RECONNECTING VOCATION TO CHRISTIAN FAITH AND SPIRITUALITY CCSC

RECONNECTING VOCATION TO CHRISTIAN FAITH AND SPIRITUALITY CCSC NATIONAL MEETING, JULY 2017, WHEATON COLLEGE, IL

I. THE PROBLEM WE FACE A dis-integrated approach to work and vocation

INTEGRATION: THE OLD MODEL • Focus: evangelism, ethics, discipleship • Ignored: the work and its products • Missing: the material and social dimensions • Result: a dis-integrated self

THE OLD VOCATIONAL ADVICE • Work to support family • Be ethical • Be nice • Give money to the real mission

THE HARVEST OF THE OLD MODEL • Leaves the working world as “secular” • Without meaning, the workers perish • Gallup: we can see it happening • Lindsey: Even many of those Christians who succeed, fail

TWO QUESTIONS TO PONDER • What is a Christian vision for “secular” work? • How can we help students develop a “spirituality of vocation”?

II. DEFINITIONS Using a common, understood vocabulary is half the battle

WHAT IS WORK? • “Work” may be understood to include all human activities that create value and promote the flourishing of others. This certainly includes unpaid work, such as work done in the raising of a family or in civic participation, volunteering, etc. But it excludes, for example, activities of consumption or leisure that create no value for others.

WHAT IS VOCATION? • A historical Christian term that has become secularized • In Christian tradition, it has meant a “calling” (from God) – we thus use “vocation” and “calling” interchangeably • The church has recognized two kinds of callings • General callings • Particular callings

GENERAL VOCATIONS • Creation vocation: Be fruitful and multiply; cultivate and keep the earth (Gen 2: 15); exercise dominion in the earth (Gen 1: 26) • Moral vocation: Keep the Ten Commandments (Exod 20: 1 -17 and Matt 5) • “Love vocation”: Love God and neighbor (Matt 22: 3440); serve others spiritually (Matt 28: 16 -20) and practically (Matt 25: 31 -46)

PARTICULAR VOCATIONS • Different people are called, gifted, and given opportunities to do different kinds of work • Through these particular vocations, we love God and neighbor through specific kinds of work • Through them too, God meets the needs of many through the work of many

A SUMMARY DEFINITION (1) a summons (2) to meaningful work (3) in service to others. Dik and Duffy. Make Your Job a Calling. Page 11.

III. STUDENTS’ BELIEFS ON VOCATION HINT: there a lot of unhelpful ones

HELPING STUDENTS GET FROM HERE TO THERE • Career -> Love • Singular -> Plural • Choice -> Calling • Me -> Others • Determined -> Free • Easy -> Hard • Extraordinary -> Ordinary • Identity in Vocation -> Identity in God

TO SUM UP: BAD THEOLOGY TOO OFTEN STUDENTS THINK VOCATION IS… SINGULAR – They will have only one vocation MYSTERIOUS – Only God knows that vocation INFLEXIBLE – If they miss it, they won’t get a 2 nd chance

DO THEY REALLY HAVE ONLY ONE, LIFE-LONG VOCATION?

DO THEY REALLY HAVE ONLY ONE, LIFE-LONG VOCATION? NO, EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE SHOWS COMPLEXITY & FLUIDITY

DO THEY REALLY HAVE ONLY ONE, LIFE-LONG VOCATION? NOR DOES PROTESTANT THEOLOGY SUPPORT “ONEVOCATION BELIEF”

MUST THEY REALLY WAIT FOR GOD’S MYSTERIOUS CALL?

MUST THEY REALLY WAIT FOR GOD’S MYSTERIOUS CALL? NO, CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE POINTS TO MORE ORDINARY SOURCES OF DISCERNMENT

IS GOD’S VOCATIONAL WILL FOR US REALLY URGENT AND INFLEXIBLE?

IS GOD’S VOCATIONAL WILL FOR US REALLY URGENT AND INFLEXIBLE? NO, THIS SEEMS TO COME FROM SECULAR PRESSURES – AND (AGAIN) TO BELY OUR EXPERIENCE

IS GOD’S VOCATIONAL WILL FOR US REALLY URGENT AND INFLEXIBLE? THIS VIEW ALSO SEEMS TO ASSUME AN INSCRUTABLE, HARSH GOD

RELATING VOCATION HELPFULLY TO CAREER We have seen that when students think of vocation, they typically think of preparing for a career. While this can introduce confusion of terms, it can also be used in teaching and mentoring to draw students into thinking about how career can be one area of vocation in their lives.

VOCATION BEYOND CAREER ”Christian vocation is not reducible to the acquisition of a career goal or to its realization in time. It is, rather, something relating to the great issues of the spiritual life. It has to do with what one lives ’for’ rather than with what one does. ” Gary Badcock. The Way of Life: A Theology of Christian Vocation. P. 134.

VOCATION AND CAREER: SCRIPTURAL CONNECTIONS • Matt 25: 14 -30 (parable of the talents) – we are responsible to steward our careers as we grow in them • Col 3: 22 -23 – we can work “as unto the Lord” rather than as “people-pleasers” • Prov 16: 9 – we can plan and prepare, but then also relax into the “winding path”: “A man’s heart plans his way, But the LORD directs his steps”

THREE CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS 1. “Vocation” is not an academic specialty for our faculty 2. But: the bad theological ideas and confusions about vocation and career that many of our students carry are not hard to correct 3. And: if we introduce them in our teaching and mentoring, it can bring tremendous good to our students

IV. A THEOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK For thinking about work, career, and vocation

RECOVERING THE INTRINSIC VALUE OF WORK THROUGH THE “FOUR-CHAPTER GOSPEL” CREATION FALL REDEMPTION NEW CREATION

RECOVERING THE INTRINSIC VALUE OF ALL WORK THROUGH THE “FOUR-CHAPTER GOSPEL” CREATION FALL REDEMPTION NEW CREATION

RELATIONAL BROKENNESS IN WORK Vocation severed from god Vocation severed from the earth Vocation severed from neighbor

THAT RELATIONSHIP IS BROKEN ON SEVERAL LEVELS: Vocation severed from god Vocation severed from the earth Vocation severed from neighbor

THAT RELATIONSHIP IS BROKEN ON SEVERAL LEVELS: Vocation severed from god Vocation severed from the earth Vocation severed from neighbor

RECOVERING THE INTRINSIC VALUE OF ALL WORK THROUGH THE “FOUR-CHAPTER GOSPEL” CREATION FALL REDEMPTION NEW CREATION

RECOVERING THE INTRINSIC VALUE OF ALL WORK THROUGH THE “FOUR-CHAPTER GOSPEL” CREATION FALL REDEMPTION NEW CREATION

V. SOURCES TOWARD A SPIRITUALITY OF VOCATION

A NEARBY GUIDE TO A FAR LAND • • C S Lewis – “near at hand” Still a spiritual mentor to many An “intuitive medievalist” Absorbed medieval incarnational and sacramental spirituality

THE DISCARDED IMAGE • A spiritually animated cosmos • A sacramental worldview

MEDIEVAL INKLINGS TOWARD A SPIRITUALITY OF WORK AND VOCATION • What every schoolboy knew • The “mental heaven and earth” • The institutional results

A HIGHER CALLING • Working as unto God • Working for eternal creatures • A bigger understanding of human flourishing

A SPIRITUALITY FOR THE DARK SIDE OF WORK • Lewis on the fallenness of work • The precision and practicality of medieval moral teaching • The virtue tradition

VI. RESOURCES FROM OPUS www. wheaton. edu/opusnetvue 2017