I like this approach, especially as it is grounded at least in part in Levin's work, but the solution seems largely for established professionals and credentialed elites. On my understanding, populist energy is driven by those who have been excluded from the vocations, the downwardly mobile, the 52 year-old divorced guy in rural Virginia who feels like suburban DC professionals look down on him as a backward racist while he works part-time at a 7-11 and lives off food stamps taking care of his obese mother. The structural pressures that drive Evangelical hyper-politicization will remain I think. But I would like to be wrong.
Another problem is that there are too many Christian PhDs and MDivs and a rapidly shrinking US church, and so there's no reason to think underemployment here wouldn't also result in fighting over the remaining (status + material) resources as it does in every other professional industry, which is why some pastors continue to align with people like Wilson who create counter-elite institutions that promise them a meaningful outlet for their training and calling. Again, I like the notion of guilds and intermediary institutions and we should pursue these, but it's hard to see the distorting effects of partisan politics (religious or otherwise) going away until we resolve the immense material and structural pressures driving them.
Really fascinating stuff, Matthew. Yes, I took your comment as supplemental, not combative. Your outline of Turchin makes some intuitive sense, but I’ll have to dig deeper. Thanks for all this.
You make a good point about the economic component. I'm addressing this more from a psychological/spiritual standpoint. I believe everyone needs a social vision, and political movements fill that voice.
On elitism: First, yes. It's geared toward established professionals and elites. But I don't really blink on that, because I think this is where the influence lies, and where the complexities are immense, and the conversations are impoverished.
Second, and this is a slightly different argument than the one I'm making above, but I believe in some way addressing this "elite" jobs also addresses the downwardly mobile (though I'm not sure what you mean by excluded from the vocations?). It's one of the many ways Christianity begets Christianity.
Your point about Wilson basically providing a job market for educated ministers is interesting. I'll think about that. Curious if you have any anecdotal experiences or data that illustrate this.
Well, I certainly wouldn't want you to second guess your course of action here inasmuch as it relates to deploying social capital to help Christians better address and coordinate on fundamental questions of practice within their trades. So I hope nothing I said came across that way. The few commentaries I've read on Proverbs basically say the book was written for the ruling class / aspiring princes (even if, as Waltke correctly argues, it was democratized during the exile). Clearly this is a critically important societal demographic to get rightly ordered.
As for this:
"Your point about Wilson basically providing a job market for educated ministers is interesting. I'll think about that. Curious if you have any anecdotal experiences or data that illustrate this."
Anecdotally? Bitter first-hand experience.
Now a more meaningful defense that does not appeal to the epistemological equivalent of social media outrage bait would take a bit to fill out. I take Peter Turchin's work on the primary drivers of political disintegration quite seriously. A very basic explanation of his position and the scholars who support his institute's work is that political revolutions tend to occur when there is an immiserated population and a surplus of elites. These surplus elites (too many nobles, too many wealthy people who want to be senators, etc.) compete with each other for a limited number of powerful social and political roles. While some elite aspirants simply accept they won't reach the higher tiers of society and go away to some lesser position, a few become a counter-elite ("class traitors") and decide to leverage the grievances of the immiserated population to overturn the entire elite order and thereby take control of it. These revolutions can be violent (think Russia) or relatively bloodless (FDR, Trump). On his account, lawyers are the most dangerous because they know the systems of power (think Lenin). I mention this because in the ecclesial context, MDivs and adjacent professionals know the relevant systems of power and the rhetoric necessary to manipulate them.
His theory seems parsimonious (and is probably consistent with more specific American studies, like Muslim sociologist Musa al-Gharbi's fascinating account of "symbolic capitalists" / upper 10% elites and their behavior during the "great awokening"); he plausibly explains revolutions from ancient Rome to the French Revolution, 100 Years War, etc., and correctly predicted our current state of high unrest back in 2010 using the same framework. I am still working my way through his End Times, and he has a few critics (the most interesting is whether he properly understands labor supply), but I've also found the theory consistent with my university studies of religious and medieval history. I am thinking in particular of the various countermeasures medieval royalty deployed to keep (or try to keep...) in check troublesome second / third sons, such as sending them far away and to alternative status / power paths through monasteries.
If you accept Turchin's theory (don't do this solely on my terribly brief summary), then there's some good data to make the same sort of inference around the behavior of Evangelical celebrity or anti-establishment (for lack of a better term) leaders. (Diotrophes was not the last church leader to put himself first. We are not immune.) Like all miserable humanities degree holders (see my profile), PhD theology / religious studies graduates far outnumber the number of available teaching slots, not to mention competition for the PhDs alone is (or was when I was applying to them) quite frankly insane. Seminary MDiv grads are not faring much better, with the statistics I looked at showing that while we are finally producing fewer seminary grads the structural pressures of a rapidly shrinking US church (I'm sure you have read The Great Dechurching) have made competition for the positions fierce. Other relevant data would be burnout rates (also supported by personal anecdotal experience where the majority of the pastors I've been under have left the ministry entirely). Furthermore, holding outspoken orthodox positions on questions of sexuality will automatically get you disqualified for some of these academic positions and an MDiv from a conservative institution usually signals you are socially out of step with the professional classes. This is the stuff of radicalization. (Data on social exclusion is not entirely clear to me, but plenty of anecdotes esp. ministers in NYC, the state of legal / HR policies around harm and inclusion, and the demographic data of actual outcomes give soft support to the status angle.)
Wilson's outfit is a classic counter-elite institution and he personally acts like a counter-elite, appealing to popular grievance to build his cultural and economic capital via taboo or norm-violating social media posting / podcasts, even offering to buy Christianity Today as a way to continue his revolution (in the Turchin sense). Wilson recruits disaffected Christians and will be attractive to those Christian leaders who were unable to find meaningful work elsewhere. (Incidentally, this is why sneering at him is ineffective. That just reinforces the narrative!)
Completely agree. That's why I've thought that both sides of politically-engaged Christianity were correct to critique apolitical, justification/salvation-only Christianity.
The trouble is that living out our faith in action starts very local and in very particular vocations. Few (if any) of us are qualified to opine about all things or the national political realm!
That’s encouraging Joel! We should chat about this sometime. In some ways I’m finding it hard to articulate what I’m actually trying to say, here, and I know you’d be able to track with the madness haha
I'm not sure I see the conflict between 'worldview development' and 'vocation redemption'. Perhaps the people you are critiquing have a more comprehensive use of the term than it seems to me, but it seems an achievable goal for any lay Christian to start with a Christian foundation and then approach their life from that. (almost said every, but doctrine is diverse)
I don't think this would require a pastor to pass on some theological think-tank's take on electrical engineering to the engineers, but rather to inform them that they are the representatives of the Kingdom of God and are called to integrity and compassion in their field as well as in the pews, etc.
Again, maybe I'm just coming late to the conversation.
You're right that I have a very specific use of Worldview, here. I'm pinging people like Al Mohler who promotes a "Christian Worldview" that is actually more about Al Mohler than Christ.
Fair enough. I'm not sure what you said is all that different from what Nancy Pearcy would say, for instance, which is both the one book on the matter I've read and the first time I heard of Schaeffer, which is why this article caught my eye.
This sounds like the body of Christ being unified in their aim and purpose, rather than an a chaotic collection of just arms, just kneecaps, and wannabe clavicles. Heaven forbid we all want to be the toenails.
Jokes aside though, I've been thinking about the gifts and talents God gives us to use and share with and for the body. Roles are freeing, not limiting. We don't have to do all the work, we just have to do our part well. Praise God that he is the one who daily bears our burdens.
On my TBR list is Karen Swallow Prior's latest book, You Have a Calling. If you're hanging out on the vocation theme, you might be interested in it!
I like this approach, especially as it is grounded at least in part in Levin's work, but the solution seems largely for established professionals and credentialed elites. On my understanding, populist energy is driven by those who have been excluded from the vocations, the downwardly mobile, the 52 year-old divorced guy in rural Virginia who feels like suburban DC professionals look down on him as a backward racist while he works part-time at a 7-11 and lives off food stamps taking care of his obese mother. The structural pressures that drive Evangelical hyper-politicization will remain I think. But I would like to be wrong.
Another problem is that there are too many Christian PhDs and MDivs and a rapidly shrinking US church, and so there's no reason to think underemployment here wouldn't also result in fighting over the remaining (status + material) resources as it does in every other professional industry, which is why some pastors continue to align with people like Wilson who create counter-elite institutions that promise them a meaningful outlet for their training and calling. Again, I like the notion of guilds and intermediary institutions and we should pursue these, but it's hard to see the distorting effects of partisan politics (religious or otherwise) going away until we resolve the immense material and structural pressures driving them.
Really fascinating stuff, Matthew. Yes, I took your comment as supplemental, not combative. Your outline of Turchin makes some intuitive sense, but I’ll have to dig deeper. Thanks for all this.
Great comments, Matthew. Just a few thoughts.
You make a good point about the economic component. I'm addressing this more from a psychological/spiritual standpoint. I believe everyone needs a social vision, and political movements fill that voice.
On elitism: First, yes. It's geared toward established professionals and elites. But I don't really blink on that, because I think this is where the influence lies, and where the complexities are immense, and the conversations are impoverished.
Second, and this is a slightly different argument than the one I'm making above, but I believe in some way addressing this "elite" jobs also addresses the downwardly mobile (though I'm not sure what you mean by excluded from the vocations?). It's one of the many ways Christianity begets Christianity.
Your point about Wilson basically providing a job market for educated ministers is interesting. I'll think about that. Curious if you have any anecdotal experiences or data that illustrate this.
Well, I certainly wouldn't want you to second guess your course of action here inasmuch as it relates to deploying social capital to help Christians better address and coordinate on fundamental questions of practice within their trades. So I hope nothing I said came across that way. The few commentaries I've read on Proverbs basically say the book was written for the ruling class / aspiring princes (even if, as Waltke correctly argues, it was democratized during the exile). Clearly this is a critically important societal demographic to get rightly ordered.
As for this:
"Your point about Wilson basically providing a job market for educated ministers is interesting. I'll think about that. Curious if you have any anecdotal experiences or data that illustrate this."
Anecdotally? Bitter first-hand experience.
Now a more meaningful defense that does not appeal to the epistemological equivalent of social media outrage bait would take a bit to fill out. I take Peter Turchin's work on the primary drivers of political disintegration quite seriously. A very basic explanation of his position and the scholars who support his institute's work is that political revolutions tend to occur when there is an immiserated population and a surplus of elites. These surplus elites (too many nobles, too many wealthy people who want to be senators, etc.) compete with each other for a limited number of powerful social and political roles. While some elite aspirants simply accept they won't reach the higher tiers of society and go away to some lesser position, a few become a counter-elite ("class traitors") and decide to leverage the grievances of the immiserated population to overturn the entire elite order and thereby take control of it. These revolutions can be violent (think Russia) or relatively bloodless (FDR, Trump). On his account, lawyers are the most dangerous because they know the systems of power (think Lenin). I mention this because in the ecclesial context, MDivs and adjacent professionals know the relevant systems of power and the rhetoric necessary to manipulate them.
His theory seems parsimonious (and is probably consistent with more specific American studies, like Muslim sociologist Musa al-Gharbi's fascinating account of "symbolic capitalists" / upper 10% elites and their behavior during the "great awokening"); he plausibly explains revolutions from ancient Rome to the French Revolution, 100 Years War, etc., and correctly predicted our current state of high unrest back in 2010 using the same framework. I am still working my way through his End Times, and he has a few critics (the most interesting is whether he properly understands labor supply), but I've also found the theory consistent with my university studies of religious and medieval history. I am thinking in particular of the various countermeasures medieval royalty deployed to keep (or try to keep...) in check troublesome second / third sons, such as sending them far away and to alternative status / power paths through monasteries.
If you accept Turchin's theory (don't do this solely on my terribly brief summary), then there's some good data to make the same sort of inference around the behavior of Evangelical celebrity or anti-establishment (for lack of a better term) leaders. (Diotrophes was not the last church leader to put himself first. We are not immune.) Like all miserable humanities degree holders (see my profile), PhD theology / religious studies graduates far outnumber the number of available teaching slots, not to mention competition for the PhDs alone is (or was when I was applying to them) quite frankly insane. Seminary MDiv grads are not faring much better, with the statistics I looked at showing that while we are finally producing fewer seminary grads the structural pressures of a rapidly shrinking US church (I'm sure you have read The Great Dechurching) have made competition for the positions fierce. Other relevant data would be burnout rates (also supported by personal anecdotal experience where the majority of the pastors I've been under have left the ministry entirely). Furthermore, holding outspoken orthodox positions on questions of sexuality will automatically get you disqualified for some of these academic positions and an MDiv from a conservative institution usually signals you are socially out of step with the professional classes. This is the stuff of radicalization. (Data on social exclusion is not entirely clear to me, but plenty of anecdotes esp. ministers in NYC, the state of legal / HR policies around harm and inclusion, and the demographic data of actual outcomes give soft support to the status angle.)
Wilson's outfit is a classic counter-elite institution and he personally acts like a counter-elite, appealing to popular grievance to build his cultural and economic capital via taboo or norm-violating social media posting / podcasts, even offering to buy Christianity Today as a way to continue his revolution (in the Turchin sense). Wilson recruits disaffected Christians and will be attractive to those Christian leaders who were unable to find meaningful work elsewhere. (Incidentally, this is why sneering at him is ineffective. That just reinforces the narrative!)
Completely agree. That's why I've thought that both sides of politically-engaged Christianity were correct to critique apolitical, justification/salvation-only Christianity.
The trouble is that living out our faith in action starts very local and in very particular vocations. Few (if any) of us are qualified to opine about all things or the national political realm!
Thanks for spelling this out, Nicholas.
That’s encouraging Joel! We should chat about this sometime. In some ways I’m finding it hard to articulate what I’m actually trying to say, here, and I know you’d be able to track with the madness haha
Nice. I find the writing of Jordan Raynor really encouraging in the area of work and faith.
I don’t know his stuff…so much encouraging energy for this movement, which I couldn’t be more glad for.
We can chat about Raynor later. Good stuff there.
I'm not sure I see the conflict between 'worldview development' and 'vocation redemption'. Perhaps the people you are critiquing have a more comprehensive use of the term than it seems to me, but it seems an achievable goal for any lay Christian to start with a Christian foundation and then approach their life from that. (almost said every, but doctrine is diverse)
I don't think this would require a pastor to pass on some theological think-tank's take on electrical engineering to the engineers, but rather to inform them that they are the representatives of the Kingdom of God and are called to integrity and compassion in their field as well as in the pews, etc.
Again, maybe I'm just coming late to the conversation.
You're right that I have a very specific use of Worldview, here. I'm pinging people like Al Mohler who promotes a "Christian Worldview" that is actually more about Al Mohler than Christ.
Fair enough. I'm not sure what you said is all that different from what Nancy Pearcy would say, for instance, which is both the one book on the matter I've read and the first time I heard of Schaeffer, which is why this article caught my eye.
This sounds like the body of Christ being unified in their aim and purpose, rather than an a chaotic collection of just arms, just kneecaps, and wannabe clavicles. Heaven forbid we all want to be the toenails.
Jokes aside though, I've been thinking about the gifts and talents God gives us to use and share with and for the body. Roles are freeing, not limiting. We don't have to do all the work, we just have to do our part well. Praise God that he is the one who daily bears our burdens.
On my TBR list is Karen Swallow Prior's latest book, You Have a Calling. If you're hanging out on the vocation theme, you might be interested in it!
Thanks for this post.
That’s exactly right, Jess. Or we have toenails acting like they’re the whole body ;)
I was able to receive an early copy and it’s a great book! A brief but highly sophisticated take on big questions surrounding calling.
I'm about 2/3 done with it. It's a good entry to the space. Keller's book is also good, and there's a few others out there that are generally helpful.
I do coaching for people figuring out where God's gifts empower them to serve as well, if anyone is interested.
Excellent. I look forward to your book.
Thanks so much, Courtenay. I look forward to your thoughts!