ABSTRACT
This essay addresses the question “What is the role of work in the divine economy?” It questions if a Protestant work ethic existed prior to its invention by Max Weber in 1905. Following R. H. Tawney’s critique that the Protestant work “ethic” was more a reflection of changes in commercial society occurring since the fourteenth century than an ethic, it then asks what a theological ethic of work would look like. Such an ethic begins with the question of desire, with “What do we want?” The economy, like ethics, should be directed to ends that are fitting with desires worthy of human creatures. Such an economy is central to Tawney’s work in Christian socialism. The essay situates Tawney within Christian socialism by discussing two Anglican theologians, F. D. Maurice and his student Stewart Headlam. It concludes that a Christian work ethic would attend to a life fully alive.
