Eighth-Day Discipleship

A New Vision for Faith, Work, and Economics

Richard H. Bliese

• Publisher: Fortress Press
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781506478838
• eBook ISBN: 9781506478845
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Denominations

Richard H. Bliese draws on historic architecture of eight-sided churches to call attention to an important but often overlooked emphasis on the eighth day of creation. Early Christians were focused on God's new creation that began in Christ's resurrection on Sunday, the first day of the week. But these Christians understood resurrection as the continuation of God's creative and redemptive activity. So the first day of the week became the eighth day of creation, and therefore the day of resurrection work and time to join with Christ in transforming the world. Christian disciples do this work by living out their baptismal vocations, especially in their daily work and through their ethical economic choices.

The author turns to Martin Luther and the Reformation to outline an evangelical spirituality that invested in people and their vocations as worker-priests. Daily life, work, and family were underscored as the place where discipleship came alive. Bliese describes this as an architectural "design" for faithful living. He further draws on parts of Luther's Small Catechism (Ten Commandments, Apostles' Creed, and Lord's Prayer) as keys to this evangelical design. Five additional architectural designs for eighth-day disciples are included.

The final chapter describes how eighth-day disciples are called to live by faith in freedom and responsibility. Making disciples today needs to revolve around a gospel story that links one's personal faith with one's work and economic life. Such faith gives us ears to hear God's unfolding drama and eyes to see the needs of the neighbor.

The book includes a study guide for personal reflection and group conversation.

1

Building Discipleship to Withstand Economic Storms

“There is no such thing as a truly free market; all freedom is obedience to something. A Protestant ethic (or ethics) is neither essentially capitalist nor anti-capitalist; it is pro-freedom, insofar as freedom enables individuals and communities to love their neighbors as themselves.”

Kathryn D. Blanchard in The Protestant Ethic or The Spirit of Capitalism

Before I return to exploring the remarkable eighth day and the discipleship it engenders, I want us to step back and consider how God’s people are often called to eighth-day discipleship in the midst of storms, particularly work-related and economic storms and issues related to personal wealth and its use.

In 1970, the Apollo 13 mission to the moon began without a hitch, but this historic trip was cut short when a sudden explosion onboard crippled the ship. The dramatic event was immortalized in the famous words of astronaut Jack Swigert, who calmly acknowledged the awful reality of the crew’s plight: “Houston, we have a problem.”1 In the movie named after the mission, we see fear build as family and friends and NASA engineers grasp the gravity of the situation. What if the astronauts cannot fix the problem? Will the crew be stuck in space forever? Was their training adequate for the challenge? How do people respond when faced with life-threatening conditions? Tension builds as the astronauts try to solve the problem together with the anxious but skilled technicians at the NASA Mission Control Center.

When Hurricane Harvey hit Texas in 2017, Swigert’s famous quote took on new meaning. Hurricane Harvey wreaked havoc on the city of Houston, dumping trillions of gallons of water on this Gulf Coast city where sixty-eight people died, leaving, by one estimate, $125 billion of damage in its wake. Homes were flooded, and some were destroyed. The simple fact is that many houses in and around Houston were not built to withstand that kind of weather onslaught. Building a home to withstand a category-five hurricane is, after all, expensive. Many people had accepted the risks of living in inadequate housing. Like astronauts in space, therefore, they accepted certain dangers. They hoped those dangers would never materialize. Unfortunately, calamity struck. Over twenty-five thousand households were displaced.2

What Kind of House Do I Need?

What has been the response to these storms? The short answer from Houstonians has been a resolute one: “We must build better homes.” This is good advice. After the multiple floods since 2014, local officials have developed rules for rebuilding homes in flood-prone areas. Residents must now seriously think through what can withstand category-five hurricanes if they want to rebuild their homes in Houston. These officials are making more stringent architectural demands for multiple reasons, because above all, indifference to change will prove costly for everyone.

Residents and families must invest in building better homes and neighborhoods. As everyone knows, the hurricanes will come again. Weather patterns suggest that floods will regularly threaten Houston. Most people love their homes. They love their neighborhoods. They love their schools and friends. They love Houston! Despite so much love, the status quo of housing is no longer sustainable. As one resident confessed, “Honestly, I wish we were rebuilding higher.”3

Building Christian Discipleship That Lasts

Since moving to Florida, I have experienced firsthand the dangers of hurricane season. The threat is real. You must live in a well-built home or take your chances every hurricane season.

The life of discipleship requires careful construction as well, especially as Christians face the regular boom-and-bust cycles of daily work and the present economy. Nearly everyone has experienced these economic realities. One minute you have a good job, the next minute you don’t. One day you can afford health insurance, the next day you can’t. If you are a two-person-income household, the same job insecurity applies to your spouse as well. Without two good jobs, many families can’t make it financially. Furthermore, the speed of economic change increases the feelings of insecurity. Some argue that these dynamics are just part and parcel of our capitalistic system. The advice you receive from well-meaning friends can prove to be enervating, especially if you face job insecurity.

As I was looking for work a few years ago, one good friend gave me a self-help book for job seekers called What Color Is Your Parachute?4 His counsel to me was, “Having to change jobs regularly is just the way our economy works, so adjust your life accordingly.” His advice was clear, “There is no job security. Sorry. That’s life.”

Who hasn’t felt the queasiness of this economic roller-coaster ride or gazed fearfully at the storm clouds of these existential threats? I have. One day, I was the president of a large Lutheran seminary; two weeks later, I was “resigned.” A crisis emerged at the school. I wasn’t blamed—directly. Nevertheless, I was the president. I was responsible. The board decided a change was required. The decision came suddenly. No warning was given. No explanation. No deliberations. All of a sudden, a decision was made. I had lost my job. Questions of identity and purpose began to swirl around my life. Why did this happen? How will I support my family? Am I still valued in the community?

Studies by economists in England and Australia point out a painful reality: it often takes longer to adapt to the pain of unemployment than to losing a loved one.5 At first, this statement appears jarring. Nevertheless, data backs up the brutal effects that both losses can inflict on a person’s life. Being fired or unemployed is devastating. Why? Because so much of our self-esteem, identity, and purpose in life are tied tightly together with our daily work.

Sudden job loss is a common experience today. Job security is rare. “Adaptability” is preached, even in the church. Pastors understand this vulnerability. Which church leader doesn’t fear that they are just one bad budget cycle, one disgruntled donor, or one season of weak attendance away from a “new call.” In addition, ever since 2020, people ask how biological storms, such as a virus or pandemic, might affect their work, their personal economies, or their vocations.

The reality of ministry performance is that it is measured in part by budgets and attendance. But how much adaptability can a business, church, family, or individual bear as those measurements regularly fluctuate? And whom does constant and perennial “adaptability” serve in the final analysis? When work and personal identity are so tightly braided together, job loss creates fundamental questions about life. Those fundamental questions are now asked regularly in every home.

The church and those who serve the church are not immune from economic storms, of course. That’s because churches are made up of everyday people living on Main Street, and the economic ups and downs of Main Street can be extremely volatile. Jobs now come and go quickly, and often without any relationship to job performance. Companies “downsize” or “rightsize” the business when “the market demands it.” What do you do when the pink slip comes under your door, or the board decides your career is done because the market says so?

In response to this constant aura of vulnerability, people around the world sense that the market’s need for constant “creative destruction” is hard to bear. Something is fundamentally wrong with how we have built our economic lives as individuals and as a community. The critiques abound and are growing, and some of them will be described later. The key is that someone or something has thrown a monkey wrench into the system. We sense it on a macro level. Our politicians debate its causes now, not its existence. Economists argue about solutions. CEOs wrestle with their responsibility, caught between the health of their employees and the health of their companies.

We all experience this raw economic vulnerability in our personal lives at ground zero, around kitchen tables, and with neighbors in our communities. The threatening dark clouds hover ominously overhead. Heavy winds loom large. Destruction awaits. That’s our fear, at least. Experts describe this economic dynamic as “creative destruction.” Yes, there is some creativity for “the economy” here. Let’s admit it. But let’s not overlook either the destruction to real people, such as those sixty-year-old workers who just lost their jobs to people on the other side of the planet. Or the college graduate who simply can’t enter the economy in any meaningful way. Houston, we have a problem.

Why Are These Work-Related Questions So Important?

These metaphors of category-five storms and pandemics are being used within this context for two reasons. First: our work and the economy dominate much of our lives. They shape us and our families in powerful ways. When your personal economy is doing well, that one fact makes a huge difference in your entire life for your education, health, nutrition, education, marriage and family, and personal well-being. This dynamic also holds true for neighborhoods and whole communities. One more point: a good economy also affects your spiritual life.

Second, given how important economic issues are for our well-being and the well-being of our family members, it is shocking that we don’t speak much about the topics of faith, work, and economics at church. We don’t even talk much about money. It’s as if we are living in Houston before 2017—that is, we know the storms are coming, but we simply let people build in dangerous neighborhoods and construct their homes in any way they desire. A laissez-faire lifestyle is the result. Financial hurricanes are striking our neighborhoods more frequently now. These economic storms disrupt lives. In response, shockingly, the church often says as little as possible about money, jobs, finances, business, or the economy. Sometimes we do offer prayers, but usually after the destruction has passed. “Thoughts and prayers” plus funerals are the church’s specialty.

Why is it that many congregations fall silent in the face of economic storms? Do we know what to say or do? Think of the single mother who comes to church regularly but suddenly loses her steady employment. With two small children, the job was her lifeline. She turns to her pastor, to her Bible study friends, and to her fellow parents in the nursery. What should they say? What can they realistically do? Praying for this mother is important, but does the prayer then lead to action? How does the call to eighth-day discipleship intersect with the economic realities of our lives? As communities of faith, how do we build expertise and empathy to deal with economic subjects, let alone economic storms? One thing is certain: economic issues challenge Christians on Monday in fundamental ways. What we say on Sunday needs to prepare people for these storms. Any Christian community that imagines serving the neighbor must consider their work lives. Eighth-day discipleship embraces talking about economics and imagines faith in the context of this conversation.

We need to explore the critical relationship among faith, our work, and economics in the church. Many people aren’t prepared for the big economic storms in life, and maybe not even the smaller ones. Many Christians suffer economic hardships without the benefit of Christian teaching or the direct support of their local faith community. Sunday and Monday have become divorced. The consequences of the split have brought grave consequences to regular people—that is, to people we know and those neighborhoods we love.

The “Storm” of Coronavirus

As I was writing this book, the pandemic of the coronavirus had just struck the United States with full force. Martin Luther, in his famous Reformation hymn “A Mighty Fortress,” referred to an epidemic in Wittenberg as “hordes of devils fill[ing] the land.” Viruses work their evil plans like demons of old, invisible yet deadly. Covid-19 looks for weaknesses to exploit.

The pandemic’s devastation has surfaced health-related concerns as well as economic issues at all levels of our nation, from the president at the top to all “essential workers.” Everyone debates how to balance health, safety, and the economy. These questions go to the heart of how we define the nature of human life, human thriving, and human community. One little virus has turned the world upside down.

Much like the hurricane in Houston, the economic roller coaster following the pandemic has been on full display every night on the news. Within a two-week period in February 2020, the US economy went from being “strong and robust” (with unemployment below 3.5 percent and Wall Street making record profits) to being a wasteland. US economic numbers sank to levels not seen since the Great Depression. Technically, a bear market occurs when we have a drop of 20 percent or more from a peak. Historically, it has taken an average of eight months for a market to enter bear territory. From February 19 to March 12, 2020, the S&P 500 fell by about 27 percent. We entered a bear market in less than a month. That’s the fastest drop ever.

How do we respond to economic upheaval in the lives of our families and our nation? How can our faith help us frame the economic and work challenges we face every day?

Talking about Economics

Everyone knows how important work and economics are for daily life. They dominate talk around the kitchen table, in the office, at school, at local clubs, and in the marketplace. So why are many congregations so reluctant to engage in these conversations?

There is no simple answer to this important question. But one initial response has begun to convince me: The local congregation has gladly and willingly punted the ball. Local congregations don’t want to own the responsibility for these “secular” issues. The church has simply allowed other groups and worldviews to carry the ball, so to speak, in informing and teaching about the importance of our work and economic lives. If clergy rarely mention these topics in sermons or Bible studies, people conclude that the gospel doesn’t speak to these subjects. Sometimes the message reduces the gospel to an individual’s heart, shrinking “good news” to the internal matters of the soul. In so doing, we give away the responsibility for “external” or “secular” matters to other worldviews, political parties, economists, or clever pundits. How quickly we feign helplessness and let these alternative voices do the heavy lifting.

American Christianity has been subtly “colonized” by worldviews that have either degraded Christian teaching or jettisoned it altogether. This colonization leads to families suffering and people’s lives being damaged. These alternative worldviews leave Christians vulnerable when facing all kinds of storms, especially when these storms come with economic consequences.

Why have we allowed this to happen? Although these alternative worldviews may be a cheap substitute for the genuine article, they do claim to provide expertise on how to improve our Monday lives. They are pragmatic. Some experts even claim to link spirituality with their self-help advice. The result is this: if the church cannot or will not provide what is needed, people go shopping elsewhere. Houston, we have a problem!

Which worldviews are replacing the gospel? These alternative voices will be explored more fully below. For now, however, I will argue tha...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: An Evangelical Architecture for Eighth-Day Discipleship
• 1 Building Discipleship to Withstand Economic Storms
• 2 Connecting Faith and Work
• 3 Eighth-Day Christians: Living in God’s Home Economics Project
• 4 The Catechism and the Ten Commandments: Law as the First Key to an Evangelical Design
• 5 The Catechism and Creed: Redemption as the Second Key to an Evangelical Design
• 6 The Catechism and the Lord’s Prayer: The Kingdom of God as the Third Key to an Evangelical Design
• 7 Building Eighth-Day Disciples: Five More Foundational Keys for Mission and Ministry
• 8 Eighth-Day Discipleship in an Eight-Sided Church: Living by Faith with Responsibility and Freedom
• Study Guide
• Notes
• Selected Bibliography