What Should Professors Teach about the Protestant Work Ethic?

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to argue that Christian professors need to teach students to question assumptions underlying business constructs, even familiar constructs. The Protestant work ethic (PWE) is an important and influential work ethic, but after analysis, it will be shown to be neither biblical nor Protestant. By this we mean that some key definitional elements of the PWE are not Biblical and are not philosophically compatible with the theologies of Martin Luther or John Calvin. Our conclusion is that Christian professors should use the PWE as a cautionary tale to help Christian students evaluate worldviews. The authors suggest several classroom exercises to help students develop their skills in testing assumptions.