Vaccines, Vocation, and Competitive Agency

March 16, 2021 By Gene Veith

Yesterday we discussed why evangelicals are more resistant to getting the anti-COVID vaccine than any other demographic. As we said, there are lots of reasons–some good, some bad, some debatable–why Americans from different perspectives are leery about the vaccines.

But considerations about what religion has to do with it have raised some important theological issues. And, as so many issues do, they have to do with the doctrine of vocation.

The never-Trump evangelical David French has written a provocative article entitled The Spiritual Problem at the Heart of Christian Vaccine Refusal. After going over the statistics, he cites a particularly troubling finding from the study: Evangelicals are not only more resistant to getting the shot than any other group, they are the least concerned about the effect of their decision on other people.

Only 48% of white evangelicals said they would consider the community health effects “a lot” when deciding to be vaccinated. That compares with 70% of Black Protestants, 65% of Catholics and 68% of unaffiliated Americans.

So even at least some of the 54% of evangelicals who do intend to get the shot are doing it primarily for themselves, not to stop the spread of the virus to others. As for the 45% who won’t, many of them are looking primarily at the impact on their own health and well-being, rather than that of their neighbors.

Now Kylee Zempel of the Federalist has written a refutation of French’s article, in which she takes issue with his critique of evangelicals, arguing that resistance to the vaccine is understandable due to the flood of misinformation on the part of the government, the media, and health experts over the course of the epidemic. So fine. Maybe the resistance is not a “spiritual problem” as French claims.

But I still think that one fact is telling, that evangelicals–much more than other religious groups and even more than non-religious groups–apparently look at ethical decisions, including whether or not to get a vaccine, in terms of themselves in isolation, rather than in terms of their decision’s effect on their neighbors.

I think this approach to ethics is commonplace among American Christians and not just regarding the issue of vaccination. This is a law-based way of thinking about right and wrong. We have rules, and the individual must obey them. The transaction is between myself, the law, and the Lawgiver.

Martin Luther, though, had a different understanding of the Law, especially for Christians, in light of the Gospel. Jesus summarized the Law as loving God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind, and loving your neighbor as yourself (Luke 10:26-27). Therefore, Luther taught a neighbor-centered ethic.

He expresses this in his explanations of the Ten Commandments in his Small Catechism. This is also fundamental to Luther’s doctrine of vocation. The purpose of every vocation–in the workplace, the family, the church, and the state–is to love and serve your neighbor.

Significantly, other treatments of vocation that I have seen neglect this dimension of the teaching. They focus instead on vocation in terms of the self. Your vocation, they say, is what gives you fulfillment, is God’s gift for your flourishing, is how you can serve God, and in other ways is always about you. This is in line with the self-focus of much of American Christianity, whereas Luther sees vocation in terms of what God gives us to do to serve our neighbor; and–more importantly–how God serves our neighbors through what we do.

This other dimension of vocation is also an issue that the vaccine controversies bring to the surface.

Tish Harrison Warren has written an article for Christianity Today [subscription required] about different responses to the COVID epidemic. She quotes the now-disgraced governor of New York Andrew Cuomo, who said, “Our behavior has stopped the spread of the virus. God did not stop the spread of the virus.”

She then quotes Christians who are thinking along his same lines, though from the opposite perspective: “If you have a mask on, it means you actually don’t trust God.” And other variations, that God will protect me from COVID, so I don’t need to worry about it.

Warren calls this the error of “competitive agency,” the notion that either God does something, or I do something. We can ascribe some actions to God and some actions to human beings or other causes, and these are totally separate, one or the other. This is opposed to the older notion that God works providentially in and through His creation. She observes that,

Functionally, this kind of deism excludes God from human work, efforts, and choices. In his book The Unintended Reformation, Brad S. Gregory notes how this “competitive, either-or relationship between God and creation” departs from historic Christian theology because it “presupposes that Christianity’s sacramental view of reality is false—that if God is real, he does not or cannot act in and through his own creation.”

Notice how this contrasts with Luther’s doctrine of vocation, in which God–far from being excluded from human work–acts “in and through” our ordinary callings (giving daily bread by means of farmers and bakers; creating children by means of mothers and fathers; conveying His Word by means of pastors; etc., etc).

Notice too that underlying the Lutheran doctrine of vocation is also the Lutheran doctrine of the Sacraments, that God, indeed, uses His own physical creation (water, bread, wine, a book, air vibrating as soundwaves) to bring physical human beings to Himself.

Oswald Bayer says that a distinctive quality of Luther’s theology–and what makes him different from many other theologians–is his conviction that God works through and by means of His creation. Not only in the Sacraments and in vocation, but also in His governance of the Temporal Kingdom, both in the social and the natural order, as He providentially cares for all that He has made.

American evangelicals–including, I daresay, some Lutherans–have largely lost this “sacramental view of reality.” They expect God to work without means. If I am sick, I can pray, and maybe God will heal me with a miracle. Or, instead, a doctor might heal me by giving me medicine. Luther would say that God does, in fact, heal me. He does so by means of the doctor, loving and serving me in his vocation, who knows how to apply the physical medicine of God’s creation to my physical body.

Thus, I can see the doctors, the scientists, the pharmaceutical companies, Trump and company with Operation Warp Speed, the manufacturers, the nurse who put the needle in my arm, as all means by which God is protecting me and others from the virus, as they love and serve their neighbors through the work that God has given them to do.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

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Inauguration and Vocation

January 20, 2021 By Gene Veith

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Today is Inauguration Day. Swearing in a new president has often been seen as a rite of national renewal, the beginning of a new phase of American history.

Not only is Joe Biden being installed into the presidency, but Donald Trump’s presidency is ending. For many Americans, this will come as a great relief. I expect to hear lots of metaphors in the media about how the long national nightmare is over. But for many other Americans, the shutting down of Trump’s presidency is cause for mourning, and their nightmare is just beginning. Still other Americans are somewhere in between, thinking that it’s time for Trump to go, while also dreading what a Biden administration might do.

Certainly, this Inauguration more than most signals a clear break from the past. In the previous Inauguration Days of this century, incumbents were re-elected and new presidents succeeded incumbents after their second term. This time the incumbent was turned out of office. Before, even when new parties took over, there was not so much political distance between the alternating presidents as there is today. This time, liberalism is completely triumphant over the whole government, while conservatism is in shambles.

So this is a happy day for some Americans, for others. . .not so much. Let me address the latter, particularly my fellow conservative Christians.

My father used to say that while you might not agree with the man who is president, you should still respect the office that he holds. That is how the “Greatest Generation” that fought in World War II used to think, back when Americans for all of their differences were unified in a common patriotism.

I now understand that distinction between the person and the office much better than I did back then, thanks to my study of the doctrine of vocation.

It’s always the office that God uses and that should command our honor, not the imperfect person whom God has called into that office. This is true, according to Luther, even of the office of parenthood. He says in his discussion of the 4th commandment in the Large Catechism:

We must, therefore, impress it upon the young that they should regard their parents as in God’s stead, and remember that however lowly, poor, frail, and queer they may be, nevertheless they are father and mother given them by God. They are not to be deprived of their honor because of their conduct or their failings. Therefore we are not to regard their persons, how they may be, but the will of God who has thus created and ordained. (LC, 4th Commandment, para. 108)

The offices of earthly government, Luther goes on to say, grow out of the vocation of parenthood. “In this commandment belongs a further statement regarding all kinds of obedience to persons in authority who have to command and to govern. For all authority flows and is propagated from the authority of parents” (LC, 4th Commandment, para. 141).

So the 4th Commandment provisions apply to President Biden by virtue not of his person but of the office that he holds. That office also specifically entitles him to the “honor” mandated in 1 Peter 2:13-17:

¹³Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution,^[b] whether it be to the emperor^[c] as supreme, ¹⁴or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. ¹⁵For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. ¹⁶Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants^[d] of God. ¹⁷Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor.

In Peter’s day, the emperor was a very bad person with anti-Christian policies, but Christians are told to honor him nevertheless. And not just him, but “every human institution”–which would include America’s political institutions–and to “governors” sent by God in general, which would include American presidents.

Furthermore, President Biden will, by virtue of his office, be entitled to our prayers: “First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people,for kings and all who are in high positions” (1 Timothy 2:1-2).

The bottom line is, we Christians should honor and pray for President Biden, even if we disagree with him, for the sake of his office.

These Scriptures hit me hard as Law, making me realize that I have sinned against them many times over many administrations.

But, through Christ’s grace and forgiveness, I am resolving to try to do better in regards to this new president. I know we keep hearing about what people think he is going to do, but the truth is, he hasn’t done anything yet as president. So we should give him a chance. I’ll support him when he does something that I think is good, though I’ll also criticize him when he does something I think is bad. But I’ll try not to ridicule him, make him a target of invective, or slander him.

Biden says he wants to unify the country. Good. I hope he does. I’ll co-operate with that if I can. He’ll have to overcome both the hostility from the right and the pressure from the left to punish all of us evildoers. If he can pull that off, I’ll have a lot of respect for him. If not, I’ll pity him.

His greatest fault is his advocacy of abortion, and my greatest fear about his administration is that it will normalize, promote, and fund this horrible evil. And yet, he used to be pro-life. He is a vocal, church-going Catholic, a religious tradition that, for all of its faults, is resolutely pro-life. In his continual attendance at services and as he experiences the stress and trials of his office and turns to his church for strength, he could be won back to the ethics of Catholicism. We should pray for that.

So I’ll listen to his Inauguration speech, allow myself the thrill of patriotism from the historical moment, wish the best for him, and pray that he will be good for our poor, troubled nation.

Photo: Glyn Lowe PhotoWorks from lisbon, Portugal, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

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Simone Weil on Vocation

September 16, 2020 By Gene Veith

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Simone Weil (pronounced “Vay”) was a French thinker who converted from Judaism to an idiosyncratic, mystical Christianity. In her short life (1909-1943), she was a radical leftist, worked with the French resistance to the Nazi occupiers, and had a dramatic conversion experience when she contemplated George Herbert’s poem on human sin and the grace of Christ, Love III. (See my book Reformation Spirituality: The Religion of George Herbert.)

Through it all, Weil always worked, not just with her mind but with her hands, including a long stint in an automobile factory. She wrote a great deal about the importance and value of working. And her insights tie in interestingly to Luther’s doctrine of vocation.

Richard Gunderman sums up her thoughts on the matter:

Weil looked at work as more than an exchange of money for labor. She argued that people need to work not only for income but also for the experience of labor itself. From her perspective, money does not solve the core problems of joblessness. Instead, work provides vital opportunities to live more fully by helping others. . . .

Though Weil understood that people need work to live, she argued that labor fulfills other equally essential functions. One is the opportunity it offers to become more fully focused and present in living. To multitask is to live superficially, but those who are completely present with another can give fully of themselves. She called attention “the rarest and purest form of generosity.”

Weil believed that humans are not cut out for lives of idle pleasure. It is through work, whether in agriculture, manufacturing, the service industry or maintaining a home and raising children that people contribute to the lives of others. Work reminds us, she wrote, that individuals are part of something greater and provides a larger purpose to live for. She wrote of the calling to serve others:

“Anyone whose attention and love are really directed towards the reality outside the world recognizes at the same time that he is bound, both in public and private life, by the single and permanent obligation to remedy, according to his responsibilities and to the extent of his power, all the privations of soul and body which are liable to destroy or damage the earthly life of any human being whatsoever.”

Work must be seen in its larger context, for if it isn’t, laborers may soon feel like cogs in a machine, winding a nut onto a bolt or moving papers from an inbox to an outbox. To do work well, people need to understand the context of work and how it makes a difference in the lives of others.

Here is Luther’s emphasis that, while vocation is important to our own well-being, the purpose of all of our vocations is to love and serve our neighbors. She also has Luther’s understanding that God is in vocation, that He loves and blesses those whom He has created through us.

Here is how the Wikipedia article about her describes her insights about loving God and loving our neighbor:

In Waiting for God, Simone Weil explains that the three forms of implicit love of God are (1) love of neighbor (2) love of the beauty of the world and (3) love of religious ceremonies.^[70] As Weil writes, by loving these three objects (neighbor, world’s beauty, and religious ceremonies), one indirectly loves God before “God comes in person to take the hand of his future bride,” since prior to God’s arrival, one’s soul cannot yet directly love God as the object.^[71] Love of neighbor occurs (i) when the strong treat the weak as equals,^[72] (ii) when people give personal attention to those that otherwise seem invisible, anonymous, or non-existent,^[73] and (iii) when we look at and listen to the afflicted as they are, without explicitly thinking about God—i.e., Weil writes, when “God in us” loves the afflicted, rather than we loving them in God.^[74] Second, Weil explains, love of the world’s beauty occurs when humans imitate God’s love for the cosmos: just as God creatively renounced his command over the world—letting it be ruled by human autonomy and matter’s “blind necessity”—humans give up their imaginary command over the world, seeing the world no longer as if they were the world’s center.^[75] Finally, Weil explains, love of religious ceremonies occurs as an implicit love of God, when religious practices are pure.^[76] Weil writes that purity in religion is seen when “faith and love do not fail,” and most absolutely, in the Eucharist.^[77]

She is also interesting on the subjects of beauty and of suffering. Again, from Wikipedia:

For Weil, “The beautiful is the experiential proof that the incarnation is possible”. The beauty which is inherent in the form of the world (this inherency is proven, for her, in geometry, and expressed in all good art) is the proof that the world points to something beyond itself; it establishes the essentially telic character of all that exists. Her concept of beauty extends throughout the universe: “we must have faith that the universe is beautiful on all levels…and that it has a fullness of beauty in relation to the bodily and psychic structure of each of the thinking beings that actually do exist and of all those that are possible. It is this very agreement of an infinity of perfect beauties that gives a transcendent character to the beauty of the world…He (Christ) is really present in the universal beauty. The love of this beauty proceeds from God dwelling in our souls and goes out to God present in the universe”. She also wrote that “The beauty of this world is Christ’s tender smile coming to us through matter”.^[66]

Beauty also served a soteriological function for Weil: “Beauty captivates the flesh in order to obtain permission to pass right to the soul.” It constitutes, then, another way in which the divine reality behind the world invades our lives. Where affliction conquers us with brute force, beauty sneaks in and topples the empire of the self from within.

Though she is quite Christ-centered, she is not completely orthodox. She is extreme and aesthetic in her pursuit of virtue. She said that Hinduism and Buddhism also “deliver me into Christ’s hands as his captive,” and yet she opposed syncretism.

She was most interested in Catholicism, but she never became a Catholic. I was under the impression that she refused to be baptized out of a sense of solidarity with those who were not inside the church, but while that was true for awhile, the Wikipedia article said that she finally was baptized shortly before she died of tuberculosis at the age of 34.

Her take on Christianity is so unusual, yet substantive, that she might get through to that “None” friend of yours who is “spiritual but not religious.”

Photo: Simone Weil by Unknown photographer / Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

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Why Do We Admire Certain Vocations?

July 24, 2020 By Gene Veith

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In his book that I blogged about, Defending Boyhood, Anthony Esolen discusses the masculine qualities that lead to the military virtues. He quotes the Victorian author John Ruskin on why we tend to admire soldiers more than “merchants.”

The quotation is from Ruskin’s 1862 book Unto This Last. He goes on to apply his principle to other occupations that we admire, and in doing so, makes some striking points about what we can recognize as the Reformation doctrine of vocation. I’ll discuss those, and then say a few words on behalf of “merchants.”

From John Ruskin, Unto This Last (free online):

For the soldier’s trade, verily and essentially, is not slaying, but being slain. This, without well knowing its own meaning, the world honours it for. A bravo’s trade is slaying; but the world has never respected bravos more than merchants: the reason it honours the soldier is, because he holds his life at the service of the State. Reckless he may be — fond of pleasure or of adventure-all kinds of bye-motives and mean impulses may have determined the choice of his profession, and may affect (to all appearance exclusively) his daily conduct in it; but our estimate of him is based on this ultimate fact — of which we are well assured — that put him in a fortress breach, with all the pleasures of the world behind him, and only death and his duty in front of him, he will keep his face to the front; and he knows that his choice may be put to him at any moment — and has beforehand taken his part — virtually takes such part continually — does, in reality, die daily.

From the soldier’s willingness to die out of a sense of service, Ruskin develops the concept of self-sacrifice, of being willing to deny oneself for a higher principle or for the good of someone else. He then addresses other professions that we admire: lawyers (OK, the Victorians evidently held that profession in greater esteem than is common today), physicians, and (quite rightly) clergymen:

Not less is the respect we pay to the lawyer and physician, founded ultimately on their self-sacrifice. Whatever the learning or acuteness of a great lawyer, our chief respect for him depends on our belief that, set in a judge’s seat, he will strive to judge justly, come of it what may. Could we suppose that he would take bribes, and use his acuteness and legal knowledge to give plausibility to iniquitous decisions, no degree of intellect would win for him our respect. Nothing will win it, short of our tacit conviction, that in all important acts of his life justice is first with him; his own interest, second.

In the case of a physician, the ground of the honour we render him is clearer still. Whatever his science, we would shrink from him in horror if we found him regard his patients merely as subjects to experiment upon; much more, if we found that, receiving bribes from persons interested in their deaths, he was using his best skill to give poison in the mask of medicine.

Finally, the principle holds with utmost clearness as it respects clergymen. No goodness of disposition will excuse want of science in a physician, or of shrewdness in an advocate; but a clergyman, even though his power of intellect be small, is respected on the presumed ground of his unselfishness and serviceableness.

All of this, of course, is the doctrine of vocation, that in every sphere of relationship or responsibility to which we have been called–in the workplace, the family, the church, and the society–we are to love and serve the neighbors who are brought into our lives by this calling. And love and service to our neighbor in vocation is our “living sacrifice,” an example of the cross bearing that our Lord calls us to: “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”(Luke 9:23).

But what about the “merchant”–that is, people in the business world? Ruskin says that running a business takes just as much intelligence, personal skills, and leadership ability as is needed in the military, the legal profession, and the church. The difference, he concludes, is that people in business are perceived to be primarily self-interested:

Now, there can be no question but that the tact, foresight, decision, and other mental powers, required for the successful management of a large mercantile concern, if not such as could be compared with those of a great lawyer, general, or divine, would at least match the general conditions of mind required in the subordinate officers of a ship, or of a regiment, or in the curate of a country parish. If, therefore, all the efficient members of the so-called liberal professions are still, somehow, in public estimate of honour, preferred before the head of a commercial firm, the reason must lie deeper than in the measurement of their several powers of mind.

And the essential reason for such preference will he found to lie in the fact that the merchant is presumed to act always selfishly. His work may be very necessary to the community, but the motive of it is understood to be wholly personal. The merchant’s first object in all his dealings must be (the public believe) to get as much for himself, and leave as little to his neighbour (or customer) as possible.

In defense of all of you “merchants,” I would add, though, that people in business do serve their neighbors, often in self-sacrificial ways. Ruskin omits the aspect of vocation that teaches how God works through human beings in their various callings in order to bless and provide for His creation. Even the selfish merchant only interested in his profits is compelled to serve his neighbor. If the businesses doesn’t provide goods or services that help their customers, they will not stay in business very long.

The merchant serves his neighbor, whether or not he loves them. Likely, because of his sinful nature, he mainly loves himself. Faith in Christ bears fruit, though, in the love of neighbor. So the Christian merchant can carry out his vocation as an act of faith and love. The business still must make a profit or it will not last, but vocation can give it another dimension. And if Christians in business demonstrate a spirit of self-sacrificial love and service for their customers and their employees, they too will find themselves admired.

The same, of course, is true for soldiers, lawyers, clergymen, and every other vocation we look up to. (What would those be today? Not politicians, who have developed a reputation for selfishness and power-seeking, rather than public service. We admire athletes, though I’m not sure how Ruskin’s thesis applies to them. I suppose they sacrifice themselves in their physical discipline and for the sake of their team.) A soldier might serve his country without loving it, or give his life for his comrades without loving them, but the love gives his sacrifice a greater meaning. A pastor might serve his flock without loving them as he should, though this is something all Christians must grow in as their faith grows.

Here is how Ruskin summarizes his thoughts about vocation:

Five great intellectual professions, relating to daily necessities of life, have hitherto existed — three exist necessarily, in every civilised nation:

The Soldier’s profession is to defend it.

The Pastor’s to teach it.

The Physician’s to keep it in health.

The lawyer’s to enforce justice in it.

The Merchant’s to provide for it.

And the duty of all these men is, on due occasion, to die for it.

“On due occasion,” namely: –

The Soldier, rather than leave his post in battle.

The Physician, rather than leave his post in plague.

The Pastor, rather than teach Falsehood.

The lawyer, rather than countenance Injustice.

The Merchant–what is his “due occasion” of death?

It is the main question for the merchant, as for all of us. For, truly, the man who does not know when to die, does not know how to live.

Ruskin, by the way, often applies Christian ideas in fresh and unexpected ways. In my book Painters of Faith, I discuss and apply Ruskin’s view that aesthetics–what we find beautiful–is an intimation of the qualities of God, since, he said, ultimately, we can find pleasure in no one but Him. Thus, evocations of infinity are sublime and give us pleasure–because God is infinite. Works of art that combine unity and complexity are beautiful–because the Triune God is both complex and unified. (Painters of Faith is selling on Amazon for $59, but my daughter is selling them, through a coupon code she is offering, for just $18!)

Photograph: John Ruskin by W. & D. Downey / Public domain via Wikimedia Commons [detail]

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The Police, Protests, and Vocation

June 8, 2020 By Gene Veith

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Protests against racism. Protests against the shutdown. The lawlessness of looters. The lawlessness of the government. Police brutality. Calls to defund or even eliminate the police. Defunding and eliminating businesses. What do we make of all this?

I’d like to look at our current troubles from the perspective of the doctrine of vocation. To review, we all have multiple vocations, or callings, from God, in the estates that He established for human life: the household (the family [marriage, parenthood, childhood] and the economy [how we make our living]); the church (pastors, parishioners); the state (the society and its government, as officials and as citizens).

The purpose of each of our vocations is to love and serve our neighbors; that is, the particular human beings whom we deal with in our various callings. When we do, God Himself works through our vocations to bring His blessings. But we can also sin in our vocations, insisting that our neighbors serve us, and using our positions to hate and hurt our neighbors.

So what about the police? They are among the lawful magistrates of Romans 13 whom God uses to restrain and to punish evildoer, thus making it possible for sinful human beings to live together in societies.

But even government officials are obliged to love and serve their neighbors whom they are supervising. They should not use their power and authority for their own self-aggrandizement, but for the good of their people. Otherwise, they are sinning against and violating their vocation.

Being a police officer is a high and holy calling. They love and serve their neighbors by protecting the public from criminals and lawlessness. Sometimes police officers sacrifice their lives for us. They deserve our honor and our gratitude. The slogan of many police forces perfectly describes their vocation: “To serve and protect.”

In fulfilling their vocation, police officers must also love and serve their neighbors whom they apprehend. The police are among the lawful magistrates who “bear the sword” (Romans 13:4) and so are authorized to use deadly force in carrying out their duty to protect the public. But they should not mistreat the malefactors whom they take into custody.

Those of us who have received a traffic ticket might recall the elaborate courtesy with which they were treated by the patrol officer. (“Sir, are you aware that you were going 85 miles per hour in a 55 mile per hour zone. Would you please give me your license and registration? Thank you. I am writing you a ticket to encourage you to drive more safely next time. Have a nice day.”) Yes, such chilly formality is intimidating and makes us feel guilty, but the officer has been trained to treat even lawbreakers like us with respect, as human beings whom he is holding responsible for our actions.

Kneeling on the neck of someone already in handcuffs, who is begging for breath, is a violation of a police officer’s vocation. He was not loving, serving, or protecting the neighbor whom he had in custody.

We also have a vocation of citizenship, which requires us to love and serve our country and our fellow citizens. Racism is a repudiation of that vocation. Instead of loving and serving our neighbors of a different race, we hate and mistreat them. God does not call us to do that.

Protesting the police officer’s killing of George Floyd and the wider problem of racism can indeed be a way of loving and serving our neighbors. It thus falls under the scope of the vocation of citizenship. Such protests also lawful, falling under the Constitution’s protections of our civil liberties, as defined in the first Article of the Bill of Rights:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Notice that this also applies to those who have been protesting the COVID-19 shutdown, the closure of churches, and related “grievances.”

But if a protester, even one whose cause is just, starts smashing windows, looting stores, setting buildings on fire, throwing bricks at police officers, assaulting bystanders, or threatening the public with weapons, it’s a different story. Instead of loving the neighbor, the rioter is stealing from, terrorizing, or physically harming the neighbor. God does not call citizens to do such things. This is a violation of the citizen’s vocation. And it signals the need for the police officers’ vocation.

Do you see any other applications of the doctrine of vocation in our current troubles? (See also my post Vocation and the Epidemic. And see my book, God at Work: Your Christian Vocation in All of Life.)

UPDATE: The Minneapolis City Council, in a veto-proof majority, have announced plans to disband the city’s police force. Other cities are also considering either defunding or eliminating the police. They would be replaced by “mental health providers, social workers, victim advocates and other community members.” How do you think that will work?

Photo: Skyfox11 at English Wikipedia / Public domain

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The Vocation of Weird Al Yankovic

May 4, 2020 By Gene Veith

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Remember Weird Al Yankovic, known for his parodies of iconic pop songs and their videos? Creator of such masterpieces as “Eat it!” “Like a Surgeon,” “Another One Rides the Bus,” “Amish Paradise,” “Smells Like Nirvana”? He is still going strong.

Sam Anderson–who wrote a fantastic book about Oklahoma City–has published a profile and appreciation of the great man in the New York Times Magazine, telling about his life as a sheltered nerdy kid with no friends, how he turned to humor, his unlikely success, and his sheer artistry. Anderson attended one of his live concerts recently and concluded, “this was the single best performance of any kind that I had ever seen in my life.” And in an interview with Weird Al–who turns out to be a devoted family man who doesn’t drink, smoke, swear, lose his temper, or fail to talk with his fans–we are treated with a detailed account, complete with outtakes, of how he composed his rap parody “White & Nerdy.”

Here is a sample from Anderson’s article, “The Weirdly Enduring Appeal of Weird Al Yankovic: National economies collapse; species go extinct; political movements rise and fizzle. But — somehow, for some reason — Weird Al keeps rocking”
(my bolds):

What a Weird Al parody did was enact a tiny revolution. It took the whole glamorous architecture of American mainstream cool — Michael Jackson’s otherworldly moves, Madonna’s sexual taboos — and extracted all of the coolness. Into that void, Weird Al inserted the least cool person in the world: himself. And by proxy, all the rest of us weirdos, along with our uncool lives. “Beat It,” a ubiquitous superhit about avoiding street violence, became “Eat It,” a nasally monologue about picky eating. (“Have a banana, have a whole bunch — it doesn’t matter what you had for lunch. Just eat it.”) “I Love Rock ’n Roll,” a churning anthem of hard living and the devil’s music, became “I Love Rocky Road,” a squawking paean to stuffing your face with ice cream. It is no accident that much of Yankovic’s music was about food — everyone ate food, every day, celebrities and nerds alike. It was the great equalizer. . . .

Michael Schur, the creator of “The Good Place” and co-creator of “Parks and Recreation,” remembers the force of Weird Al’s 1992 parody of Nirvana.

“ ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ comes out, and it’s like the perfect voice for all the simmering anger of an entire generation of kids,” Schur said. “That song is vicious and angry and aggressive but also laconic and disaffected and scary. And it was immediately a gigantic thing in American culture. Then Weird Al does ‘Smells Like Nirvana’ and completely deflates it — the importance and seriousness and angst. That’s a service he has always provided: to remind people that rock is about grittiness and authenticity and finding your voice and relating to an audience, but it’s also fundamentally absurd. Being a rock star is stupid. We as a culture are genuflecting at the altar of these rock stars, and Weird Al comes out with this crazy curly hair and an accordion, and he just blows it all into smithereens by singing about Spam.

And as if that were not enough, the Anglican Luther-fan David Zahl at Mockingbird writes about Anderson’s article and his own appreciation for Weird Al, usefully embedding some of his videos. In the course of his discussion, Zahl invokes the V-word: Vocation.

From David Zahl, “The Ministry of Weirdness, Courtesy of The Rev. Alfred Yankovic“:

Absurd as it sounds, Alfred Yankovic may constitute the final link in the holy trinity of 80s American pop culture alongside Dolly Parton and Fred Rogers. What I mean is he appears to be that rare celebrity who understands–and fulfills–his role as a spiritual calling. A vocation, if you will. Because what Anderson describes in the article is nothing short of a ministry. This is a man whose art and presence, under the auspices of pure ridiculousness, imparts grace to those who come into contact with it. And not a superficial form either.

There’s a clear link here between the unlikelihood of the messenger and the depth of the resonance, something dead serious (and good!) transpiring under the aegis of the absurd. . . .

The first inkling I got came after A Mess of Help came out. I had spoken at an event somewhere, and afterward, a middle-aged woman approached me to asked me what I thought about… Weird Al. The gleam in her eye told me it was less of a question and more of a secret handshake. If it was a test, I failed. But I heard from her a few months after the event, saying that she’d put a copy of the book in his hands at a meet-n-greet, and then asking me to pray for him, since he was on the road and far from his… church. Huh, I thought, filing that last tidbit away for a rainy day reddit investigation.

Well, Anderson’s article has officially spared me that investigation. His testimony of what Weird Al meant to him growing up–as well as what Al meant to Andy Samberg, Lin Manuel-Miranda, and Michael Schur (Parks and Rec, The Good Place)–stopped me in my tracks. And Al’s own “origin” only made matters more profound. This wasn’t that cruel subversion known as nerd-cool, nor a novel strand of seculosity. It was something far more beautiful, more akin to a ministry of grace than anything else. That the grace in question might be based in something deeper than human kindness, well, it’s enough to make this grown man feel like a kid at Spatula City.

Indeed, Weird Al’s Wikipedia article, which is also worth reading, confirms that he “identifies as a Christian.”

Longtime reader and commenter on this blog Steve Bauer, who alerted me to these articles, which for some reason made him think of me, and observed, “Maybe words like ministry and grace are a bit of a stretch, as they usually are terms that carry an explicit Christological referent for Lutherans, so perhaps we would have to find a more generalized word for ‘unfettered favor that reflects the love of God (for the weird).'” Good point.

But still, we can see how being a comedian can be a Christian vocation, a way of loving and serving one’s neighbors. Not just by helping the neighbors laugh, thus lightening their burdens, but also, in this case, by subverting the fashionable culture that the neighbor might otherwise take too seriously.

I close with this example:

Photo by Chris Favero from USA / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0) via Wikimedia Commons

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