Busy-ness, tech layoffs, and looming spiritual crisis

Writing for The Atlantic in 2019, Derek Thompson described the accelerating influence of "Workism,"or "the belief that work is not only necessary to economic production, but also the centerpiece of one’s identity and life’s purpose."

In the piece, Thompson traced two highly interrelated patterns in American culture: the drastic decline of religious participation, and the accelerating rise of those who describe themselves exclusively in terms of their career. Thompson argued that the workplace has supplanted religion and other institutions as a source of identity and belonging. Accordingly, the workplace has become America's new temple.

But I think Thompson's analysis is only part of the story. It's not just that the workplace has become a de facto temple. It's that our way of working - the busyness, the frenetic pace of it all - has become a cultural idol. Busyness, it seems, has entrenched itself as the only core value that we all share in common.

This explains why when asked to describe the state of our work life, we often share that we are "busy," with a smug sense of self-satisfaction, as if the busy are the blessed among us.

The symptoms of "Workism" are visible everyday, but are particularly striking during the summer months. We're working longer hours, taking fewer vacations, and leaving more paid time off on the able. According to the 2017 State of American Vacation report, American workers took an average of 20.3 days of vacation every year from 1978 until 2000. The rate has dropped nearly every year since. This year, Americans will only take an average of 16 days off, essentially donating one week of paid time off back to their employers.

Perhaps the case of the vanishing vacation can be explained not as a product of individual companies but as a broader cultural trend. Despite the fact that firms are doling out more vacation days to attract and retain talent, and despite their supposed support for detachment from email, 79% of American workers still check their work email while on vacation. According to The Washington Post, 4% of Americans check email constantly while on vacation. Workism has wheels, and will be joining you for your summer road trip.

The chief problem with Workism is that it places the things we do, or more specifically, the tasks we complete, at the pinnacle of human identity. When we put so much weight into the pursuit of tasks, we have little capacity left to examine our beliefs (what we think), or more importantly, our values (how we think about what matters). The things we do overshadow the things we believe, while crushing completely the things that we value.

It is ironic, although unsurprising, that our culture has a remedy for workism and task-obsession: namely, better organization of our tasks.

#productivitytok is among the most followed topics on social media. Books on task management are fixtures on Amazon's best-seller lists. And a cohort of productivity experts ranging from academics (Cal Newport) to evangelical Christian pastors (John Mark Comer) stands ready with exercises and checklists to reduce your busyness and organize the things you do - provided you are willing to complete the tasks they prescribe.

This is not to say that the we do is unimportant, or that doing a lot of meaningful work is undesirable. Occupations are often central to our vocational identity, and for good reason. Provided we have the opportunity to continue these efforts, our life may seem well-lived, perhaps even meaningful.

But what happens when our tasks are suddenly taken away from us?

Since the start of 2023, over 150,000 US tech workers have been laid off, their jobs cuts announced by a boilerplate email sent in the middle of the night. These lay offs are just the beginning of the disruption about to impact the workforce.

By some estimates, 300 million jobs globally will be "lost or degraded" due to artificial intelligence. And these jobs aren't the blue collar factory positions long thought of as at risk to automation. These job losses will affect computer programmers, graphic designers, digital marketers, and countless other white-collar professions long thought to be immune from automation and digital disruption.

It's no surprise, then, that layoffs are doing measurable harm to the mental health of workers, particularly those affected by job cuts. Indeed, this moment has all the makings of a shared cultural crisis.

For how can someone have a stable, rooted identity in the work they do when that work is no longer available?

How can one's sense of self be defined through tasks, let alone jobs or careers, when AI displacement and mass layoffs have arrived in seemingly every industry?

What happens when one's sense of identity, rooted not in religion nor in institutions but in the busyness of the workplace, is interrupted by job loss?

It's unlikely that there is a solution to this looming crisis of identity. Disruptions to our tasks and work lives are here to stay. This is not a crisis that has an easy solution. All one can do is to develop a certain capacity for resilience. And in this moment, resilience requires a shift in perspective.

It's time to label Workism as a destructive force, to view busyness as a threat to rather than a source of our identity.

It's time to find mentors, teachers, friends, and yes, even institutions, who can push away our growing list of tasks (if only for a moment) and to help us discover our values. It's time to study the art of discernment, rather than the practices of productivity.

As Carolyn Chen points out in her new book "Work Pray Code,"the world of work has developed its own theologies. These new theologies suggest that alignment between work and vocation defines our "authentic selfhood." In this digital age, our sense of selfhood has been redefined as alignment between work and purpose. It's time to rediscover the beliefs and values that are fundamental to our spiritual identities.

ChatGPT and the End of Digital Ministry

I thought I would write about artificial intelligence and digital ministry, until I realized that ChatGPT could write on my behalf:

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Since March 2020, most Christian communities have tested new models of digital and hybrid ministry. We sought to bring the church online because we saw the web as a place where faith could be nourished through content and conversation. We imagined that Christian community could flourish in digital spaces where real people were increasingly focusing their time and attention.

The goal of these models was not to replace in-person forms of church but to convene and revitalize new expressions of community. During the pandemic, the goal was simply to create some semblance of church community for a time of distress and distancing. More recently, the goal has shifted towards inclusive outreach, with digital seen as an accessible entryway into the life of the church.

Yet underlying this experiment in digital ministry was a core assumption: that the conversations we had, that the stories we encountered, would reflect the real, lived experiences of other human beings striving to express the inexpressible.

We inhabit a world where the concept of authority is murky and misunderstood. Still, we know that digital content and conversation from our church is authentic and trustworthy because it emerges through real relationship.

The online prayers and perspectives, the digital stories and the sermons, they work to edify communities because they come from people who we know and trust.

This, incidentally, is the reason why we watch online worship with low quality production value, or why we'll listen to a podcast episode with scratchy audio. Because the content originates from a familiar source, we understand it to be authentic and trustworthy.

For all of the patchy audio and shaky camera feeds, digital ministry carried the church through a pandemic because it brought together real people to express and respond to concrete encounters with a living God.

But what happens when a chatbot can write a sermon as effectively as compelling as the most gifted preacher, in a fraction of the time? What happens when AI-generated words can masquerade as someone's actual creative work?

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Chat GPT should not push us away from ministry in digital spaces. But this technological upheaval should force a reckoning with the purpose, or the ends, of digital ministry.

In an AI-infused world, content creation and consumption cannot be goals, or the ends, of digital ministry. As AI comes to create better content than we can, such an approach will create a vicious cycle: more and more high quality content leads to more individual content consumption, which drives us away from lived encounter with the neighbor. The view, the like, and the retweet can no longer be key performance indicators to the digital minister.

The world is about to be bombarded with technological changes we still cannot understand. All we know for certain is that this new technology will be captivating, addicting, even all-encompassing. In such an environment, digital-only forms of church community will only turn us further inward. Moving forward, the goal of our digital ministry must be to nudge an outward turn from a self-absorbed world.

In this model, digital ministry will offer an inclusive word that pulls us back to human relationship. When done well, digital ministry will become a lifeline that pulls us back to the face-to-face and the analog. In that sense, we have reached the end of digital ministry as a separate alternative to analog, offline church.

As I write this blog post, I am looking ahead to Sunday, May 21st, 2023, when I will preach a sermon on the 17th chapter of John at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Madison. Given how busy I've been lately, maybe it's best that I outsource the creative process.

Or maybe, I'll crack the spine of my Lutheran Study Bible and try to understand what all of John's talk of spiritual unity means for today's church.

Maybe I'll try to find relevant stories from the congregation, or anecdotes of my own experience. I'll likely turn to my usual preaching resources - podcasts from Luther Seminary's WorkingPreacher, and aging Bible commentaries my grandfather left me.

Perhaps I'll even include a joke about Lutherans and coffee. It might take more time. It might not be as clear or succinct as what AI could generate. But it'll be authentic.

Whether watched in-person or on the church's YouTube feed, my prayer is that the sermon may lead to real conversations with actual people. Whether viewed on Facebook or recapped in our email newsletter, my hope is that will tell a specific story of what God is up to in our world. And in the post-pandemic, post-AI church, that must be our purpose.

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@ryanpanzer is the author of "Grace and Gigabytes" and "The Holy and the Hybrid." Neither were written by a chatbot.

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Death Cab for Cutie for Lent: Why the Song "Here to Forever" Could be an Ash Wednesday Hymn

Death Cab for Cutie is unlikely to headline a Christian rock festival this summer.

With hits like "I Will Follow You into the Dark" and "Soul Meets Body," the band is far more agnostic than religious, more existential than spiritual. In a 2011 interview with Relevant Magazine, band member Ben Gibbard described himself as a lapsed Catholic with intentions to rid himself of the "emotional shackles" of his religious upbringing.

And yet when I find myself listening to their latest hit, "Here to Forever," I can't help but thinking that this is a song that could just as easily air on mainstream radio as it could at an Ash Wednesday service.

The lyrics begins with a meditation on black and white movies from the 1950s:

In every movie I watch from the '50s There's only one thought that swirls Around my head now And that's that everyone there on the screen Yeah, everyone there on the screen Well, they're all dead now They're all dead now

And it ain't easy living above And I can't help but keep falling in love With bones and ashes With bones and ashes And when the color is too bold and bright I'm daydreaming in black and white Until it passes Until it passes

Bones and ashes are perhaps the central metaphors on Ash Wednesday. As we receive the imposition of ashes, we are reminded that we are dust, and to dust we shall return. We begin our Lenten journey with this practice not to be depressing or existentialist, but to recall the fundamental fact of our existence: that we are mortal.

As I listen to this song, I'm drawn not just to the reminder that we are bones and ashes, but to the singer's description of falling in love with bones and ashes - because therein lies the hope of Ash Wednesday.

Not that we will die, but that we are beloved by God throughout it all. We are bones and ashes, but our bones and ashes are the creation of an eternal God. We are bones and ashes, temporary bodies made by an infinite creator whose work breaks into our lives in spite of our limitations.

It is only through awareness of our mortality that we can faithfully and sincerely return to the Lord - which is why we begin Lent with ashes. For why would one seek to shed the false self if the false self were eternal? Why would one seek to rediscover one's true identity as a beloved child of God if the identities assigned by our world were permanent and immutable?

While a student at UW-Madison, I had the great privilege of being mentored by Pastor Brent Christianson of the Lutheran Campus Center. Each year, Pastor Brent would recite this poem as his Ash Wednesday sermon. Pastor Brent passed away in 2020, but the impact he made on countless students remains. I doubt he ever listened to Death Cab for Cutie. But I'm sure he would have found companionship with the band if he ever had the opportunity to meet for scotch ales at Dotty Dumpling's. I've included an excerpt here from Pastor Brent's sermon, also available on YouTUbe for those who would rather listen.

Remember that you are dust. To dust you shall return. And as dust, you are beloved.

Stardust and Ashes

by Rev. Brent Christianson

We are creatures of stardust and ashes, ashes and stardust. Our lives orbit and move, flow and fall, settle and send the life and the lives that we have and share and lose and choose or have chosen for us in the presence of particles small as non-being and large as the cosmos a cosmos for creatures of stardust and ashes.

We are creatures of stardust and ashes, ashes and stardust. We are creatures whose lives flow from God’s hidden mind and the dust of the earth. We are creatures whose futures will be in God’s heart and the soil of the ground. We are creatures whose mouths sigh in ecstasy, cry in pain, whose minds create beauty and weapons, whose hearts beat in hatred and love whose lives move in awe and in boredom whose loves flow like water and lava whose work can bring wholeness and sin whose hopes can be noble and petty whose scope can be worldwide and bound to go no farther outward than the skin we inhabit. Creatures of Stardust and Ashes.

We are creatures of stardust and ashes, ashes and stardust. And on some of our foreheads a mark that may be one or the other, or might just as likely be both. Our hearts are not home ‘till they find home in God and the stardust will shine like the sun. Our lives are not lives except they are lived on this earth where ashes and memories, dirt, dust and mud cake us or take us to where we must know that we have a home here – here as well – on this planet of ashes and stardust. Spinning through space in its own grace and grandeur, the earth touches stardust and ashes. Move a hair’s breadth away (as the universe measures itself), and this grand earth itself shrinks and hides in the cosmos of stardust and ashes. Ashes and stardust.

The sun itself, burning a bit cold in winter will heat up the dust of our sometimes brisk bodies and warm us, come spring. But it also will turn, burn to ashes ... and stardust for nothing but God is eternal.

We are creatures of stardust and ashes, ashes and stardust. They cannot be separate, cannot be taken apart or away for they make us today and tomorrow and all yesterday’s who we were are and will be. The smudge on our foreheads is death- toll and promise. It tells us of all of the ashes in our lives, the times gone, the loves done the friends passed, the ancestors sleeping in dust. But the marks that we bear, bear a promise.

The promise is stardust that flows from the garden of God to be gathered at last and before then to be holy ground where the One who sees each one in secret, rewards – not from merit or pity or labor done well, but from that one’s deepest secreted heart. For the God whom we worship is stardust and ashes, ashes and stardust. God is in every stardust and ash. God is around every stardust and ash. God is between every stardust and ash. God is found now – found now, in with and under the bread and the wine, the friend and the foe, the lover and enemy, water and word, in the one standing next to you; the one sitting, who is you and the God who is stardust and ashes, ashes and stardust has held you from long before you were conceived and will hold you again and forever a step past your own grave. God is here now – in God’s stardust and ashes. God is here now, in your stardust and ashes. God is our God and God chooses to be in the hidden place of our own secret ashes. God is our God and God chooses to be in our own secret place of our unnoticed, unseen unsuspected and hidden own stardust.

We are creatures of stardust and ashes, ashes and stardust. God is a God of stardust and ashes, ashes and stardust. The wind of the spirit stirs stardust and ashes and mixes them up and breathes life into dry lungs and sets us all here and gives us each other and bread, wine and water and makes of our stardust a bright shining sun; and makes of our ashes a rich, fruitful garden, and makes of our present, the dwelling of God, and makes of our futures, the place where God dwells.

Amen.