Don Flowers’s reflection “Finding Grace in Layoffs” raises a provocative and timely question: what is the Christian way to lay someone off? I reached the end of his piece wanting him to say more about how being Christian complicates this kind of management situation.
Specifically, I wanted him to write more about our obligations to one another beyond the actual “layoff” conversation. Why didn’t he remind us that, as Christians, we have a moral responsibility to work to minimize lay offs as much as possible, even if it means sacrificing a share of our own salaries so that others might simply keep their jobs?
As Christian managers, we should work to ensure that the most vulnerable are protected through this present crisis. What is our obligation to care for the families of those who are now unemployed, especially the children? A Christian way to lay someone off, it seems to me, would be to continue to provide health insurance for the families of those that they have laid off until they find new work (this, of course, assumes that these Christian managers have been providing these benefits all along).
But most of all, I wanted Flowers to say something about how awkward it should be to belong to a community that was meant to “hold all things in common” in a time like this (Acts 2:44). Our present economic situation has exposed how far we live from that Christian command. Those at the top of the corporate ladder bemoan $500,000 salary caps while those at the bottom struggle to keep their jobs and homes. And yet, on Sunday morning, both those at the top and those at the bottom take their seats in our pews, awaiting a word of hope. Sunday morning should be awkward until we find a way to live closer to God’s intention for the church.
The layoff conversation and how it is handled certainly matters, but our Christian obligations to our employees neither begin nor end there. As Peter Storey is fond of saying, “when Christ was nailed to His cross, he nailed us to each other.”
