References for Theme: Protestantism
- Arruñada, B
- "Protestants and Catholics: Similar work ethic, different social ethic" (2010)
(p.893) Following Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1904–1905), many writers have considered that this change in beliefs improves economic incentives, especially in the Calvinist version that emphasises predestination but also in the common Protestant focus on ordinary labour and vocation. The argument goes that even though good works do not warrant salvation, they serve as a signal to the believer, who is therefore moved to constant self-examination, with increased moral awareness. Worldly success is also seen as a positive signal when coming from disciplined work and not resulting in excessive consumption. Reformers thus modified the contents...
- "Protestants and Catholics: Similar work ethic, different social ethic" (2010)
(p.909) Overall, the article finds little support in survey data on currently held values for Weber’s work ethic hypothesis in The Protestant Ethic, by which Protestants would tend to work harder and more efficiently than Catholics. It finds substantial support, however, for an alternative social ethic argument, as Protestant values are shown to shape a type of individual who exerts greater effort in mutual social control, supports institutions more and more critically, is less bound to close circles of family and friends and also holds more homogeneous values. In Weberian terms, the data are therefore more supportive of Weber’s view in...
- "Protestants and Catholics: Similar work ethic, different social ethic" (2010)
- Bernstein, Paul
- Eisenberger, Robert
- Luther, Martin
- An open letter to the Christian nobility (1943)
(p.38) Now what are we to do? My advice is to restore liberty, and to leave every man free to marry or not to marry. But if we did this we should have to introduce a very different rule and order for property; the whole canon law would be overthrown, and but few benefices would fall to Rome. I am afraid greed was a cause of this wretched, unchaste chastity, for the result of it was that every man wished to become a priest or to have his son brought up to the priesthood, not with the intention of living in...
- An open letter to the Christian nobility (1943)
(p.41) One should abolish all saints’ days, keeping only Sunday. But if it were desired to keep the festivals of Our Lady and the greater saints, they should all be held on Sundays, or only in the morning with the mass; the rest of the day being a working day. My reason is this: with our present abuses of drinking, gambling, idling, and all manner of sin, we vex God more on holy days than on others. And the matter is just reversed; we have made holy days unholy, and working days holy, and do no service; but great dishonour, to...
- An open letter to the Christian nobility (1943)
(p.44) Some may think that in this way the poor would not be well cared for, and that such great stone houses and convents would not be built, and not so plentifully, and I think so too. Nor is it necessary. If a man will be poor he should not be rich; if he will be rich, let him put his hand to the plough, and get wealth himself out of the earth. It is enough to provide decently for the poor, that they may not die of cold and hunger. It is not right that one should work that another...
- An open letter to the Christian nobility (1943)
- "Trade and Usury" (1955)
(p.10) The rule ought to be, not: I may sell my wares as dear as I can or will, but: I may sell my wares as dear as I ought, or as is right and proper. For your selling ought not to be a work that is entirely within your own power and will, without law or limit, as though you were a god and beholden to no one; but because this selling of yours is a work that you perform toward your neighbor, it must be so governed by law and conscience, that you do it without harm and injury...
- "Trade and Usury" (1955)
(p.12) In deciding how much profit you ought to take on your business and your labor, there is no better way to reckon it than by estimating the amount of time and labor you have put on it and comparing it with that of a day laborer, who works at another occupation, and seeing how much he earns in a day. On that basis reckon how many days you have spent in getting your wares and bringing them to your place of business, how great the labor has been and how much risk you have run, for great labor and much...
- "Trade and Usury" (1955)
(p.9) The merchants have among themselves one common rule, which is their chief maxim and the basis of all their sharp practices. They say: I may sell my goods as dear as I can. This they think their right. Lo, that is giving place to avarice and opening every door and window to hell. What does it mean? Only this: “I care nothing about my neighbor; so long as I have my profit and satisfy my greed, what affair is it of mine if it does my neighbor ten injuries at once?” There you see how shamelessly this maxim flies squarely...
- "Trade and Usury" (1955)
- Commentary on Genesis (1958)
(p.168) V. 19a. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread. With what variety of expression and repetition does Moses dwell on this labor and trouble, when he is declaring the manner in which the husband must labor and toil in feeding his family, defending his property and governing his house! And all these toils and troubles are far more difficult in our age on account of the perverseness of men, than they were "in the beginning." For we universally witness, even where the expectation of food is certain, with what difficulty a family are kept to their duty. Nor...
- Commentary on Genesis (1958)
(p.169) But here a question has been raised, whether all men ought not to be husbandmen, or at least whether they ought not to devote themselves to manual labor? Some did indeed thus foolishly contend at the beginning of the Gospel among us. For they so abused this and other like passages of Scripture, which command the labor of the hands, that the youth throwing aside their literary studies gave themselves up to manual employments; and Carlstadt, the leader of these misguided ones, leaving his proper station in life, purchased a farm, and dug and cultivated his own land. For myself...
- Commentary on Genesis (1958)
(p.94) And God gives to Adam a two-fold charge that he should work or till this garden, and also that he should guard and defend it. Some faint vestiges of this original command yet remain in these miserable remnants of primitive things, which we still possess. For even to this day these two things must ever be joined together: not only that the earth should be tilled but also that the productions of that cultivation should be defended. But both these great principles are corrupted and marred in an infinite number of forms. For not the tillage of the earth itself...
- Commentary on Genesis (1958)
(p.95) If we speak of food and the misery attending it, not only have beasts the same general produce of the earth, now no longer an Eden, which we have; but men defraud men of the same and rob them of it by theft and plunder. Hence hedges and walls and other strong defences are found necessary for the protection of property; and even by these the produce, we have obtained by the labor and sweat of cultivation, can scarcely be preserved in safety. Thus we have indeed a remnant of the labor of cultivation, but very far different from the...
- Commentary on Genesis (1958)
(p.96) Hence man did not fall by sin in soul only, but in body also; and both participate in the punishment. For labor is a punishment, which in the state of innocence was an amusement and a pleasure.
- Commentary on Genesis (1958)
(p.97) But the text speaks of human "tilling" and human "keeping" absolutely. So Cain just below, Gen. 4:2, is said to have been "a tiller of the ground." And in Job and Ecclesiastes kings are called tillers of the earth or husbandmen; not merely on account of their labor itself in tillage, but on account of their guardianship and protection. But as I have all along said, labor and protection are now hard and difficult terms? But originally they were terms denoting a certain delightful employment and exquisite pleasure.
- Commentary on Genesis (1958)
- Münzer, Thomas
- The collected works of Thomas Müntzer (1988)
(p.371) O how rotten the elect have become! That is why [God] himself has hired me for his harvest. U have sharpened my sickle, for my thoughts yearn for the truth which my lips, skin, hands, hair, soul, body and life I call down curses on the unbelievers.
- The collected works of Thomas Müntzer (1988)
- Smith, V O; Smith, Y S
- "Bias, history, and the protestant work ethic" (2011)
(p.287) The histories agree that Luther gave secular value to work by his teachings about “calling.” Calvin then enlarged the idea of “calling” into what eventually became the PWE by convincing his followers that hard work was a means of gaining wealth for God’s glory as well as a means of salvation. This ennobled work and made it necessary for human development.
- "Bias, history, and the protestant work ethic" (2011)
(p.288) The point is that the “historical facts” asserted in the organizational literature appear to have emerged from a complex interaction of facts, values and interests as interpreted through a specific ideology. For example, many work histories echo Engels’ (1895) argument that the early Hebrews thought mankind was doomed to work as a penalty for the fall of Adam and Eve. That rationale is found in Genesis 3:17 “Cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it” (Erikson, 1990; Nord et al., 1990). However, earlier in Genesis, the Hebrew writers discuss God working in the act...
- Veldman, Ilja M
- "Images of Labor and Diligence in Sixteenth-Century Netherlandish Prints: The Work Ethic Rooted in Civic Morality or Protestantism?" (1992)
(p.227) Moral views are bound up with particular periods of time and geographical areas, and are also subject to change. The desire to work, diligence and thrift are fairly late arrivals in the ethical system, and are seen by most historians as typically middle-class virtues, which did not achieve their ultimate place in the value system until the eighteenth-century Enlightenment.
- "Images of Labor and Diligence in Sixteenth-Century Netherlandish Prints: The Work Ethic Rooted in Civic Morality or Protestantism?" (1992)
(p.228) Weber's hypothesis has been immensely influential to this day, sometimes being quoted approvingly and so- metimes attracting criticism ranging from thoughtful analysis to vehement denunciation It has been pointed out, for instance, that "capitalist tendencies" can be found before the Reformation, and that to hold work in high regard is characteristic of Christianity in general. Thomas Aquinas saw work not only as a means of pro- viding the essentials of life, but also as a fulfilment of the commandment to practice Christian charity, a duty to the community (officium) imposed by God. The maxim ora et labora of monastic orders...
- "Images of Labor and Diligence in Sixteenth-Century Netherlandish Prints: The Work Ethic Rooted in Civic Morality or Protestantism?" (1992)
(p.239) In the sixteenth century, the concept of acedia was replaced by the term desidia, which was taken to mean idleness in both the biblical and modern senses of "not working" and the neglect of one's everyday respon- sibilities (see Ecclesiasticus 33:27: "Send him to labour, that he be not idle, for idleness teacheth much evil")
- "Images of Labor and Diligence in Sixteenth-Century Netherlandish Prints: The Work Ethic Rooted in Civic Morality or Protestantism?" (1992)
(p.242) Another of Junius's verses, "In tabellam de otiosis" (On a picture of idlers), describing an unknown print or painting, conveys an equally clear message: "He who squanders his time in vulgar idling, and wilfully puts too much trust in chance, strikes a blow at the source of bounty, and he who has once given generously becomes a beggar. Wealth often grows for one who, though afflic- ted by want, lives frugally by toiling diligently in a seem- ly manner."68 So beggars have only themselves to blame. This point is also made in Den rechten weg nae 't gasthuys (The best...
- "Images of Labor and Diligence in Sixteenth-Century Netherlandish Prints: The Work Ethic Rooted in Civic Morality or Protestantism?" (1992)
- Zaret, D
How to contribute.
