Entries Tagged 'Vocation' ↓

Michael B. Crawford had a Ph.D. in philosophy, which led him to becoming a motorcycle mechanic. He explains the connection in his new book Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work. From a review:

In his book Crawford argues for a fresh view of skilled labor, especially that of the traditional trades. Go ahead, he’s saying: Get your hands dirty. Own your work.

His book mixes descriptions of the pleasures and challenges of diagnosing faulty oil seals and rebuilding engines with philosophical views of work — he draws upon Aristotle, Martin Heidegger, and Hannah Arendt, among others — and economic analyses for the decline of skilled labor. He laments in particular the recent demise of high-school shop classes, which gave many young men their first manual skills. (Crawford points out that his arguments apply equally to women and says he hopes one day to work on a 1960 Volkswagen bug with his two young daughters.)

Skilled manual labor is far more cognitive than people realize, Crawford argues, and deserves more respect. That is especially true during tough economic times, when an independent tradesperson can make a decent and dignified living, and — this is important — can’t be outsourced. (You can’t get your car fixed in China.) “The question of what a good job looks like — of what sort of work is both secure and worthy of being honored — is more open now than it has been for a long time,” he writes.

Crawford believes that Americans, in their frenzy to send every kid to college in pursuit of information-age job skills, have lost something valuable. “My sense is that some kids are getting hustled off to college when they’d rather be learning to build things or fix things, and that includes kids who are very smart,” he says in an interview. . . .

“It’s a kind of reaction to a loss of contact with what it actually means to make things,” says Richard Sennett, a sociologist whose own book, The Craftsman (Yale University Press, 2008), explores related issues. It’s not a coincidence that a group of scholars is examining notions of what it means to practice a craft or trade at this point in time, says Sennett, who is on leave from New York University while teaching at the London School of Economics and Political Science. . . .

Bill Brown, a professor of English and visual art at Chicago, offers several explanations for the growing body of scholarship on the nature of work and objects. “When there’s a blip in the economy, people start looking up from their desks,” says Brown, whose own work on “thing theory” investigates the way inanimate objects form and transform human subjects. And as the world becomes more digitized — and its physical environment more degraded — people long for more contact with the material, he says.

(You can buy Crawford’s book by following the link above. You can buy Sennett’s by following this one: The Craftsman)

The Bonhoeffer post the other day provoked some fine, fine discussion on whether or not Roman 13 forbids all resistance to civil authority. The ideas expressed on both sides were thoughtful, showing genuine wrestling with a difficult issue.

I wonder if we could factor into the issue the doctrine of vocation.

Elizabeth Scalia at the First Things blog cited another quotation from Bonhoeffer:

He once argued, “if a teacher says to a child, ‘did your father come home drunk again last night,’ is the child bound to tell the truth?” Bonhoeffer decided no, the teacher [institution] had intruded beyond her scope, and therefore the child, to honor his father, is not obligated to subject him to judgment or mockery, or for that matter governmental intrusion.

That is pure vocation ethics, recognizing that what is sinful outside of vocation (e.g., sex outside of marriage; killing someone), can be a good work when performed within vocation (e.g., sex within marriage; a soldier fighting on a battlefield). In this case, the teacher had no authority, no calling from God, to interfere with the family and make the child betray his father. The child was lying, but he was fulfilling the commandment to honor his father and acting within his vocation.

Romans 13 is about the vocation of the civil authority, describing how all authority is really from God, who works through lawful magistrates to punish evildoers and to reward those who do well.

Where does Hitler fit into Romans 13? He punished those who did well and rewarded evildoers. Did God call him to do that? Was he exercising God’s authority? Or violating it? Was he loving and serving his neighbors in his vocation? How can we say that Hitler had a vocation protected by Romans 13, when in actuality he was consistently sinning against his own office and failing to fulfill its duties? What authority did Hitler have? Not God’s, as in Romans 13, since he was violating God’s authority.

Was Hitler even the lawful magistrate? He was elected to the Chancellorship, but he later suspended the constitution under which he was serving. He banned all political parties other than his own and made himself Fuehrer for life, something that had no legal authority behind it.

Yes, Romans 13 upheld the pagan Roman authorities, but Rome had an excellent legal system, one of the best ever devised. This text was not justifying Nero. Christians certainly saw the self-proclaimed deified Emperors as acting outside of their calling and not worthy of being obeyed when it came to their demands to be worshipped. Christians continued to obey the legal system that restrained evildoers, as Romans 13 says to do, but they denied–at the cost of their lives–the notion that the Emperor has a divine authority in defiance of God’s authority.

We’ve talked here quite a bit about the doctrine of vocation and the doctrine of the Two Kingdoms. But there is one other teaching in what we might call the Lutheran theology of culture: the first use of the Law.

To review, the first use of the Law is as a curb, reigning in external sinful behavior so that human society is possible. The second use of the Law is as a mirror, showing us our sinfulness and our need for Christ’s forgiveness; the third use is as a guide, showing Christians what kind of actions please God. The latter two uses get the most attention, but let’s reflect on that first use.

This “civil use” does not create righteousness and is only concerned with external behavior. I may be so angry that I am killing someone in my heart (such is my sinful nature), but I would never kill that person in reality–not just because I fear getting caught but because I would be too ashamed and my conscience would not allow it. The first use of the Law is working. Despite my external obedience to the civil use of the Law, though, I still need the Gospel to grant me forgiveness, and I need Christ to change my hatred into love of my enemy who is also neighbor, whom I am to love and serve particularly in my vocations.

OK, now help me out:

(1) What is the relationship between the first use of the Law and the laws of the civil authorities? (I can see that the two are not coterminous, since the first use works through conscience and not just civil power. But isn’t the civil power obliged to enforce the first use of God’s Law as it relates to civil order and the agency described in Romans 13?

(2) The first use of the law is for all sinners and not just Christian sinners. That is, there is no question of a separate morality for believers and non-believers, at least not in the law’s civil use. Is there?

(3) Doesn’t the first use of the Laws regarding sexual morality apply to the entire culture?

(4) Some Christians are saying that we should let the state set its own standards for marriage and the like–including allowing for same sex marriages–but that the church can insist on its own standards for its members. Wouldn’t that violate the first use of the Law?

(5) It seems that at different times and with different people, the various uses of the Law have been under attack: the legalists rejected the second use; the antinomians rejected the third use. Aren’t we seeing now in our culture the rejection of the first use? And shouldn’t Christians defend it? Or does God’s law need to defense, since it will be at work no matter what man’s laws and customs dictate? If so, how will the first use of the law manifest itself in a morally relativistic, pro-choice-in-all-things culture?

Thanks for last week’s discussion of “Christendom.” I agree that the church must not get caught up in wielding power. The church is all about the Gospel of Christ. There is another piece of the puzzle, though: Vocation.

“God does not need our good works, but our neighbor does.” Those who receive Christ’s forgiveness through the Word and Sacraments are then sent out into the world to love and serve their neighbors. They are called to do so in the family (the vocations of marriage, parenthood, and childhood), the workplace (as master and servant, as a worker using whatever gifts and opportunities God has given), and the state (as ruler and citizen, as member of the particular community, culture, and society).

The different vocations are intrinsically culture-making. Not culture ruling, but culture-making. Historically, Christians have had an impact in their cultures, and not just Western cultures as we are still seeing today in Africa and elsewhere. Christians in their diverse callings always open schools, establish hospitals, reject tribal revenge codes in favor of the rule of law, make contributions in the arts, promote productive economic activity, etc., etc.

So if we could fully recover the doctrine of vocation, keeping the Gospel central, what would that look like today? How could that bear fruit, if not in a new Christendom, in a positive Christian presence in the culture?

Anthony Sacramone at Strange Herring gets serious, issuing a manifesto, of a sort. Read it all at the link, but here are excerpts:

The time is coming when Christians of all stripes must consider what it means to be a nation within a nation, alien residents, not in a secular culture but in a culture actively hostile to its most deeply cherished beliefs and values. The time is coming when Christians are going to have to come to terms with being an alternative culture within the larger one. And that is going to mean giving greater attention to their schools and hospitals. . . .

For too long Christians assumed that this was a Christian nation, filled with likeminded people who would, despite Hollywood and the mainstream media and a few academics on the margins, would ultimately see their values prevail, due to the much advertised American exceptionalism. Time to reconsider. Time to stop being so complacent. The barbarians are not at the gate — they’re in the house.

This is not a call for a retreat into the woods, for ratcheting up the paranoia or building bomb shelters or stocking up on guns. That’s an admission of defeat, that the God we worship is not greater than the principalities and powers of this world.

It is a call for a celebration of, and respect for, life — new life, elderly life, disabled and handicapped life — and a call for the repristination of our hospitals and schools and libraries and elder-care facilities. We can no longer take for granted that the secular institutions will support our beliefs and values. On the contrary: We must assume they are immersed in a worldview that puts the Naked Personal Will at the center of everything. Narcissism is the prevailing ethos, and that which does not reflect back its own image will be marginalized if not destroyed.

Many non-Catholics are looking to Catholics right now because they have a history of creating such an alternate culture in this country. In the late 19th century, when public schools in big cities began putting sound citizenship at the forefront of its pedagogic agenda, it was with an eye toward de-Catholicizing recent immigrants. And so Catholics resisted by constructing their own schools, hospitals, nursing homes. They created institutions that would preserve and transmit their beliefs and their culture from generation to generation.

Other denominations did as well: Lutherans have their parochials schools and Presbyterians and Methodists built their hospitals and colleges. But do these institutions still see their Christian roots as their ongoing source of life, or have they paved over their living foundation and replaced the stained glass with mirror images of their secular counterparts in order to appeal to a broader swathe of the population just to keep their doors open?

We must also keep in mind another part of Catholic history: The historical counterparts of those people I playfully call barbarians were once upon a time converted. And the contempory variety still may be. We must keep that in mind always. They too are made in the image of God. Their lives are also threatened by the rising tide of irrationalism and nihilism. The Church, in all its institutional manifestations, must be seen as the ark of salvation, a real refuge, an authentic alternative, and not just a kitschy knockoff of worldly diversions.

What would this look like, I wonder? We have schools, homeschools, and colleges. While it’s true that many Christian schools just imitate the secularist curriculum with a little religion thrown in (which is often undone by the rest of the courses), classical Christian education has made a comeback–including here at Patrick Henry College– and is beating the secularists in their own terms, namely, academically. Founding hospitals is a good idea, though the prospect of socialized medicine, which may require performing abortions is making existing Catholic hospitals think they may have to close their doors. Fundamentalists have and are trying to establish parallel cultural institutions (businesses, media, a music industry), but that hasn’t gone too well. But maybe that just needs to be done better, emulating classical culture rather than the pop culture.

One thing I know we need to focus on: Rebuilding the culture requires rebuilding the foundation of every culture, the family. Whatever the state does to the institution of marriage, Christians need to build solid, happy, permanent marriages among themselves. Whatever the pop culture does to mess up children, Christian parents need to raise solid, happy, growing children.

Notice that this all, including converting the barbarians, requires recovering the doctrine of vocation!

Language is inherently metaphorical, and those underlying metaphors shape the nuances of meaning and thus how we think. Tickletext’s discussion of “Vocation” vs. “Career”–do we think of our work as something God has called us to, or as a road we happen to be on?–made me think of other words that we use.

OCCUPATION. What we do to pass the time? Actually, the word has the sense of “place.” Our work as the place we occupy.

JOB. That originally referred to the unit that was made by the craftsman. It came from a word for “lump”!

PROFESSION. That means “a public declaration,” probably referring to the oaths necessary to enter certain guilds. (Cf. “profession of faith.”) That’s the converse of vocation: what the person says, whereas vocation–calling–refers to what God says.

Vocation-related words that convey the classic theological meaning include “CALLING” (of course, which is all “vocation” means, connoting a voice that summons and names); “OFFICE” (a position of authority), “STATION” (where someone is assigned to stand), “POST” (where a soldier is stationed).

(Etymologies from Merriam-Webster.)

On that recent “Other versions of Vocation” post, commenter Tickletext had some fascinating things to say about the difference between “vocation” and “career”:

It’s instructive to contrast the metaphorical underpinnings of “vocation” and “career.” The central metaphor of vocation is, of course, a calling–latin vocare. The person who is called is the receptor of that gift, the respondent to that calling, which originates not in oneself but in the Person who calls.

But the word “career” is etymologically associated with roads, courses, chariot-paths, etc. Poets used to speak of the “career” of the sun in its course across the sky. This is how modernity generally conceives of work, as a choice of course, not a calling and a gift. The person who faces a career choice faces a crossroads of choices. A person usually discovers one’s vocations as they naturally unfold through the talents that arise in relation to the people to whom one is called. But the criteria for making the right career choice and taking the right career path are self-originating, they are discovered by being true to oneself and one’s desires (to speak the Hollywood argot). Because that is extremely vague, and because one’s desires are in constant flux and contradiction, there has arisen a whole industry of incantatory-astrological magicians and paperback mountebanks who hawk the right “formula” or series of steps, which, if purchased and followed, will bring happiness and success in one’s career choice.

Universities today are extremely career-oriented, of course. Like all the secular schools the Christian university I attended had a Career Center but no Vocation Center, nor was vocation taught in any substantive way. The phrase “revolutionize” is a cliche, but a strong and full articulation of vocation properly understood would truly transform the way we approach education. In the humanities, for instance, an understanding of art, literature, and criticism as vocational means of serving the neighbor would provide a compelling alternative to the dehumanizing, obscurantist tendencies of modern English departments.

In another comment, he added this:

One reason I find the distinction between vocation and career useful is that the former category has a teleological orientation which is lacking in the latter. By which I mean: the career culture has no sound way of differentiating legitimate careers from illegitimate careers. It doesn’t really matter WHAT career you choose–the choice is the only important thing. Who are we to judge the choices of others, anyway? There is a built-in aversion to truth in the career mentality. And thus it leaves the neighborhood in the cold and fragmented.

But vocation acknowledges the flourishing–the shalom–of the neighbor as a legitimate check to the authority of choice. Vocations that prove deleterious to the health and well being of the neighbor are no vocations at all. But the same cannot be said of the career mindset, which is inherently choice-oriented. Vocation doesn’t deny the role of choice, it just humbles it, redirects it.

This week I had a couple of posts on New Reformation Press, which advertises on this blog (scroll down the sidebar on the right), focusing specifically on some presentations NRP makes available from Dr. Rod Rosenbladt. He is a theology professor, retiring this year from Concordia-Irvine, who has had a huge impact on many of his students and who became something of a radio star through his appearances on “White Horse Inn.” He is quite a personality, with a devastating sense of humor and an iconoclastic attitude, who proclaims and teaches the Gospel with rigor, love, and penetrating effectiveness.

He provokes testimonials like these on the “Broken by the Church Post” from some of our long-time commenters:

I remember hearing “Daddy Rod” for the first time many years ago with his friends on the White Horse Inn. I was driving on the rims atop our fair city, and I pulled over and cried. It was the first time I had heard the gospel–what Jesus had done for me–since I was a child in the Lutheran Church. –Booklover

I just finished listening to it ["The Gospel for Those Broken by the Church"]. Four bucks is a small price to pay for such a powerful message. I would’ve spent it on an over-priced coffee drink to be sure. This message is very powerful, but it is not aimed at those broken by the church per se. It is more aimed at those still in the church who are sharing the Gospel with those who are broken. We cannot hear the Gospel enough. It is so unbelievable that Christ did it all and we didn’t and cannot. As many times and I’ve heard and believed, it’s still such a shocking and totally unbelievable message. Seriously? Just Him? Nothing else? Yup. Wow. We’ll never hear it enough!!!!!–Sarah in Exile

I keep hearing from people who say how they heard Dr. Rosenbladt on “White Horse Inn” and it changed their life. I also hear from his former students who say the same thing. It strikes me that here is a good example (he would hate me saying that of him) of the vocation of college professor and evangelist. Since he’s retiring, this would be a good place to record testimonials from people who were impacted by his teaching, whether in a classroom, via the radio, through his tapes or writings, or in person. Anyone have anything to say?

As I continue to study the doctrine of vocation, I find that nearly all writers in English on the subject–both popular and scholarly–tend to skip over Luther’s version, even though Luther is THE theologian of vocation. Instead, I have noticed at least three other versions that are quite different from his:

(1) The Roman Catholic version. The notion that “vocation” and “calling” has reference only to church-work is still very prevalent, including among many Protestants, evangelicals, and even Lutherans. (I get a kick out of the Google ads on this blog. We talk about vocation so much we are getting targeted with ads for “Religious Vocations for Women” and “Join the Franciscans.”)

(2) The charismatic version. “Calling” becomes a sort of inner voice from God, or a strong inner conviction that God wants you to do a certain thing or pursue a certain “ministry.” This is evident even in non-charismatic writers, such as Os Guinness in his book “The Call.”

(3) The Puritan version. “Vocation” becomes a synonym for “the Protestant Work Ethic.” It becomes pure law and principles for Christianizing whatever you do.

These different doctrines of vocation sometimes have elements of truth, but you have to start with Luther and his insights that vocation is about how God works THROUGH people as part of the way He governs the world, that the purpose of vocation is to love and serve our different neighbors, that vocations are multiple, that vocation is about living out our faith in the realm of the ordinary, etc.

On that foundation–and you don’t have to be a Lutheran to profit from Luther’s insights on these points– you can learn from other theological perspectives. But if those others are all you have, you are going to get it wrong and miss out on the blessings of this teaching!

Justin Taylor at Between Two Worlds announces that Westminster Theological Seminary is selling Gustav Wingren’s “Luther on Vocation.” He asked me how that book influenced me. So I’ll quote him quoting me:

Some years ago, a friend gave me a copy of Gustav Wingren’s Luther on Vocation, saying, “You’ve got to read this.” I put it on my stack of books to read, as others piled up on top of it. I thought I knew what the doctrine of vocation was. You do your work to the glory of God. What else is there to say? But when I finally opened Wingren’s book, I found that Luther’s doctrine of vocation is completely different than what I thought it was.

Vocation isn’t so much about what I do, but about what God does through me. Vocation is nothing less than the theology of the Christian life. God calls us to live out our faith in the world, in the ordinary-seeming realms of the family, the workplace, and the culture. The purpose of every vocation is to love and serve our neighbors, whom God brings to us in our everyday callings. Wingren shows that vocation is also about God’s presence in the world–which He providentially cares for through ordinary people, believers and non-believers alike–and about Christ’s presence in our neighbor. Luther’s exposition of vocation is imminently practical, offering a framework for how Christians can work out their problems in their various callings. It is the key to successful marriages and effective parenting. It also solves that much-vexed question for evangelicals today of how they are to interact with the culture.

Reading Wingren’s book was one of those paradigm-shifting moments for me. It turned my life and how I see my life–its meaning, value, and purpose–upside down. It brought spiritual significance into the realm of the ordinary, where I live most of the time. I am convinced that recovering the Reformation doctrine of vocation–specifically, Luther’s version–is a key not only in bringing Christianity back to the culture but bringing Christianity back into the everyday lives of contemporary Christians.

Follow the links from Justin’s blog to the seminary site to buy the book on sale.

The Supreme Court of Canada is going to take up a case that might decide the legality of polygamy. Having already legalized gay marriage, Canada may find it difficult to draw the line at polygamy. The desire to accommodate Muslims, especially the large number if Islamic immigrants, could also bode well for legalizing this practice.

I certainly oppose polygamy. Here, though, the Biblical argument may be harder to make than against gay marriage. Having many wives was permitted in Old Testament times, and the only mention in the New Testament, I believe, would prevent a polygamist from being a pastor or other church leader. If marriage is a kingdom-of-the-left, cultural issue, should missionaries in Africa insist, as they do, that polygamist men who convert to Christianity put away all but one wife? What would be a good argument against legalizing polygamy if and when that issue hits the courts in the new-marriage-climate of the United States? And is there any way to avoid legalized polygamy once we legalize gay marriage?

HT: Scottish Lutheran

Today is the day, in case you’ve forgotten, that our income taxes are due. People in New Testament times disliked paying taxes as much as we do, as evidenced in the low esteem placed on tax collectors. Nevertheless, one of the surprisingly few civic obligations specifically commanded in the New Testament is to pay our taxes (Romans 13:5-7).

Why do you think that is? What is the role of taxpaying in the vocation of citizenship? What is the spiritual significance of paying taxes?