Rethinking Your Vocation:

A Puritan Assessment of Work and Calling

By John Fanella

Most Americans are familiar with the phrase "Puritan work ethic." It’s come to define the American philosophy of hard work and capitalism. It had lead to what is arguably the strongest economic culture in the history of mankind. That being said, however, how seriously have contemporary Christians thought through their view of work and calling in light of their Christian worldview? Have we done the same hard work of evaluating the theology of vocation in our postmodern age?

In surveying the lives of contemporary Christians, who are themselves profoundly influenced by secular humanism, I see evidence that we really aren't pursuing our work and calling the way our wise Puritan fathers did. We have a far more earthly and self-centered view of work than the Puritans ever conceived. The industrial revolution, now followed by the information age, has all but eclipsed the Puritan ideal of work. Modes of earning a living never even dreamed of by the Puritans have now have become the occupation, and preoccupation, of many Christians’ lives. These new situations in which we find ourselves present significant challenges to honoring God in our vocation. I want to examine some of those challenges and assess some of the pitfalls found in our anti-Puritan practices have gotten us into.

Please be advised that I am not advocating that you abandon your job or jeopardize your family livelihood as a result of this essay. What follows are some serious areas for us to consider and weigh. If your conclusion is that your life and job are at odds with what you believe is God's purpose, then you must seek counsel and pray for God's leading in new directions.    

What follows are five questions for all of us to ask ourselves regarding our work life. These are questions that the Puritans regularly asked themselves regarding their work life, but with contemporary application. Remember that the Puritans lived in a far different day than ours, and so the questions they asked must be filtered through the grid of Scripture and culture. However, because so much of what the Puritans said and did was based on the universal principles of Scriptures, there are very few times that we will not find application of their values in our own day. The goal is not to be in accordance with Puritanism, but with Scripture.

1.  Is My Work Contributing to the Good of Society?

The occupation of our lives is to be for the good of society. Christians should not pursue callings that do not overtly benefit society. William Perkins, an early Puritan, sets out this Puritan ideal:

"…the main end of our lives is to serve God in the serving of men in the works of our callings…Some man will ask, 'What, shouldn't we labor in our callings to maintain our families?' I answer: this must be done, but this is not the scope and end of our lives. The true end of our lives is to do service to God in the serving of man."

John Preston said the same thing, saying, "We must not labor for our own good, but for the good of others."

The Puritan view of working for the good of society is an application of the biblical view of placing others above ourselves. A key text for this revolutionary mindset is Philippians 2:3,4:

"Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory, but in lowliness of mind, let each esteem others better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others."  

The Puritans maintained that this radical, others-centered mindset applied to every area of life, including our occupation. This was an easier standard to live by in the Puritan era than it is in ours. Most occupations available to the Puritans related directly to the sustaining of life in society. This included agriculture, trade, cottage businesses that produced household goods, education, clergy, medical science, and public office. But today the opportunities to spend our God-given lives in occupations not directly related to the sustaining of life and doing well in society abound.

Industrialism brought mass-manufacturing to necessary goods, like food, clothing, arms, and household goods. But it also began the mass production of unnecessary goods as well, such as fineries, wigs, cigars, and alcohol. People left their farms and home businesses to work in city factories making unnecessary goods for the sake of profit to the owners. Industrialized business created new occupations to support the profit centers in occupations like marketing, sales, unions, executive management, accounting, law, and government agencies to facilitate them all. Industrialism shifted the attention of work from necessity to opulence. The agrarian worldview was supplanted by profiteering. This is a major vocational shift from which we have never recovered.

The information age brings even more complexity to the issue of work. In addition to the occupations created by industrialism to support flagrant profiteering, the information age, while doing much good for mankind, is also occupying millions of people in callings that serve only to cater to the endless whims and sinful passions of mankind, and profit from them. Online auction websites that sell the wares of sinful extravagance, software companies that help decrease cycle times and fill rates in order to squeeze more profit out of every transaction, television that exists for the purpose of convincing consumers they can't live without their sponsor's needless product, and magazines and newspapers who violate the integrity of journalism by devoting upward of two thirds of their space to advertising, are all examples of profiteering in the information age. In many ways life has been reduced to serving the primary purpose of profit. But if the way we spend the life God has given us does not serve society in a legitimate and moral way, and if what we do merely propagates worldly opulence and preoccupation, should we be doing it at all?

2.  Is My Work Having a Negative Impact on Family Religion?

The Puritan life centers not around work, but around worship, and in particular worship within the home. The Puritan home worshipped God twice every day. Richard Baxter set this standard out in his book, The Christian Directory:

"It is seasonable every morning to give thanks for the rest of the night past…and to beg directions, protection, and provisions and blessing for the following day…and that the evening is a fit season to give God thanks for the mercies of the day, and to confess the sins of the day, and ask forgiveness, and to pray for rest and protection in the night."

This daily pattern of family worship was not only an expression of devotion to God, but it was the upholding of the vows parents make before God in their children's baptism. Parents of covenant children swear before God to raise their children in the ways of God and to promote their spiritual vitality in the home. Family worship is the biblical mechanism to carry out those vows (cf. Deut. 6).

The modern dominance of work has severely damaged the practice of religion in the home. With fathers devoting in excess of ten hours or more of their day away from the home, often traveling other times, there simply isn't enough margin to uphold their vow to God to raise their covenant children in the most holy faith. Many covenant children at best have one parent say a dinner prayer in the evening, and this concludes their family religion. The parents' best energy has been given to work, and there is nothing left over to serve the purposes of God in their family. If you find yourself in this situation, perhaps it's time that you evaluate your lifestyle to more adequately support God's spiritual purpose for you and your family. The worship of God is primary. Everything else in life, including our vocation, must support the chief end of worship.

Our day brings tremendous pressure on families. Cost of living is high, raising children is expensive, taxes are out of control, and the cost of college education is astonishing. By necessity many families must work practically day and night just to provide the essentials. But religion in our homes is often sacrificed to work for things that do not pertain to essential living, and this is where we begin to violate our covenant promises. Multiple vehicles, elaborate entertainment systems, upscale housing and furnishings, traveling, and expensive hobbies are all among the kinds of things for which many people sacrifice family religion. If family religion is being neglected because you have to earn money to pay for these kinds of things, you may need to rethink your lifestyle and subsequently your occupation.

3. Is My Work Providing Me the Opportunity to Influence My Children?

One particular benefit to agrarian or private-trade occupations is that they give fathers the opportunity to influence the character of their children, in particular their sons, who themselves will be required to lead a household in adulthood. Occupations which take fathers away from their home and children work against the training of young men (unless of course your son works with you).

According to early New England laws, every father was required to see that his children were instructed "in some lawful calling, labor, or employment, either husbandry (farming), or some other trade profitable for themselves and the commonwealth." Benjamin Wadsworth developed this concept even further, saying, "Parents should bring children up to business, some lawful employment," adding that if parents trained their children to be "serviceable in their generation, they did better for them than if you should bring them up idly, and yet leave great estates." The Puritan means for carrying out this duty was a son working side by side with his father, and a daughter working side by side with her mother.

I can think of no better way to influence children than to work side by side with their parents and learn not only how to work well, but also how to love and serve God in the everyday areas of life. To see a father's character, to hear his wisdom day after day, to laugh together, to struggle together, and to seek God together, would result in young men with strength, character, dignity, humility, and purpose. Similarly, to assist a godly mother in caring for the home and family, in serving the church and the poor, and in celebrating God in the joys of womanhood would create young women devoted to charity, humility, hospitality, and femininity. 

What do find today? Young men in the church are struggling to be men at all. Christian young men are body piercing themselves, tattooing themselves, focusing on vanity and identity, and wasting their lives in idleness, all because they are not being instructed in godly manhood. Many Christian young women are consumed with vanity and idleness as well, which is a complete contradiction to Christian femininity (beauty of the heart). These dangerous trends must be reversed. We must see an uprising of men who have learned to, at the side of their fathers, serve God, their families, and their societies well. And we need to see young women who are charitable, hospitable, and given to the preservation of the home.  

4. What Is the Motivation of My Employer and Can I Biblically Work Toward That Same Motivation?

Industrialism brings with it some complex areas of ethics. Because most of us now work for someone else, we must evaluate not only our own motives, but those of our employer as well. We may be working for the common good of society and for the glory of God, but is our employer? And if not, should we be working for him? I recognize that the implications of how we answer that answer could be severe but I think we must deal with them.

The Puritans denounced the sin of sheer profiteering as the motive for business. John Cotton condemned:

"men selling as dear (expensively) as they can, and buying as cheap as they can…That he may sell as he bought, though he paid too dear, etc…and though the commodity be fallen, etc. That as a man may take advantage of his own skill or ability, so he may of another's ignorance or necessity."

Though the Puritans affirmed the goodness of money in its proper use, they denounced the singular motive of profit as sinful, and penalized people who thought otherwise. When citizens in Boston complained that Robert Keayne charged excessive prices, the magistrates fined him two hundred pounds, and he was nearly excommunicated from the church.

The Puritans wanted to accomplish far more in their callings than merely profit. They wanted to promote the fruit of the Spirit. John Knewstub said,

"come to buying and selling as it were to the razing and spoiling of some enemy's city…where every man catches, snatches, and carries away whatsoever he can come by. And he is thought to be the best who carries away the most…But the Holy Ghost will bring us to another trial of our love."

When profit is primary, as it is in every publicly traded company and many modern privately held firms as well, the purpose for our work becomes skewed. No matter if we are genuinely benefiting society or not, no matter if we are promoting the fruit of the Spirit or not, so long as profit is had, business is good. For example, when is the last time you heard of a company lowering its prices and its profit margin because they wanted to make things easier for families? It is almost always the opposite. If things became easier for families, modern business would raise prices and thus profits. When profit is king, the Puritan work ethic is impossible.

The Puritan ideal should in no way be seen as adversarial to free market economics. Competition, supply and demand, and reward for excellence are all things that the Puritans supported. Socialism would have been seen as an enemy to the Puritans, and should be to us as well. But to oppose flagrant profiteering is not the same as being a socialist. It is right and good for people to be rewarded for diligence and excellence and penalized for carelessness and apathy. But it is also wrong for people to be rewarded for propagating sin in themselves and their employees for the purpose of profit.

The thing we must come to terms with is whether or not we can work for an employer whose singular motive is profit. It has been demonstrated what the Puritans' response is, but we are commissioned to apply the mind of Christ in our own day, and bring our lives into alignment with God's purposes.

5.  Is My Work a Source for Pride and Worldliness?

Modern business brings with it great temptations that have been disastrous to many Christians. Richard Mather said:

"Experience shows that it is an easy thing in the midst of worldly business to lose the life and power of religion, that nothing thereof should be left but only the external form, as it were the carcass or shell, worldliness having eaten out the kernel, and having consumed the very soul and life of godliness."

A primary temptation modern business brings is pride. Excellence in the workplace usually brings with it advancement. Many Christians today are in positions of power, prestige, and authority in their business. But more often than not, this is a danger not a benefit. Few Christians have worked out a Christian response to wealth and success. John Calvin believed that very few people had what it took to handle wealth and power without at the same time engaging in prolonged patterns of sin. Very few of us weigh the spiritual implications when accepting raises and promotions. If handled negligently, workplace success could serve as a Christian's greatest fall.

Further, the leadership style necessary in modern business is more often than not antithetical to biblical behavior. Haughtiness, focus on self (career advancement), and politicking are among the kinds of things most upper level managers are involved in.

CONCLUSION

In all these considerations, you ought to weigh your own work carefully. If you find that your work life is working against your spiritual life, perhaps you need to begin to pray and seek a change. Granted, you will not find many people today switching jobs for spiritual reasons. However, it is a good reason, and may be a necessary one for you and your family.

John Fanella is Pastor of Beulah Congregational Church in central North Dakota. His many published works include Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God Made Easier to Read. This was recently dramatized by Max McClean and is available on CD or MP3.