Every culture has its own false gods, and I don’t think it’ll be controversial if I say that one of ours is productivity. Right back to Benjamin Franklin, Americans have always been an on-the-clock people, obsessed with not wasting a second of our lives—and assuming, of course, that time is wasted if it’s not put to use in work. The Internet age has made things even worse. Many of us feel that we’re on the clock, or at least on call, 24 hours per day. What does this culture of productivity do to the life of the mind and the life of the spirit? Our guest today on Christian Humanist Profiles is John Koessler, chair of the pastoral studies department at Moody Bible Institute. His latest book, The Radical Pursuit of Rest, teaches us how to resist the lure of productivity and approach the biblical ideal of rest.