“To work is to pray,” dreadful because of the cynicism, the justification, the contempt which it expresses. Oh, I know all the possible theological justifications! Work is willed by God. Work fulfills man’s destiny. Work serves to complete nature, which is only in the rough. Work turns nature to the glory of God. When all that is put together, we see clearly that there no longer is any need to pray, for given those conditions work is itself a prayer.
Very well, I declare that all that is a lie…I call these “theological” explanations lies because they are nothing more or less than justifications for continuing to work without pause, without turning toward God, without praying…Precisely if I say that work is the carrying out of a vocation to which God has called me, I cannot at the same time say that “to work is to pray.”
[This] is an invention of the bourgeoisie for affirming the sanctity of work, for justifying oneself before men (how could it be before God?), for proclaiming the sanctity of one’s “religion of work,” and of the implacable discipline of work which it imposes on others. The worker has no need of free time for prayer. In the factory there need be no stopping, no pause. When the factory lets out at the end of the day, what does it matter that the worker is staggering with fatigue, unable to put two ideas together, that he is filled with rebellious hatred for his exploiter, and hence is incapable of the peace which is necessary for prayer. What does it matter? Thanks to the employer this profane worker has prayed whether he wanted to or not, ten or twelve hours a day. Such is the frightful lie which the bourgeoisie, the management, have proclaimed for a hundred and fifty years to maintain a religious facade and to assure a strict totalitarian regime of work.”
Jacques Ellul, Prayer and the Modern Man (1970).
