Zoomers, Millennials, Authenticity, and Employment
A brief look at “authenticity” and it’s impact on our call to work.
“Work is always healthier for us than idleness; it is always better to wear out shoes than sheets.”
—Charles Spurgeon
Over the last few decades, there has been an interesting change in how society talks about “work.” Work in my grandparents’ time was often cloaked in words like “responsibility” and “duty.” Rarely, if ever, did they talk about feeling fulfilled or unfulfilled — satisfied or unsatisfied — by work. My grandpa labored to put food on the table for his family. Meeting their needs was his goal. Personal satisfaction and fulfillment in employment was a much lower priority. Carl Trueman writes,
In earlier ages, personal meaning was something discovered by individuals through being educated in how to locate themselves within established external structures such as family, church, or nation.
In my grandfather’s day, personal meaning was derived from outside forces first: community, clubs, employment, and culture. These outside forces created identity. They made him who he was. Men worked, and they worked hard. Thus, my grandfather worked hard. This is what gave him meaning and purpose.
Then an amazing change happened, which was a long time in the making. With the help of the the Genevan Philosopher, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, men started to find meaning from the inside first, rather than from outside forces.
Rousseau argued that the ideal human being is an authentic human being: one who is able to freely express who who he or she is on the inside. This is what it means to truly live, according to Rousseau. Man, in his view, is a blank slate, and societal institutions and authority actually corrupt him and keep him from being his truest self.
Through Rousseau’s influence, along with forces like evolutionary theory, television, computers, and social media, the West has become hopelessly inward-facing and feelings-oriented.
With the psychological turn…these things [institutions] come to be seen as potential hindrances to personal authenticity.
Which brings us to this story from a South Florida newspaper:
South Florida restaurants are so desperate to fill critical jobs they are taking a page from the playbook of Silicon Valley headhunters: signing bonuses.
Hospitality experts argue the drought in employees can be explained with three theories: fear of returning to closed spaces during a pandemic, ex-employees leaving the restaurant world for good, and the ease of collecting unemployment benefits.
Despite falling unemployment numbers in Florida new applicants aren’t calling back, and new hires simply aren’t showing up for work.
“There’s definitely some truth to people becoming jaded and lazy (in the pandemic),” says Guerra. “Here’s how it works: We’ll get over 100 applications for one position. We’ll call back 30 of them to see if we can schedule a face-to-face job interview, and of those, we’ll get through to maybe eight. Six or seven will be no-shows and you’ll maybe get one person to show up.”
Southern Florida isn’t alone. This is happening all over the United States. Hours are available, but nobody wants them. Why?
Rousseau is now the air we breath. His worldview is now America’s default worldview.
The issue lies in what it means to be an employee. Employment requires conformity to the boss’ wishes. Uniforms, schedules, vocabulary, routine, the right way to do things, the wrong things to do things — working for a company hinders a person’s ability to be their truest selves. Millennials and Zoomers run their lives by their feelings. A typical 9-5 job is the enemy of self-expression.
This is why we’ll see a Universal Basic Income in our lifetimes, and why men like Andrew Yang appeal to so many young people. A Universal Basic Income is suppose to free us from the tyranny of the mundane. We will finally be able to be what we’ve always wanted to be, or so they say. Once we get those checks from the government, we can become full-time political activists, Tik-Tok influencers, and content creators.
Employment is oppressive.
In the first few chapters of Genesis, however, we recognize that God’s view and our culture’s view of work and identity are polar opposites: God loves work, He hates laziness, and He made us to reflect His glory. As Owen Strachan accurately states in Reenchanting Humanity,
God is a worker who is consciously and purposefully working to complete his plan and his will. God never stops…Humans were made to be like their Maker: a working race. Before the fall, Adam is placed in the garden by God to work in it. He must watch over it carefully, take dominion over it, and rule it.
Adam wasn’t made to lie around and pluck grapes from the vine. Adam is made for action. He’s given a mission. He has purpose. He has meaning. It’s not that Adam had to work, but he gets to work.
Now we see where the battle lines are drawn. Work isn’t “oppressive.” It’s good to work. Man gets to work. It’s a gift! Our work, done out of love for the Lord, glorifies Him.
From a Biblical worldview, meaning is derived from outside of the self. Identity comes from God, and whatever He says about us is our truest reality. It doesn’t matter how we feel.
Worklessness is sin and must be repented of, because it is inconsistent with who God is.
“For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat (2 Thess. 3:10).”
“Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need (Eph. 4:28).”
Finally, 1 Thesalonians 4:11 says, “make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you...”
God is a working God, and one way we are called to reflect God in the world is by actual, physical labor. Whether I’m at a Fortune-500 company or at McDonalds, I can glorify God. I show Spirit-wrought self-discipline when I arrive on time, go to bed early, or stay late to finish a project.
“Wherever man may stand, whatever he may do, to whatever he may apply his hand, in agriculture, in commerce, and in industry, or his mind, in the world of art, and science, he is, in whatsoever it may be, constantly standing before the face of his God, he is employed in the service of his God, he has strictly to obey his God, and above all, he has to aim at the glory of his God.” —Kuyper
All work, when done before the face of God, is meaningful and satisfying. Your job is a stewardship from your Master, and that truth alone is where true joy is found.
Is it any surprise, then, that Satan would rather that we follow our feelings and stay home?
Get to work, TheoBros.
In Christ,
Justin Bullington