Labor Day and the Question, “What Would Jesus Do?” As we celebrate Labor Day, we rightly give thanks for the people whose labor makes our lives possible—the people who build, clean, teach, care, deliver, harvest, cook, serve, repair, drive, and keep our communities going. But Labor Day also gives us an opportunity to ask a harder question: What does it say about us when someone can work hard all week and still not have enough money for food, gas, or a decent place to rest from their labor? The old question, “What Would Jesus Do?”, was never meant to be simply about being nice to the person standing in front of us. The Social Gospel movement understood that following Jesus also means asking about the conditions in which people live and work. Religious leaders such as Walter Rauschenbusch and Washington Gladden challenged Christians to look beyond individual charity toward the systems that create poverty and exploitation. They believed that the Gospel had something to say about wage...
