Tag: christianity

The Ceremony of Redundancy: Vocational Dignity in Decline


A Reflection in Response to the 2025 U.S. Government Shutdown

As the United States enters its first phase of government shutdown, since 2018, President Trump has made clear his intention: this is not merely a budgetary standoff, but a strategic purge. He has stated that the shutdown will serve as a “natural weeding-out process” for roles deemed unnecessary—a sentiment echoed by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), now operating in post-Musk inertia.

But beneath the political theatre lies a deeper societal wound: the erosion of vocational dignity when need becomes ceremonial, not operational.

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Beyond Expectations: ESRS S1–S4 and the “What Thank Have Ye?” Principle


By David J. James | Quoracy.com

In the age of sustainability disclosures and corporate transparency, the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS) S1–S4 present themselves as technical instruments—legal scaffolding for social accountability. But beneath their regulatory veneer lies a deeper philosophical current: a challenge not merely to comply, but to go beyond expectations. To act, as Jesus once said, not just in reciprocity, but in grace. This essay traces the intellectual lineage of that challenge, from the Gospel of Luke to Carl Gustav Jung, through Eric Berne, and into the heart of modern ESG.

The “What Thank Have Ye?” Principle

Jesus’s words in Luke 6:32–35 are a direct rebuke to transactional morality:

“If ye love them which love you, what thank have ye? for sinners also love those that love them. And if ye do good to them which do good to you, what thank have ye? for sinners also do even the same.” (Luke 6:32–33, KJV)

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