After Sunday [Hardcover]

Armand Larive (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 2004

Many people devote themselves to their work. And it is an easy step from there to show that this devotion has a strong religious bent. But does it follow that devotion to work is bending the knee to idolatry, giving service to mammon? This book says no, not necessarily. In many cases human work is co-creative with the Creator. Why, then, is there so little effort to explore the theological dimension of everyday work? The principal impediment to a proper theological understanding of work is the church's voracious appetite to concentrate everything onto Sunday and its own institutional needs. The kingdom of God gets foreshortened to ecclesiastical boundaries so that the shop floor, the foundry, or the lumberyard and all other places of work are out of bounds. Another impediment keeps the doctrine of the laity too anemic to possess a creativity of its own. This book lays a positive theological framework for a Christian understanding of work, be it manual, intellectual, service-related or not. It does this chiefly around the doctrine of the Trinity. It then turns to show how this system can underpin an ethics and spirituality of work.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"His work is innovative in that he draws from a wealth of interdisciplinary literature, including but not limited to scripture, theology, economics, philosophy, sociology and feminist theory. The result is a theology of work that is rooted in creation-centered natural theology and the doctrine of the Trinity. "After Sunday is an sightful and challenging discussion of the theology of work and its implications for our understanding of vocation and ministry." - The Living Church, October 2004 (The Rev. Sheryl A. Kujawa-Holbrook Living Church, The )

“After Sunday is an extensive theological examination of the role of work in thinking about ourselves as creatures with a divine destiny.” –Sewanee Theological Review, 48.2, Easter 2005

"After Sunday is a superb, at times brilliant, and engrossing book. [The author's] substantial theological analysis is apt and comprehensive, practical and philosophical. I will return again and again to this book to mine its resources. Clergy and others who are genuinely interested in viewing laity as more than clients or instruments of parochial service will find that reading and reflecting on After Sunday is time well spent. Larive has given us a provocative, enlightening, and essential component of our theological homework." -- Angelican Theological Review (Anglican Theological Review )

"deserves to be read, understood and acted upon...After Sunday is a challenging and stimulating debate, and much to be recommended. It should form the basis for lively and live discussion." - The Expository Times, January 2006

(Reverend Canon Peter Allen Expository Times )

"His work is innovative in that he draws from a wealth of interdisciplinary literature, including but not limited to scripture, theology, economics, philosophy, sociology and feminist theory. The result is a theology of work that is rooted in creation-centered natural theology and the doctrine of the Trinity. "After Sunday is an sightful and challenging discussion of the theology of work and its implications for our understanding of vocation and ministry." - The Living Church, October 2004 (, Living Church, The )

“After Sunday is a superb, at times brilliant, and engrossing book. [The author’s] substantial theological analysis is apt and comprehensive, practical and philosophical. I will return again and again to this book to mine its resources. Clergy and others who are genuinely interested in viewing laity as more than clients or instruments of parochial service will find that reading and reflecting on After Sunday is time well spent. Larive has given us a provocative, enlightening, and essential component of our theological homework.” – Angelican Theological Review (Anglican Theological Review )

"deserves to be read, understood and acted upon...After Sunday is a challenging and stimulating debate, and much to be recommended. It should form the basis for lively and live discussion." - The Expository Times, January 2006

(, Expository Times ) --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

About the Author

Armand E. Larive is an Episcopal priest who combined parish ministry with teaching philosophy at Washington State University. He is now enjoying a second career as a carpenter in Bellingham, Washington, near Puget Sound. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 198 pages
• Publisher: Continuum International Publishing Group (April 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0826415857
• ISBN-13: 978-0826415851
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,497,740 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Life is hard work and then...you die, January 14, 2010

By 

J. Philips - See all my reviews

This review is from: After Sunday: A Theology of Work (Paperback)

Armand Larive weaves an elegant and deceptively simple argument about how our everyday work is fundamentally connected to our spirituality. I was taught growing up that you work hard during the week, play hard on Saturday and pray hard on Sunday. All three activities were completely separate from one another and had only distant connections like, "you can party on Saturday as long as you repent on Sunday" or "it doesn't matter how you make your money as long as you tithe." This worldview left me wanting when I entered the work world. It took me 15 years of deep searching to make the connections Larive arrives at in these pages.
God designed our bodies to be about a physical task. We are meant to do hard work until we die (Gen. 17-19) and that is not a bad thing when we can touch the eternal in those moments.
If you have difficulty finding God in your labor or you grew up with the disparate messages I did, then I would recommend this book.
If you have read this book I would also suggest the philosophy and poetry of Wendell Berry. Good stuff.
Well done Aramand. I can't wait for more.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Hard Work, but Well Worth It!, February 3, 2010

By 

Michael (Pacific Northwest) - See all my reviews

This review is from: After Sunday: A Theology of Work (Paperback)

This book has changed fundamentally the way I approach my workaday life. The author's obvious grasp of difficult theological concepts and liberal use of dense, technical language can make the book somewhat unapproachable at times for the rest of us, but his classic writing structure (introduce, explain, conclude) goes a long way toward keeping the reader on track through tough ideas. He begins the book by discussing the current state of the work / spirituality connection in the Christian faith, and insight-fully critiquing the shortcomings. He moves on to integrate the concept of work into a formal theological framework. From this integration, he explores in depth the philosophical relationship of human work with each Person of the Trinity. Finally, he ties all the major themes together in a strong conclusion, giving the reader much to think about and apply to daily life and work.

It all sounds pretty heady, and it is, but the memorable things I have carried from this book (I read it over a year ago) have altered and redeemed my own view of work. Furthermore, I look forward to taking another crack at some of the more esoteric knowledge presented with the trust that there is much more good I can glean here. Larive goes a long way toward dignifying the often tedious and mundane tasks of everyday work with the spark of the divine. And better yet, he admirably achieves his goal of beginning to reconcile the Sunday life we experience in church with all the days that come after...

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Good Start but Weak Ending, November 28, 2009

By 

Conrade Yap (Vancouver, BC Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: After Sunday (Hardcover)

Larive begins this book strong by tackling the common approaches with regards to 'Theology of Work.' He critiques most conferences and teaching seminars as either spiritualizing work via 'spirituality of work,' or merely inculcating 'workplace ethics.' He describes the predicament well with Barbara Brown Zikmund's lament about the confusion of good Christians.

"The four ways we tell serious Christians to live out their vocation are either simplistic and shallow, or they are so demanding that people pale at the task. At the risk of caricature, we insist that an authentic understanding of Christian vocation: (1) has little to do with our jobs, (2) has something to do with all jobs, (3) has more to do with certain jobs, (4) or has everything to do with on-the-job and off-the-job existence. No wonder good Christians get confused." (Zikmund quoted in p3)

His central thesis is that God in present in all our work (2). He goes on to argue, using Miroslav Volf's model of the Triune God of Father/Mother as 'protological,' Son as 'eschatological,' and Spirit as 'pneumatological.' While conceptually, this is reasonable, his interpretation is to me rather wierd. By seeing God as Father/Mother being a Maintainer, Son as 'developing new things,' and Spirit as 'energy,' I cannot help but feel Larive's theology is unorthodox and modalistic.

Despite his efforts, I find that the reader can easily get lost in the technicality. In other words, having started with a good job of critiquing current theologies of work either as too 'spiritualizing' or too moralizing, his third way appears cloudy. Larive may have a point, but I have problems making sense of it.

conrade