Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics

Volume 40, Issue 1, Spring/Summer 2020

Jeremy Posadas
Pages 109-126

Reproductive Justice Re-Constructs Christian Ethics of Work

This essay proposes an anti-work Christian ethics of work: that is, an ethics of work that breaks Christianity’s complicity with capitalism’s death-dealing ideology of work. Taking up feminist anti-work theory’s call to the “refusal of work,” the essay first clarifies the relationship between work and care within the capitalist work-system (a concept coined here by the author). It then argues that the activist framework known as reproductive justice—once it is expanded to the whole sphere of social reproduction—offers a moral norm adequate for an anti-work Christian ethics of work. This new norm resonates with the Christian account of Creation, in which ruach circulates for the joy-filled liveliness of all.