Calvinism, America, and Work

John Calvin (etching by Konrad Myer)

I didn’t do one goddamn thing all weekend.

I had sincere intentions this weekend. I planned to get so much writing done, and perform some household repairs, and clean the living room, and maybe get my unused second bedroom into a condition where I could comfortably have guests over. Then I disregarded my alarm both days, laid in bed, read books, watched a YouTube church service on Sunday, and ordered pizza. By contemporary standards, it was a wasted weekend.

As a Christian, I struggle with conflicting impulses. Remembering the Sabbath and keeping it holy is so important, that God wrote it among his Top Ten, alongside not killing and not committing adultery. Refraining from work for one day out of seven seems pretty important. This is emphasized by non-theistic regimes, like Revolutionary France and Soviet Russia, both of which rushed to reinstitute lite-beer Sabbaths when workers became widely sick with overwork.

However, Christianity also strictly condemns idleness, considering it a form of impiety. Though we’re enjoined to reserve one day in seven for doing nothing, the other six are ordered to remain cluttered with effort, an unending struggle to demonstrate God’s creative impulse made manifest in ourselves. Christian scripture brims with exhortations to keep busy, work hard, and remain ever productive. Sitting down and catching your breath is considered wasteful.

This contradiction becomes most manifest in Calvinism. In distinction from the preceding medieval Roman tradition, John Calvin insisted Christians had an imperative from God to constantly improve ourselves and improve our worlds. This improvement meant preaching the Gospel, certainly (though Calvin was squishy on actually feeding the hungry), but also human industriousness. Calvin thought God demanded we constantly work, build, and manufacture.

Although a dominant branch of conservative thinking preaches America as a Christian nation, we don’t commonly think of America as structurally religious. Yet the Calvinist tradition comes into America through our secular worship of the New England Puritans. This combination of religious lip-service and secular myth-making creates a distinct goulash of politics, religion, and economy which we, in America, call “capitalism.”

I’m not unique in drawing this conclusion. German sociologist Max Weber, writing in the early Twentieth Century, sees an almost straight-line connection between Calvinism and capitalism. America’s economic structure couldn’t survive if a critical mass of Americans didn’t believe work makes people morally good. Weber asserted that Calvinist Christianity is absolutely necessary for a thriving capitalist economy.

Max Weber

Thus, by blaming myself for not working harder this weekend, I’m doing the bidding of my capitalist clerics, apparently.

I must note, however, that this Calvinist ethic has come unmoored from its religious roots. I’m Lutheran myself, a tradition that doesn’t share Calvin’s insistence on work as a moral imperative. I have friends from many religious traditions, and no religious tradition, who also insist on this idea. One agnostic friend says aloud that seven-day work weeks are mandatory if you mean to do a good job; days off only inculcate laziness and slovenly work ethic.

Thus, because of secular myth-making, Calvinism has escaped the religious confines which cultivated it, and have become simply “American.” Peons, like myself, absolutely demand a “work ethic” from ourselves which involves complete self-abnegation, and deriving our identity from our employment. We don’t become whole persons through relationships, family, or community anymore; we become human when some institution grants us a paycheck.

Since joining the blue-collar workforce, I’ve noticed this widely. Though not all my co-workers are religiously observant, the language of Christianity nevertheless permeates workplace discussions. The more a person’s workplace language contains reference to God, the more resistant they are to organizations, like trade unions. Going alone makes people morally good, and therefore sufferings, like poor pay and scanty benefits, are a necessary sacrifice.

Many Americans have internalized this ethic. We believe doing something with our time, something upon which we can slap a price tag, is mandatory and constant. Spending a well-earned weekend putting our feet up, chatting with friends, and reading books, is time wasted, time which we’ll never recover and successfully monetize. And I, a lowly worker, sit around punishing myself for catching my breath.

And I’m still working. I can only imagine the internal strife plaguing Americans sidelined by COVID-19, what struggles they must endure because the pestilence continues to devalue work. After a weekend spent doing what I love, rather than what makes money, I feel lost, alienated, and inconsiderate. If I punish myself thus for sitting around for two days, how do people handle being sidelined for six months?