Towards a critical spirituality of organization

Abstract

In contrast to the current tide of literature which predominantly emphasizes the integrative potential of spirituality in the workplace, this article explores the possibility that spirituality can act as a force of resistance in relation to management through the development of a practice‐based morality. It focuses on two historical cases where a synthesis between Christianity and Marxism provided the basis for challenging organizational practice. The first involves the French worker‐priests (1943–54) and the second concerns the role of industrial mission in the British coal miners’ strike (1984–85). These two cases illustrate the potential for achieving a synthesis between Christianity and Marxism in the form of a practice‐based morality that involves a concern with the exterior, political and social aspects of religion in addition to the preoccupation with the interior search for meaningful existence which tends to dominate managerial approaches.

Keywords:

• critical spirituality
• liberation theology
• Marxism
• industrial mission
• worker‐priests

Acknowledgements

The research on which this article is based was financially supported by a grant from the Leverhulme Trust (RFG/2002/02193). I am grateful to Ed Wray Bliss and Ron Beadle for his helpful comments on an earlier version of this article.

Notes

1. This analysis forms part of a larger study which combined archive and case study methods in an investigation into the changing role of the industrial mission in Britain. The present analysis is based on interviews with three individuals conducted between May and September 2004 who held full‐time positions as coal industry chaplains at the time of the strike and archive documents relating to industrial mission activity at the time.

2. Source: interviewee’s personal archive document.