The End of Shorter Hours

1. The End of Shorter Hours Why did it happen?

2. Explanation Strategy Explain why the process occurred and why so many thought it would continue. Workers wanted it for Economic reasons Higher wages� Protect against unemployment Cultural reasons- time to live E P Thompson (struggle against time becomes the struggle for time

3. Explain why the process occurred and why so many thought it would continue. Idea of Progress supports workers in their very practical efforts to reduce working hours Progress as the advance of Freedom In USA Political Freedom prepares the way for Economic freedom (free market) that leads to ABUNDANCE To higher freedom to explore what it means to be free- (The Groundhog�s Question)

4. Do you believe? Do you think we should try to make things better? And reform things that need reforming? And solve problems and relieve human distress?

5. Belief in Progress is still widespread

6. The Genesis of �Higher Progress�: John Adams

10. The Genesis of �Higher Progress�: Jonathan Edwards and the Great Awakening

11. �The Kingdom of God in America.� H. Richard Niebuhr

12. The belief that material progress and political reforms might prepare the way for an increasingly more Christ-like world, for the spread of justice, peace, knowledge and love, represented by the image of the kingdom earth, was among the most ecumenical of beliefs in the United States from Colonial Days to the 20th century.

13. Post vs. Pre Millennialism Millennium � thousand year kingdom on earth Postmillennialism- Humans will help construct a �kingdom on Earth� (a utopia) in preparation for the coming of Christ Premillennialism- Christ will come unannounced to a world unprepared, and there�s the devil to pay- be careful what you are doing on that dreadful day� The �left behind� series

14. Millennialism And the �American Dream� Elements in common Kingdom on earth = overarching set of interrelated, fundamental and enduring beliefs; that by whatever cause, human or divine, progress in history was not only possible but underway particularly in the United States;

15. Kingdom on earth = overarching set of interrelated, fundamental and enduring beliefs; that modern scientific and material advances and the spread of human rights and political reforms had profound religious and spiritual implications.

16. Kingdom on earth = overarching set of interrelated, fundamental and enduring beliefs; that such advances were desirable because they freed humans from the tyranny of the state and the exploitation of the powerful and even from the chains of material necessity, making it possible for them to claim their full humanity.

17. Kingdom on earth = overarching set of interrelated, fundamental and enduring beliefs; However these new freedoms were problematic, raising new questions about what such freedoms entailed, challenging individuals and states to make the right choices, tempting them to mistake their newly found liberty for license. (Groundhog�s Question)

18. Kingdom on earth = overarching set of interrelated, fundamental and enduring beliefs; Therefore the churches needed to respond actively to the advent of new liberties, offering their guidance, teaching and vision, providing answers to what increasingly refined freedoms, never before experience by the majority of humans, offered individuals and meant in history.

19. Kingdom on earth = overarching set of interrelated, fundamental and enduring beliefs; By so doing the churches might help establish (or welcome the coming of) the kingdom on earth- might help into bring an increasingly more Christ-like world the culmination of which might greet, figuratively �the end of history,� or literally the coming of the Eternal Kingdom.

21. Jonathan Edwards: �To Set And Sing This Life Away� traditionally deterministic Only God could save individuals, awaken them to their salvation and cause a people to prosper. Service to God is perfect freedom

22.  independent moral authority (exousia) reserved to God, vs.. Christ gift of �eschatological freedom� (eleutheros) Good works could never guarantee salvation. By Grace, being redeemed regardless of merit, humans act in a kind of spiritual autotelic state, inclined to do those good works given to them by God as ends in themselves apart from reward.

23. Redeemed, individuals act in the fullness of a being, lacking no good thing but motivated by the most powerful of intrinsic motives, a redeemed will. Such acts are thus radically free (vain), at the zenith of human liberty. Containing their own meaning (in Christ), they are complete in themselves

25. In the spiritual autotelic state Edwards imagined, the redeemed life was wholly gift. Even where Edwards rejects the idea that humans are free moral agents he repeatedly emphasizes the finer autotelic (or �eschatological�) freedoms that comes as gift with God�s Grace.

26. Edwards described in detail the kinds of autotelic activities humans might enjoy as heirs to God�s kingdom, producing a catalogue of what John Ryan was later to call �the higher goods of life.�

27. Humans experience Christ�s freedom on earth both as freedom from the slavery of self-love that is sin and the freedom for the gifts of the spirit.

28. While filling his sermons with threats of hell to discourage sinners, Edwards nevertheless emphasized that sin was its own punishment here and now in an argument that was a mirror image of his claims about the autotelic rewards of virtue.

29. By contrast, the pleasures found in Christ�s Liberty, even though they may be �esteemed the greatest bondage� by the profane world, are in reality �the best kind of pleasures in the world;� *the desires for which are pleasurable in themselves and their satisfactions, instead of satiating and enslaving, lead the spirit to ever new, more sublime spiritual joys. 

30. �� in the service of God there is full and free liberty to seek as much pleasure as we please, to enjoy the best kind of pleasure in the world and as much of it as we possibly can obtain with all our mighte and main. There are no Restraints.� �

31. The traditional spiritual virtues of course figure prominently as general categories in his vision of the kingdom. �Then shall* flourish in an eminent manner those Christian virtues of meekness, forgiveness, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, and brotherly-kindness, those excellent fruits of the Spirit.�

32. But Edwards goes on to detail specific kinds of �fruits of the spirit� that might result as practical expressions of these virtues. Through prayer, supplication, and meditation on God�s word the soul may become dimly aware of the presence of God, seeing �through a glass darkly.� Though incomplete, such awareness is still the essence of freedom and the ultimate answer to freedom�s question; *what is worth doing in and for itself? Communing with the Omnipotent, part of whose essence is love, might occupy the soul eternally and certainly fill our days here on earth with �works� completely satisfying both in the desire and fulfillment. 

33. mysterium tremendum �There are some persons that� have been swallowed up exceedingly with a sense of the awful grateness and majesty of God; and� told me� that if they in the time of it, had had the least fear, that they were not at peace with this so great a God, they should instantly have died.�

35. The final answer to the question why is there something rather than nothing, �must needs be happiness and the communication of the goodness of God� nothing but the Almighty�s inclination to communicate of his own happiness, could be the motive to him to create the world; and that man � is the immediate object of this goodness, and subject of this communicated happiness.�

36. In songs of praise and thanksgiving and in a transport of joy, the soul can find its authentic recreation and the community its voice. near voluptuous enthusiasm �Our public praises were then greatly enlivened. God was then served in our psalmody, in some measure, in the beauty of holiness. It has been observable, that there has been scarce any part of divine worship, wherein good men amongst us have had grace so drawn forth, and their hearts so lifted up in the ways of God, as in singing his praises. Our congregation excelled all that ever I knew in the external part of the duty before, the men generally carrying regularly and well, three parts of music, and the women a part by themselves: But now they were evidently wont to sing with unusual elevation of heart and voice, which made the duty pleasant indeed� A great delight in singing praises to God and Jesus Christ, and longing that this present life may be, as it were, one continued song of praise to God; longing, as the person expressed it, to set and sing this life away.�

37. Nature then reveals the splendor of God�s design Elevated by joy, the commonplace may be experienced as newly satisfying in and for itself. �The light and comfort which some of them enjoy, gives a new relish to their common blessings, and causes all things about them to appear as it were beautiful, sweet, and pleasant to them. All things abroad, the sun, moon and stars, the clouds and sky, the heavens and earth, appear as it were with a cast of divine glory and sweetness upon them� �

38. Watching God at Work The heavens are telling� And so is the firmament of history� Creation is an ongoing project� We can watch God at work in history- an activity pleasing in itself that Edwards claims as his own�

40. Community

41. God�s Peace As Edwards envisioned it, Christ�s peace contained the static Classical Epicurean virtues of tranquility and simplicity. By contrast, Christ�s peace was also forward looking- a waiting patiently for the Lord and the coming kingdom�

42. Finding it hard to describe Christ�s Peace, Edwards quoted a member of his congregation who had tried to put her experience into words;��blessed, blessed, blessed be the Lord my God! He hath brought me to a place of rest, even to the sweet running waters of Life. The way I now go in is a sweet and easy way, strewed with flowers; he hath brought me into a place more sweet than the garden of Eden. Oh the joy, the joy, the delights and joy that I feel! 0 how wonderful!�

43. Enough/Abundance Resting in Christ�s peace, the soul is untroubled by the quest for eternally more of the things of this world. As John Ryan was to claim nearly two centuries later, Edwards understood that human material needs (what he called �objective� or �extrinsic needs�) were legitimate and should be satisfied. One could even take a rational delight in the gratification of them. But unlike the �inherent�* needs they were finite.

44. God �will give you liberty to recreate and delight yourself in the best, the purest and most exquisite pleasures, as much as you please, without restraint.�

45. Summary of God�s RecreationsA Christian list of answers to the groundhog Enjoying the peace of God waiting and watching for Him delighting in true community and fellowship doing acts of penance and charity seeking to see God and His work in history finding a heightened awareness and appreciation of nature taking joy in the everydayness of life Praising giving thanks Repenting trembling before the Presence reading the bible Praying Singing experiencing His presence more and more in this life Being redeemed might easily become a full time occupation- indeed such �recreations� anticipated the coming of the kingdom and could fill eternity.

46. Progress and a People God made His promises of liberty to nations as well as individuals� Hence the kingdom will be a �fullness of time� in which things spiritual will fill this life for all.

47. The Great Awakening- a foretaste of the kingdom �yet there then (the awakening) was the reverse of what commonly is. Religion was with all sorts the great concern and the world was a thing only by the by. The only thing in their view was to get the kingdom�, and evey� day seemed, in many respects, like a sabbath-day�

48. The weakening of the Protestant Work Ethic and the beginning of the school of work �'Tis great imprudence for one that would obtain salvation to involve and entangle himself in needless cares. A man should be so much at liberty that he can pursue his main end without distraction. Labour to get thoroughly convinced that there is something else needs caring for more than this world� The care of his soul will thrust out the care of his body. And for all his outward business he will be most intent upon his spiritual concern ��

49. The Kingdom to Come Edward�s view of human progress and the coming kingdom included material abundance. But wealth was decidedly a means to an end. With wealth, �ease� might increase. With increasing �ease� and as God granted humans their �contrivances and inventions,� the redeemed would have ever �more time for more noble exercise� and for �spiritual employments.�

50. Edward�s Millennium �'Tis probable that the world shall be more like Heaven in the millennium in this respect: that contemplation and spiritual employments, and those things that more directly concern the mind and religion, will be more the saint's ordinary business than now. There will be so many contrivances and inventions to facilitate and expedite their necessary secular business that they will have more time for more noble exercise, and they shall have better contrivances for assisting one another through the whole earth by more expedite, easy, and safe communication between distant regions than now. And so the country about the poles need no longer be hid from us, but the whole earth may be as one community, one body in Christ.�

51. Samuel Hopkins Edwards� pupil, Samuel Hopkins took up Edwards� themes and extended them. Established a new influential school of theology- Hopkinsianism

52. The Present for Hopkins serving God might become such an absolute fullness that all concern for future punishment and reward were crowded out. Willing to be damned for God�s glory� Zen like focus on the here and now�

53. Disinterested Benevolence Complete giving up of self and self-seeking Complete focus on the wellbeing of others Loss of self Redemption was a process of replacing self with Christ who then might fill the soul to overflowing. For the redeemed, the joys of Christianity were vouchsafe here and now as one lived for and suffered with Christ and for others instead of self.

54. Hopkinsianism Gloomy Puritan conscience

55. Hopkins and the Millennium When all these things are considered, which have now been suggested, and others which will naturally occur to them who attend to this subject, it will appear evident, that in the days of the Millennium, there will be a fullness and plenty of all the necessaries and conveniences of life, to render all much more easy and comfortable, in their worldly circumstances and enjoyments, than ever before, and with much less labour and toil: And that it will not be then necessary for any men or women to spend all, or the greatest part of their time in labour, in order to procure a living, and enjoy all the comforts and desirable conveniences of life. It will not be necessary for each one, to labour more than two or three hours in a day, and not more than will conduce to the health and vigor of the body. And the rest of their time they will be disposed to spend in reading and conversation, and in all those exercises which are necessary and proper, in order to improve their minds, and make progress in knowledge; especially in the knowledge of divinity ; And in studying the scriptures, and in private and social and public worship, and attending on public instruction, &c. When the earth shall be all subdued, and prepared in the best manner for cultivation, and houses and enclosures, and other necessary and convenient buildings shall be erected, and completely finished, consisting of the most durable materials, the labour will not be hard, and will require but a small portion of their time, in order to supply every one with all the neceflaries and conveniences of life: And the rest of their time will not be spent in dissipation or idleness, but in business, more entertaining and important, which has been now mentioned. (A Treatise on the Millennium, 1794)