You Already Work a Christian Job

 

You Already Work a Christian Job --William Boekestein

As a teenager, I didn’t know about the Christian doctrine of vocation. I believed some people did important things—my pastor was working for God; others, like missionaries, doctors, and high-level leaders, were changing the world. I never imagined the work familiar to me (farming and construction) could be a calling from God or make a significant difference.

I was wrong.

You may have a similar outlook. You want your life to mean something. You crave significance. But you aren’t sure how those proper desires relate to the ordinary work you do every day. If you’re a serious believer, you may wonder, Are some jobs more Christian than others? Am I really changing the world as I change tires or diapers? The biblical doctrine of calling, or vocation, can answer those questions and put you on the right track of working for God no matter your occupation.

What Is Vocation?

The fourth-century church father Eusebius said those who “have minds for farming, for trade, and the other more secular interests” have “a kind of secondary grade of piety.” Only church workers had first-rate godliness. Medieval Christians who came later followed this reasoning. In their view, only church workers had a vocation; everyone else simply labored. This false distinction was challenged by the Protestant Reformation, which rescued devotion from the confines of the monastery and released it into the rest of God’s world.

In Scripture, “calling” almost always refers to God’s call of his people to faith, the Spirit’s working of that faith, or the active life of faith. So in one sense, what we call a vocation is just a part—though a large part—of our general calling to live honorably before God. Our master vocation is to love the Lord supremely and our neighbors as ourselves.

But in at least one place, Scripture broadens the sense of Christian calling. Paul exhorts each believer to “lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him” (1 Cor. 7:17). Paul gives the example of a bondservant who becomes a Christian through the effectual call, the gift of regeneration. Even in a lowly station, a Christian is free to serve the Lord. John Calvin understood this passage to apply to the vocations of tailors and merchants, to give two examples.

Enlisted in God’s Service

After their conversions, tax collectors and soldiers don’t take up new work. They stay in their vocations but now have a different master and new motives (Luke 3:10–14). They’re owned by God and work for his glory. The Christian doctrine of vocation teaches us that even bondservants—and anyone else with a hard, undesirable job—can work “heartily, as for the Lord and not for men.” Paul reminds lowly servants that they’re “serving the Lord Christ” (Col. 3:22–24).

There’s no reason for people doing valid work to change professions when they become Christians—they can serve God where they are when they’re called to faith. Paul’s wonderful point is that the gospel is equally well suited to people employed in any honorable work (1 Cor. 10:31). Vocation dignifies all legitimate efforts.

Three Vocation Ingredients -At least three things are necessary to enjoy a true calling from God.

1. Right Perspective

Dorothy Sayers said the outcome of our work “will be decided by our religious outlook: as we are so we make.” There’s a difference in how believers and unbelievers approach their varied responsibilities. Without trust in God, some might use work to chase wealth, make a name for themselves (Gen. 11:4), or attempt to secure satisfaction outside of Christ. Others may be tempted to shirk off because no one notices, or feel discontent because the work doesn’t seem very important. But faith in God and obedience to his Word can transform any valid work into worship.

Not all work is intrinsically satisfying. All work has challenges (Eccl. 1:13). But a vocational outlook can help you transcend the liabilities of working in a fallen world. The various arenas of our lives—work, church, family, recreation—must be governed by trust in God and an interest in his glory.

2. Valid Venture

You can glorify God in whatever labor you undertake, provided it’s noble work. God acknowledges as vocations only work that he approves and that can be done according to his law. You cannot glorify the Lord by bringing a godly attitude to an evil job. The builders of the Tower of Babel worked heartily but lacked a valid calling because the project displeased the Lord.

A job is worthy of our efforts if it harmonizes with God’s original mandate that humans steward the earth in submission to him (Gen. 1:28). Legitimate work must serve God by serving people. So some occupations cannot possibly be callings—you can’t, for example, be a Christian loan shark, pornographer, or thief.

This doesn’t mean every qualified job will feel like a calling. But while a mundane job may not be your ideal career, it may be the place where you live out your faith for a time, or even for your lifetime.

3. Faithful Labor

Vocation defines not only the why and where of work but also the how. God’s people, made in his image, must do something worth doing, with the right perspective.

Kingdom work means doing quality work in a way that honors the second great commandment (Matt. 22:39). You must produce a quality product or render excellent service while using your calling to love your neighbor. For Christians, work isn’t how to get ahead by clambering over others’ backs; it’s how to value others’ interests (Phil. 2:4).

Vocation is the doctrine you need to elevate work to its rightful place as designed by God. In a fallen world, you can’t do whatever you want, no matter what your heart tells you. But anything you can do will please God if it’s noble work done for his glory, out of true faith, and with your best effort.

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/work-christian-job/

Biblical Worship

Biblical Worship, which means viewing the Lord’s Day as the Day of the Lord, the time when God comes and renews His covenant with His people. Covenant renewal is characterized by God’s calling us to worship, His forgiving our sins and restoring us, His teaching us from His Word, His feeding us at His table, and His commissioning us to go forth and conquer.

Calling-Convene
Cleansing-Confession
Consecration-Conditions
Communion-Covenant
Commission-Continuity

Each sacrificial animal is always 1) killed and its blood splashed on the altar (cleansing), then 2) washed, skinned, cut up, and arranged on the altar grill (consecration), and finally 3) turned into smoke and incorporated into God’s presence as food (communion). This is the sacrificial pathway/liturgy that every animal/worshiper experienced as God brought him near.

God Calls Us
We Gather Together and Praise Him

God Cleanses Us
We Confess Our Sins

God Consecrates Us
We Respond in Prayer and Offering

God Communes With Us
We Eat God’s Food

God Commissions (Blesses) Us
We March Out to Serve God

(1) The Purification offering highlights and expands on the cleansing or purification dimension of sacrificial offerings. That’s why it is called the purification offering. The act of the slaughter and the display of the blood is accented. For example, Lev. 17 (the day of atonement) is an elaborate purification offering where the act of confession and forgiveness is highlighted. The other two aspects are there, but downplayed.

(2) The Ascension Offering expands on the element of consecration and ascension of the animal/worshiper into God’s presence. That’s why it is named ‘olah (Hebrew for “ascension”). The offering is caused to ascend. That is why the ascension offering highlights the acts of skinning, cutting up, washing, and then the transformation of the entire representative animal by fire and its incorporation into the cloud of God’s special presence at the tabernacle.

(3) The Communion Offering expands on the element of union and communion with God which is present in all the sacrifices, but highlighted in this offering. The food aspect of sacrifice is emphasized. In the communion offering fellowship and peace with God are not merely symbolized by the sacrifice being turned into smoke and assimilated into the glory cloud. Here fellowship with God is communicated by means of a common meal.

https://members5.boardhost.com/SubAtomic/msg/1139834437.html

Psalm 23 Expanded

Yahweh, the Ever-Always Existent One, is my Shepherd, Feeding, guiding, and shielding me. Because He has provided all things for me, I never lack anything. He causes me, by His voice, to lie down, and be restful, in green tender-grass pastures. He leads, tends, and feeds me beside restful, looking-glass, waters. He turns back my life, to be what it was meant to be, by restoring my soul. He leads and places me in the highway-like paths of righteousness, for His own Name’s sake, preserving His own integrity and reputation. Yes, even though I casually and leisurely stroll through the low places of death’s empty threat, there is not so much as a hint of fear in me. I will not fear, for You are with me. Your scepter of authority, discipline, & protection, and Your staff of support cause me to give forth sighs of one who has been relieved of pressure. You set up, and prepare, an elegant dining table before me, so that I eat in style, right in front of my enemies. You bathe my head in richness, so that I cannot contain what You give me, and so my already-full-cup spills over. Surely, (there is no questioning it) goodness and mercy shall pursue me, without ever tiring out or giving up, every moment of my existence. And I will stop, sit still, and abide in the presence and household of Yahweh, the Ever-Always Existent One, throughout all eternity!

On the Radicals’ Takeover of Higher Education --by Gene Veith

 

When the presidents of three Ivy League universities were asked whether calls for genocide of the Jews would violate each university’s code of conduct, they couldn’t bring themselves to say that it would.

Harvard’s president, Claudine Gay, said, “We embrace a commitment to free expression, even of views that are objectionable, offensive, hateful.”   Which is grimly hilarious, given that Harvard is ranked last in the College Free Speech Rankings, as determined by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE).

In the academic world, if a professor or student or campus speaker criticizes transgenderism, the LGBTQ agenda, abortion, critical race theory, or any other facet of woke ideology, he or she must be fired, cancelled, or otherwise punished because the remark could be “triggering,” making someone in the group being criticized feel unsafe.

Apparently, it didn’t occur to the presidents that chants of “gas the Jews” might be triggering to Jews.

The open support of Islamic terrorism and the rebirth of old-school anti-semitism–which goes beyond opposition to “Zionism” to assaults on Jewish students–is at least waking up the public to how bad things have gotten on university campuses.

John M. Ellis, a distinguished professor emeritus at the University of California Santa Cruz, has been a long-time leader in the National Association of Scholars and other initiatives to oppose the radicalization of academia.  He is the author of  The Breakdown of Higher Education: How It Happened, the Damage It Does, and What Can Be Done (2020).

He has published a compelling op-ed in the Wall Street Journal (behind a paywall) entitled Higher Ed Has Become a Threat to America, with the deck “Our corrupt, radical universities feed every scourge from censorship and crime to antisemitism.”  Here is how it begins:

America faces a formidable range of calamities: crime out of control, borders in chaos by design, children poorly educated while sexualized and politicized against parental opposition, unconstitutional censorship, a press that does government PR rather than oversight, our institutions and corporations debased in the name of “diversity, equity and inclusion”—and more. To these has been added an outbreak of virulent antisemitism.

Every one of these degradations can be traced wholly or in large part to a single source: the corruption of higher education by radical political activists.

Universities, Ellis points out, have a monopoly on training and credentialing for all of the professions.  As a result, campus radicalism is manifesting itself in the fields of education, journalism, law, medicine, social work, and–I would add–public policy, the arts, and business.  This has consequences in the dysfunctions we are struggling with today:

Children’s test scores have plummeted because college education departments train teachers to prioritize “social justice” over education. Censorship started with one-party campuses shutting down conservative voices. The coddling of criminals originated with academia’s devotion to Michel Foucault’s idea that criminals are victims, not victimizers. The drive to separate children from their parents begins in longstanding campus contempt for the suburban home and nuclear family. Radicalized college journalism departments promote far-left advocacy. Open borders reflect pro-globalism and anti-nation state sentiment among radical professors. DEI started as a campus ruse to justify racial quotas. Campus antisemitism grew out of ideologies like “anticolonialism,” “anticapitalism” and “intersectionality.”

Let me give you a couple of other examples of what is happening in academia.

What’s happened to the field of sociology

Wayne State sociologist Jukka Savolainen has written an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal entitled Florida’s Shunning of Sociology Should Be a Wake-Up Call, with the deck, “The field has morphed from scientific study into academic advocacy for left-wing causes.” In the course of his discussion of Florida’s DeSantis-inspired proposal to remove Intro to Sociology as a course that counts for the state universities’ general education requirement, he laments what has happened to his profession.

“Through the decades,” he writes, “I have watched my discipline morph from a scientific study of social reality into academic advocacy for left-wing causes.”  Other colleagues in the field, he says, agree with him.  He cites Notre Dame sociologist of religion Christian Smith, who has written a book, The Sacred Project of American Sociology (2014), on how seemingly secularist social scientists have turned their discipline into a religion:

Mr. Smith is disappointed that undergraduate sociology textbooks, rather than disseminate scientific findings, “function as recruiting tools and re-socialization manuals” to turn students into radical activists. He is equally disappointed with the discipline’s failure to come clean about its obvious political commitments. Publicly, the American Sociological Association describes sociology as a “scientific study of social life” interested in the “causes and consequences of human behavior.” Internally, ASA embraces and promotes social-change activism.

Each year, the association’s president chooses a theme for its annual meeting. Next year’s theme is brazenly political: “Intersectional Solidarities: Building Communities of Hope, Justice, and Joy.” The ASA sums it up as follows: “The 2024 theme emphasizes sociology as a form of liberatory praxis: an effort to not only understand structural inequities, but to intervene in socio-political struggles.”

Race-based Hiring

Anita Kinney and Anthony Pericolo of the City Journal have uncovered how the University of Washington has been evading civil rights laws in its hiring practices.  In their article No White Faculty Allowed, they cite a hiring manual used by the Psychology Department, which has only hired “BIPOC” (black, indigenous, people of color) candidates for their last six positions and which vetoed the hiring committee’s most recent choice because he was white.

The manual shows how institutions are evading the laws against racial discrimination, not only against whites but also against other disfavored racial groups, namely, Asians and Middle Easterners:

First, the handbook advises recruiters to “prepare for success” by developing a strategy for how to hire based on race. To guarantee nonwhite candidates, recruiters should reach out directly to underrepresented minority (URM) candidates. The department’s search committee “sent over 100 personal emails, primarily to URM researchers.” The handbook carefully ranks favored minority groups, specifically “Black/African American, Latinx/Hispanic, or American Indian/Indigenous,” above less preferred ones, specifically “Asian American or Middle Eastern American.”

Next, the handbook recommends drafting job descriptions that match the resumes of specific minority candidates. That way, the applications will perfectly suit the job posting. It directs institutions to “[v]isualize your ideal candidates and work backwards from there to word your advertisement. . . .

A hiring committee should also refrain from evaluating candidate competence. Committees should “[d]econstruct how evaluating candidates” on their productivity, verbal communication skills, or leadership “may advantage privileged groups over underrepresented groups.”

The handbook offers another clue as to how the department had so much success in hiring minority candidates: if a URM candidate was rejected, the department simply reversed the rejection. Any “dropped URM candidates were automatically given a second look before moving on.”

To guarantee that minority status receives appropriate weight, the manual also suggests “placing contributions to diversity high on the list” or even making that “a criterion candidates must pass to make it to the second round”—for example, by “contributing to diversity” or “serving as a role model for URM students.” Since white candidates cannot “contribute to diversity” or “serve as role models” for students of different races, this guarantees that representatives of the correct races will get hired.

If, somehow, a committee still managed to hire white people or the wrong minorities, the manual suggests developing an audit process to identify criteria where “white candidates, male candidates . . . receive higher scores,” so that those criteria can be removed. Particularly, rigorous scientific practices like “publicly posting data, hypotheses and materials to guard against accusations of selectively reporting results or falsifying data” tends to “produce biased results”—namely, the hiring of white men. This was easily solved by “subsequently dropp[ing]” scientific rigor from “evaluation criterion” of candidate searches.

My Thoughts

I myself am an academic, recently retired from a long career in higher education.  I taught mostly, though not exclusively, in Christian colleges, which gave me something of a haven from all of this (though Christian colleges are not immune from the professional peer pressure and require an intentional push back against it).  I am dismayed about what has been happening to my profession and my discipline, the field of English Literature, which has become a hotbed of leftwing “critical theory.”

I can say, though, that there are lots of genuine scholars, legitimate researchers, and good teachers at most colleges and universities today, who are likewise appalled at the anti-intellectualism and the politicization of today’s higher education.  Just as there were dissidents in the Soviet universities which were required to teach according to the tenets of Marxist-Leninism, there are dissidents in American universities, the difference being that Stalin’s police state enforced ideological conformity in Russia, whereas American universities are enforcing ideological conformity on themselves.

Many of those dissidents today on college faculties, though, are keeping their heads down and their office doors closed, being careful not to Tweet anything and to watch what they say, while continuing to do good work in their specialized fields.  There are others, though–like John Ellis, Jukka Savolainen, Christian Smith, the scholars I quote here–who are speaking up.

The growing reaction of donors, state governments, parents, students, and employers to these realizations should add to their number and  might eventually put higher education back together again.

No Room For Timid Pietism

 Some people seem to have the idea that if we ask God for things, if we petition God, that’s somehow self-centered or unspiritual. Only if we’re worshiping God or telling him how great he is are we truly glorifying him. This is a very mistaken, and possibly even a spiritually fatal, idea. When we ask God for things, we are not somehow less spiritual than when we tell God how great he is. Answered prayer is greatly more Godhonoring than unanswered prayer. --P. Andrew Sandlin

Will we be in Heaven or on earth? The answer is yes.

 When we rebelled against Him, there was a great rupture. Heaven was now distant, and we were left down here, under the sun, shepherding wind. Where shall we be after the resurrection? After the last trump has sounded, and after all the dead are raised, and after the sea gives up her dead, where will we all be? Where will we live? Will we be in Heaven or on earth? The answer is yes. Everything will be united again. Christ came in order to heal the rupture, and to heal it completely. --D. Wilson

FREE SPEECH!

 Any country that does not allow a free discussion of the process by which its leaders are elected is not a democracy, by definition. --Tucker Carlson