At the announcement that their jobs were gone the workers were upset and angry. Harsh words were uttered, the language strong. The union representative on this occasion did not help, stirring the workers up with provocative language. The owners, present at the meeting, he said were evil, evil people.

Sometimes those kinds of words reflect our prejudices. Without a doubt power and wealth have been gained and maintained by some with ruthless disregard for those who either previously owned it or contributed effort, energy and saving to create it. But not always.

Speaking with the owners immediately after the meeting I asked how they felt about the words and the anger. They both wept. The stereotypes and the prejudice just didn't fit. They spoke of months of not taking any personal income, the investment back into the business of all of their savings, the proceeds of the sales of their homes, vehicles and all assets of value, the loans to keep the company going, to avoid the layoffs, to keep the doors open. They had postponed the final outcome by many months. It had cost them more than everything. They were in debt. The words were sobering "the staff leaving today will still have their homes, they will have their redundancy payouts, they may be without work for a while, they will get the dole in two weeks time, it will be tough, but they will still have homes"

Do we view these owners as exceptions?  In seven years in industrial chaplaincy I met some ruthless people, but only some. The vast majority of workers, supervisors, managers and owners were decent and caring, often caught in circumstances they could not themselves control, and struggled to understand. Circumstances which are the consequence of forces that may well have their own internal philosophical coherency but deny by their material focus the humanity of those whose lives are affected by them.

I was asked recently to preach on ‘evil in the workplace'. Does anyone ever get asked to preach on ‘evil in the family', or ‘evil in charitable institutions', or ‘evil in universities or in politics?' Why evil in the workplace? Is it automatic to associate the workplace with evil? A recent (June 2003) survey indicated 38% of people in New Zealand see work as a ‘necessary evil'. 76% were suspicious of business. Ironically when the same question was personalized to their boss more than 90% thought well of him or her. Is it our theology or our politics that confers evil onto the workplace? Not even the political arena receives that kind of automatic projection though we acknowledge that politics can be corrupt or dishonest, but it is not often held up as evil.

Does our politics prejudice our view of the workplace? New Zealand's long history of left leaning politics promotes a traditional suspicion of business.  We must be careful that our politics do not flavour our theology with automatic suspicion. Nor should we allow new theologies for the marketplace to be the consequence of more economically conservative politics. We do need to be discerning of our own traditions. An unhealthy insertion of Greek dualism elevating the spiritual at the expense of things material (especially work) in the formative years of our traditions has distorted our view of the marketplace. It is ironic that our current more holistic emphasis on biblical worldview still struggles to overcome the non-spiritual (evil?) view of the market. Or is that still our politics? Does our theology shape our view of the world?

Work is God's creation; He ordained it and included it in "it was very good". The first workplace was the Garden of Eden. Work was created without sin or evil and is a major part of God's purpose for humanity. Alistair MacKenzie¹ helpfully analyses creation as a series of relationships - to God, to each other (colleagues, marriage and friendships all qualify) to all of creation (work included here) and with ourselves. All of these relationships including work were subject to sin. Work was "subject to frustration and not by its own choice"² as part of the creation it too waits in hope of its own liberation with the revealing of the children of God.

Jesus confirmed the possibility of work being practiced in a godly manner through his own participation in the workforce. His life, including work, found favour with God and men ³. Work is also the object of Christ's redemptive work on the cross. Work is not evil, it is God's creation.

We should not minimize the capacity for both good and evil in work. Work is where society spends much of its time; it powerfully influences the distribution of goods and services. The power structures of the workplace are open to manipulation, control and abuse as much as they can mobilize resources for creativity and good more effectively than almost any structure. Access through work to wealth has possibilities for both excessive selfish materialism and great generosity. Work can become co-dependent on these forces for its own existence. We meet each other at work and form relationships, appropriate and otherwise. The workplace can humanize as community or dehumanize as process. It can organize for goals larger than the addition of our individual capacities.

If evil does seem to have undue influence in the workplace it may be that we have through poor theology abandoned the workplace to it. Lingering dualistic suspicion of business has hindered healthy engagement and exploration of how it may be redeemed and become God's servant. Alistair's relationships provide a useful and convenient framework for judging our own work. If our work contributes positively or negatively to each of those relationships and their balance with one another we may discern whether it is good or bad work. If our work is positive to those relationships it is ‘good work'. Where it is negative we may deem it to be ‘bad work. To be in ‘bad work' challenges us to consider three strategies; to change it for good by the life of Christ in us, to immunize ourselves against the impact of it on our lives or, as a last option, to leave that work.

In Christ we are made "a new creation."⁴ The new creation ‘is' and ‘is becoming' as we mature into his likeness. As we are "revealed" the creation begins to experience redemption, to be completed when Christ returns. An analogy from marriage may help us here. As two people in a hurting marriage reveal Christ in their lives through word, deed and attitude, as forgiveness, humility and submission to one another begin to operate marriage will be redeemed. Work as part of the creation, can likewise begin to experience liberation. As workers, managers or owners begin to reveal Kingdom practices work and the workplace begin their own redemptive journey. As business repents of a worldly personality, takes on the personality of Christ and begins to do the work of Christ so the marketplace begins its journey to redemption.

Bill is a charge hand in his factory. He was rough in manner, language and attitude. He was tough and took no nonsense or excuse. When Bill came to faith he was told he was now a new creation. He went back to work and quickly realized that that might be so but an awful lot of the old was hanging around. He was not ashamed of his new faith but determined that he would say nothing until there was something to show for it.

A year later it was a very different operation. The changes in Bill had changed the factory. Eight others had come to faith on the basis that whatever could change Bill had to be real and worth having. The culture changed, staff no longer feared him, the team began to care about each other, family began to count when overtime decisions were asked for, language quality improved, performance expectations became agreed and reasonable arrangements. In Jesus words "Today salvation has come to this house" The workplace was experiencing redemption as Bill was revealed as a child of God.

1  Alistair MacKenzie and Wayne Kirkland "Where is God on Monday"
   (Christchurch, Navpress 2002) 17-20
2  Romans 8:19-213  Luke 2:52
4  2 Corinthians 5:17

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