Ergasia
Episodes
Monday Aug 17, 2020
Monday Aug 17, 2020
How is the silencing of the justice claims of those harmed by modernity's construction of work and economy linked to a widespread culture of forgetting injustice? How is this culture linked to the injustice perpetrated by colonial society against indigenous Australians? How is the church complicit in injustice through its own captivity to the assumptions of modernity, and the forgetting of injustice in its own history? How can worship and the prophetic imagination it articulates become a ground for resistance to the idolatry of hard work?
References
Bottomley, John Hard Work Never Killed Anybody: How The Idolisation Of Work Sustains This Deadly Lie. Northcote: Morning Star Publishing, 2015.
Tuesday May 19, 2020
Tuesday May 19, 2020
In today’s episode, we will look at the underlying principles that often govern the church’s approach to pastoral care, and how the often congregation-centric assumptions underlying these principles blind the church to it's calling to both the ministry of God's governance in the world of work, and the care of those harmed by work-related grief.
References
Bottomley, John Hard Work Never Killed Anyone: How the Idolisation of Work Sustains this Deadly Lie. Northcote: Morning Star Publishing, 2015.
Monday Feb 17, 2020
Monday Feb 17, 2020
In this episode of Ergasia, we continue the exploration of the book Hard Work Never Killed Anyone: How the Idolisation of Work Sustains this Deadly Lie by John Bottomley, published by Morning Star Publishing in 2015.
How do modernity's beliefs about work silence the victims of work related harm? How does modernity's understanding of and response to trauma pathologize the victims of injustice and label them as "sick"? How does the self-helpism of traditional support groups lead to the victims of work related harm being co-opted by the very idolatry by which they have been victimised? How does the companioning model of grief support break this cycle and enable "wounded healers" to bring a new freedom to both the bereaved and their carers?
References
Hard Work Never Killed Anyone: How the Idolisation of Work Sustains this Deadly Lie. Northcote: Morning Star Publishing, 2015.
Tuesday Sep 24, 2019
Tuesday Sep 24, 2019
In this episode of Ergasia, we continue the exploration of the book Hard Work Never Killed Anyone: How the Idolisation of Work Sustains this Deadly Lie by John Bottomley, published by Morning Star Publishing in 2015.
What is the starting point of any prophetic ministry? How does our experience of injustice open us to the need to listen to the suffering of others? What role does God's judgement and redemptive grace play in this process?ReferencesBottomley, John Hard Work Never Killed Anyone: How the Idolisation of Work Sustains this Deadly Lie. Northcote: Morning Star Publishing, 2015.
Friday Aug 30, 2019
Friday Aug 30, 2019
In this episode of Ergasia, we continue the exploration of the book Hard Work Never Killed Anyone: How the Idolisation of Work Sustains this Deadly Lie by John Bottomley, published by Morning Star Publishing in 2015.What is the true relationship between work and humanity? What are the hidden truths disclosed by the silence cast by the ideology of work on the suffering and injustice manifest in work-related harm? How has the ideology of work become idolatrous? These are the questions we will explore as we continue our exploration of this text and its examination of modernity's construction of work and economy.
References
Hard Work Never Killed Anyone: How the Idolisation of Work Sustains this Deadly Lie. Northcote: Morning Star Publishing, 2015.
Tuesday Aug 06, 2019
Tuesday Aug 06, 2019
In this episode of Ergasia, we begin an exploration of the book Hard Work Never Killed Anybody: How the Idolisation of Work Sustains this Deadly Lie, by John Bottomley, published by Morning Star Publishing in 2015. What are the beliefs that underpin modernity's construction of work and economy? How did these beliefs come into being? What is the role of ideology in this process? How are modernity's beliefs about work and what constitutes the legitimate spheres for the expression of human emotion sustained? These are the questions we explore as we start this new series.
References
Bottomley, John Hard Work Never Killed Anyone: How the Idolisation of Work Sustains this Deadly Lie. Northcote: Morning Star Publishing, 2015.
Friday Jul 19, 2019
Ergasia Special Episode No.3: A Statement of Intent
Friday Jul 19, 2019
Friday Jul 19, 2019
In this episode of Ergasia Special, your host, Brendan Byrne, sets out his vision for the podcast as he continues to explore the intersection of faith and work. What are the essential elements which a theology of work must contain in order to be properly Christian? What are the traps and pitfalls it must avoid? What, afterall, is the point and purpose of this podcast and the issues it explores?
References
Bloomquist, Karen L The Dream Betrayed: Religious Challenge of the Working Class. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990.
Byrne, Brendan E., "Work and Faith: the prophetic imperative. A response to Graham Hooper". Engage.Mail, Ethos Centre for Christianity and Society, located at http://www.ethos.org.au/online-resources/Engage-Mail/work-and-faith-the-prophetic-imperative
Tuesday Mar 05, 2019
Episode 18 - The Dream Betrayed, Part VI: The Church As Community of Justice
Tuesday Mar 05, 2019
Tuesday Mar 05, 2019
In this episode of Ergasia, we conclude our exploration of the book The Dream Betrayed: Religious Challenge of the Working Class by Lutheran scholar Karen L Bloomquist. Having taken us through the dilemma faced by the working class under the oppressive reign of neoliberalism, and having likewise identified both the sin lying at the heart of that oppression as well as the Church's contribution to the betrayal of working class hopes, Bloomquist issues a call to the Church to become a community of resistance that enables the structural injustices of corporatist capitalism to be identified, challenged, and transformed.
References
Bloomquist, Karen L., The Dream Betrayed: Religious Challenge of the Working Class. Minneapolis; Fortress Press, 1990
Monday Dec 03, 2018
Episode 17 - The Dream Betrayed Part V: Redeeming Working Class Reality
Monday Dec 03, 2018
Monday Dec 03, 2018
In this episode of Ergasia we continue our exploration of the book The Dream Betrayed: Religious Challenge of the Working Class by Lutheran scholar Karen L Bloomquist. In this episode, Bloomquist considers the question of how the Church can proclaim the Gospel of God's redemption in way that takes into account the reality of working class oppression, and which empowers the working class to resist the structures of domination and injustice by which their lives are controlled.
References
The Dream Betrayed: Religious Challenge of the Working Class. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990.
Sunday Nov 04, 2018
Episode 16: The Dream Betrayed, Part IV: The Dominance of Sin
Sunday Nov 04, 2018
Sunday Nov 04, 2018
In this episode of Ergasia, we continue our exploration of the book The Dream Betrayed: Religious Challenge of the Working Class by Karen L Bloomquist, published by Fortress Press. Bloomquist asks: what are the ways in which sin manifests itself in the structures of dominance and control that enslave working class life? How are these structures upheld by our conceptions of what sin is? And what is the relevance of the Gospel proclamation of grace, both to the realities of working class life and as a mechanism for liberation?
References
Bloomquist, Karen L The Dream Betrayed: Religious Challenge of the Working Class. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990.