we notice another important development in OT scholarship, namely, a renewal of wisdom studies. It is fair to say that wisdom studies had long been an orphan in OT scholarship. Starting from the 1960s, however, a vigorous new effort in wisdom studies was undertaken. In a general analysis, wisdom theology has the ongoing, generative order of creation as its subject, and itself is a confessional reflection upon creation, its order, its gifts, its requirements, and its limits. The recovery of creation in OT theological studies seems timely to the emergence of marketplace theology movement. |
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| Against the Powers of Death by Bert Cameron |
The role of a Christian health professional in high technology health care Bert Cameron Head of the Division of Nephrology, University of British Columbia. Board of Governors, Regent College
All health care professionals in the high technology medical system of western culture are confronted with an array of conceptual and ethical challenges. However, Christian health professionals have a particular challenge. They are called to develop and to project Christian perspectives that are relevant to social and moral issues of advancing medical technology. In this context, one of the most significant issues is the technologic battle that modern medicine is waging against the power of death. This article comprises personal reflections about the nature of our health care system and the qualities of thought and action that Christian health professionals bring to this institution that is dedicated to the extension of physical life through technology.... |
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| Advertising: A Roman Catholic Perspective by Jon Escoto |
"We had a very interesting discussion on Advertising, slanted towards its feeding on the “greed” of man. I found the Catholic Church’s Handbook on Ethics in Advertising” quite interesting. As I browsed through it, I found the following points significantly striking:..."
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| The Creation of True Wealth by R. Paul Stevens |
Sample The Creation of True Wealth R. Paul Stevens God came to earth as a worker. Jesus was born in the marketplace, in fact in a hotel. Not actually in a nicely prepared suite but in the underground parking garage because the inn already had full occupancy. He was wrapped in a towel provided by the laundry service and placed in the back seat of a car. He grew up in a working-class home. As a young man he learned a trade and before he had worked a miracle or preached a sermon he pleased the Father so much that at his baptism the Father said, “You are my beloved son with whom I am well pleased.” Of Jesus’ 132 public appearances in New Testament, 122 were in the marketplace. Of the 52 parables Jesus told, 45 had a workplace context. Jesus called 12 normal working individuals, not clergy, to build His church. And some of them had questionable professions (tax collector, zealot). How can this be? Can we be human beings that are rich toward God and be so in the marketplace? What does it mean to create true wealth? And what is the true meaning of our lives, especially our lives in the workplace? Jesus doesn’t merely welcome these questions. He positively demands that we ask them, and he does so through parables. |
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Advertising by R. Paul Stevens and Richard Pollay |
"Years ago Marshall McLuhan said, “Ours is the first age in which many thousands of our best trained minds made it a full-time business to get inside the collective public mind . . . to manipulate, exploit, and control” (p. v). Given its pervasive and persuasive character, advertising is without doubt one of the most formative influences in popular culture, shaping values and behavior and telling people how and why to live. It is estimated that the average North American is subjected to over one thousand advertisements daily in one or other of the media (television, radio, magazines, newspapers, billboards, direct mail) covering everything from perfume to automobiles, from fast food to insurance." |
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| The Church and The Marketplace by Steve Brinn |
Sample The Church and the Marketplace: Naming the Reality and the Challenge Steve Brinn An Unhealthy Détente Over the past 37 years, as several close friends worked faithfully in church and para-church positions, my own journey unfolded in the marketplace. I practiced law, managed a real estate and resource investment company, operated a 3500-acre ranch and currently am leading a medical imaging software start-up. All along the way I have struggled to keep my faith vitally connected to my labors. I am hardly alone in this: far more saints report every day to work outside the church than inside it. It is true that women and men in all vocations (including priesthood) face the same daily challenge – holding fast to hope in Christ and showing up for work with eyes open, without despair. Yet this common struggle, to approach daily labor with hope though the world groans for salvation, almost always is more difficult for the working laity than it is for their shepherds, for several reasons. |
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| Soul by R. Paul Stevens |
Sample In everyday conversation the word soul can mean at least two things: (1) a precious human person (as in “Two hundred souls were lost in the plane crash”) and (2) the eternal or immortal part of a human being, an incorruptible core (as in “We commit the body to the grave knowing that she still lives in her soul”). We will see that the first is actually closer to biblical truth than the second (compare Acts 27:37 KJV). In the Bible soul and spirit are sometimes used interchangeably to speak of the interior of persons, especially in their longings for relationship with God. Add to this confusion one more word: the universal word heart as a metaphor for the motivating center of a person. This complex use of words reflects the contemporary confusion about what makes human beings “tick” and what constitutes a spiritual person. Gaining a biblical view of soul is important for several everyday matters: a healthy and holy sexuality, the nature of true spirituality, how we are to treat our bodies, why we have spiritual conflict and what happens at death. The Old and New Testaments use a wide range of terms to describe the way human beings are made, and these must now be considered. |
English | Download full article (.doc) |