The issues that set a book of the month for September will help you speak God's word

with boldness and love. It's titled, Speaking Boldly, Sharing God's Word Every Day.

This new resource is published by Concordia Publishing House, their phone number,

1-800-325-3040, or find out more about speaking boldly at issuesetc.org.

Speaking boldly, Sharing God's Word Every Day by Dr. Ed Grimmstein.

The issuesetc.org book of the month, 1-800-325-3040.

We really take it for granted, especially here in the Western world,

that work is considered to be a good thing. We talk about having a career and that's something

that people deeply, deeply value. They work their whole lives from childhood on up to pursue a job

work. And then they, well, they work for years and years and years. The goal there is to retire

and reap the benefits of all of that labor. We're just coming off of labor day and we need to stop

and say, do all those ideas that we associate with labor and with profit and with capitalism?

Do they all line up perfectly with Christian thought? And how did Christianity completely

utterly change the way that the world looks at work and labor and vocation? Welcome back to

issuesetc.org. I'm Todd Wilkin. On this Tuesday, September 8th, we're going to talk about the

influence of Christianity on labor and economic freedom. Dr. Alvin Schmidt joins us. He's professor

emeritus of sociology at Illinois College and author of the book How Christianity Change the World.

Dr. Schmidt, welcome back. Thank you for having me. How do you explain that Christianity is more

and more portrayed as bad for civilization? Well, at the very opposite is really true. Christianity

is not bad for civilization. It's been a great benefit for civilization. The criticism that's

often made is based on ignorance rather than on factual knowledge. Well, when one thinks about

labor, we in this country, or anywhere for that matter, really have very little understanding

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