Thanks to kaitiaki for the comment on an earlier post, I realize that I worded that post very poorly. I think that my wording created a division between “clergy” and “laity” that I do not support. But it is really hard to get around that language because it is so dominant in our ecclesial thinking. I read on Christian Scharen’s blog that theology is making a comeback and I am really excited about that. But I was reading yesterday and discovered that maybe theology is not for ecclesial dreamers like me. In a great pamphlet written by Robert Brimlow titled, Paganism and the Professions, I read that:

When a theologian of some note writes a popular book whose title proclaims Business as a Calling, we should be worried. We could conclude tht the author, Michael Novak, is merely performing his function as the teological shill for corporate America. On the other hand, it is possible for us to see this as a sign that Catholic theology is in big trouble: in trying to write for laypersons, some theologians evidently are moving from the musty heights of academic obscurity to the humid swamp of pedestrian absurdity. Both conclusions would be wrong: the situation is much worse.

Of course Michael Novak is the primary water-carrier for American Business gone global, and certainly theologians of all denominations have trouble writing significant books that non-theologians can read with understanding. (And let me hasten to point out that members of my profession, academic philosophers, do not even attempt to make themselves understandable to each other let alone the public at large.) But the view that work is a calling is not simply another bit of apologetic nonsense we have come to expect from Novak; nor is it merely a bit of flatulence from theology’s attempt at relevance. This viewpoint happens to be the position of not only the Catholic Church but also the major Protestant denominations as well, expressed in a variety of the churches’ documents addressing faith and economics published over the past twenty years. (emphasis mine)

This author seems to suggest that theology should only be for theologians. Lay people need not apply. But this layperson read the pamphlet any way. And I found it interesting that he begins his short work with this idea of calling. The author challenges the dominant view that “work” can be a calling in the true sense of the word. Brimlow thinks those theologians who have poured theological significance into “work” by pointing to the labor Adam was given in the first two chapters of Genesis as an image bearer of God is misguided. Instead, he argues that it is not until the curses in Genesis 3:17-19 that we discover that “work” is really punishment for sin.

Barlow identifies, correctly in this humble layperson’s perspective, that the issue is tied to economics. He builds a powerful arguement against the world economics which reward people in high paying professions with more economic security. He believes that these systems of professions “incarnate a vocational idolatry”:

But virtually all professionals I have known or read about have acted as if they were priests bent on the salvation of their flocks. We professional view ourselves as being so very important for the quality of life of those “in our care” that we must have cell phones, laptops computers and pagers just to be sure that we can work and be in contact with our offices or clients 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Later he adds:

To label our work and the professions as “callings” or “vocations” is not only arrogant it also, and more importantly, cheapens the gospel. There is one calling we should recognize–discipleship–and one vocation–to follow Jesus. By placing such emphasis and importance upon our economic roles and by sanctifying our economic functions is to behave like pagans. We have constructed a very nice system of wealth production and it has become an idol; we exalt ourselves in our professions as the high priests of this religion, indispensable for the proper operation of the global system, but we don’t quite believe it.

He concludes the pamphlet by wondering if churches are unable to offer an alternative to this pagan, secular economic order of if they are simply unwilling to do so.

I think that they are unwilling to do so. For that would mean that we would have to sacrifice our own economic idols that divide clergy from laity and theologian from non-theologian. I think we should push past the curses in Genesis 3 and turn our attention to the later corrective found in Exodus 20:8-11, which points us right back to finding theological significance in our work as image bearers of God. The way we offer an alternative economic system is not by making some work “secular” and other work “sacred”–especially when those in the sacred circle intentionally make their work inaccessible to the public at large. We create an alternative when, following the lead of the biblical creation narratives, the Ten Commandments, the Sermon of the Mount, and many other scriptural texts we recognize that our value as humans does not lie in what we produce–or even our ability to produce. Our value rests in the fact that we are created in the image of God.

But that’s just my opinion, and being that I am only a layperson, I could be wrong.

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 23rd, 2005 at 10:17 pm and is filed under Ecclesial Dreaming.... You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.