The Catholic Play Ethic?

Hmmm... maybe, if it was a small c. Curious little piece from the Church Times, where The Revd Dr Giles Fraser - Team Rector of Putney, and lecturer in philosophy at Wadham College, Oxford - picks up on how Puritan predestination keeps the work ethic in place. 'Am I saved or not? I better work hard, and duteously, to ensure the result'. Here's the Rev's alternative:

Let me suggest a different theological paradigm. As the summer holidays draw to a close, and the trips to the zoo and the beach have dried up, late August again delivers the highlight of the season: the show. As boredom ignites creativity, the children transform the garden into a proscenium arch of swings, buckets, and washing-up lines. Isabella sits for hours, making tickets. A play is endlessly rehearsed and the casting bitterly contested. Adults are then dragooned into place for a half-hour of princesses and chaos. It is wonderful, bizarre, and entirely pointless.

Here is a much healthier theological paradigm than the anxious instrumentality of the Protestant work ethic. Perhaps it’s naff to call it the Catholic play ethic; still, here is a joyous celebration of life which is not designed to elicit any advantage. It’s godly play: an act of thanksgiving for freedom, gardens and friendship. These things are celebrated in and of themselves, not because they advance any cause. Like the eucharist, the show is holiday as thanksgiving.