DISCUSS: Moral Character vs. Vocational Excellence

Last updated on: January 19, 2025 at 3:37 pm By Gene Veith

In the course of the election and the death of Jimmy Carter, I heard these two statements or the equivalent from different people:

“Donald Trump is a bad man, but he was a good president.”

“Jimmy Carter was a good man, but he was a bad president.”

I also heard contrary views–that Jimmy Carter was not a good man and that Trump is–but I don’t want to discuss the alleged virtues and vices of our presidents. I want to discuss how such observations fit with the doctrine of vocation.

Is it possible for a “bad person” to carry out his or her vocation well? Or is it possible for a “good person” to do a bad job with his or her vocation?

I know that “No one is good except God alone” (Mark 10:18). I’m referring to external civic virtue and/or the sanctified righteousness that is fruit of faith. I’m not thinking of a “bad job” in the sense of, say, a business failure, but in violating or for some reason failing to carry out the vocation as it should be done.

Clearly the phenomenon exists. Henry VIII was a bad man, but historians consider him a pretty good king; while Edward the Confessor was literally a saint, but he was a bad king. The most beloved figures are good in both senses (Gustavus Adolphus; or, for presidents Washington and Lincoln). We see something similar in less exalted kinds of leadership. A bad man might be good at running a company, while a good man might be ineffective.

What about other vocations? Can a bad man be a good husband? If so, in what sense is he bad? Can a good man be a bad husband? If so, in what sense is he good? What about the vocation of pastor?

Considering such paradoxes might help us fine tune our understanding of vocation. Help me out here.

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John the Baptist on Vocation

Last updated on: December 13, 2024 at 7:17 am By Gene Veith

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Advent does quite a bit with John the Baptist, the prophet who prepared the way for the coming of Christ. I never noticed until a recent gospel reading that John said some important things about vocation.

Luke records the Baptizer’s devastating preaching of the Law:

He said therefore to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” (Luke 3:7-9)

His hearers are cut to the heart. They ask him, what kinds of fruit do we need to be bearing?

And the crowds asked him, “What then shall we do?” And he answered them, “Whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise.” (Luke 3:10-11)

This rings true. We all need to be more compassionate and generous. Then people with specific vocations ask them what they, in particular, should do. John’s answers may be surprising:

Tax collectors also came to be baptized and said to him, “Teacher, what shall we do?” And he said to them, “Collect no more than you are authorized to do.” Soldiers also asked him, “And we, what shall we do?” And he said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or by false accusation, and be content with your wages.” (Luke 3:12-14)

He didn’t tell the tax collectors, widely reviled for their corruption and for selling out to Rome, to quit their filthy trade and find another line of work. Rather, he told them to just “collect no more than you are authorized to do.” He didn’t tell the soldiers (Roman soldiers? Jews in Herod’s army also in service to Rome?), to practice war no more, to desert, to become pacifists. Rather, he told the to just “not extort money from anyone by threats or by false accusation, and be content with your wages.”

In other words, just do your jobs. But do not sin in your jobs by using them as an opportunity to harm the neighbors that your job brings you into contact with. This is to “bear fruits in keeping with repentance.”

Our good works are primarily done in vocation as the works of our vocation. Not exclusively: We need to be sharing our tunics and giving food to the hungry also. This would be in the general estate, the informal interactions outside of the specific estates of family and the church and the state, what Luther called the “common order of Christian love” in which God also calls us to temporary acts of service.

But our time is mostly taken up by our family and the workplace (the estate of the household), plus the church (another estate) and our duties of citizenship (another estate). So most of our good works, the fruits of our faith, must necessarily take place in those arenas. In each of these estates, we have specific vocations or callings: as spouse, parent, child; as employee or employer; as ruler, official, or citizen.

By the same token, our sins also mostly take place in those arenas. In the family: adultery, cruelty, neglect, disobedience; in the workplace: cheating customers, laziness; mistreating workers; in the church: pastors and parishioners mistreating each other; violating God’s Word; lack of devotion.

And each vocation has its specific temptations and besetting sins. The news is full of stories about sexual harassment and abuse in the workplace, scientists who fake their data, parents who abuse their children, children who rebel against their parents, academics who manipulate or exploit their students instead of teaching their subjects; workers who mistreat their colleagues or customers; what John the Baptist said about tax collectors and soldiers, and on and on.

It is a beneficial spiritual exercise to consider your various vocations in the family, the workplace, the state, and in the common order, and reflect on the occasions for sin that you need to be on guard against. And the sins that you have committed in those vocations. In fact, this is exactly what we are told to do in the Catechism, in answer to the question “which sins should we confess?” [my emphasis]:

Consider your place in life [i.e., your vocation] according to the Ten Commandments: Are you a father, mother, son, daughter, husband, wife, or worker? Have you been disobedient, unfaithful, or lazy? Have you been hot-tempered, rude, or quarrelsome? Have you hurt someone by your words or deeds? Have you stolen, been negligent, wasted anything, or done any harm?

Whereupon in church we receive absolution from Christ through the pastor by virtue of his vocation:

“Upon this your confession, I, as a called and ordained servant of the Word, announce the grace of God to all of you, and in the stead and by the command of my Lord Jesus Christ I forgive you all your sins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

Illustration: The Sermon of St. John the Baptist by Lucas Cranach the Elder via Google Art Project, Public Domain

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Eisenhower on the Vocation of Staffer

Last updated on: December 5, 2024 at 7:59 am By Gene Veith

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I grew up in a family of die-hard Democrats. They are still pretty much that way. At the time, shortly after FDR saved Oklahoma from the Dust Bowl, the whole state was fervently Democratic, though now ironically it is the one state in which every county voted for Trump. But back then I never even knew a Republican until I reached college age and my cousin married one, a mixed marriage we thought would never last. (But it did: the interloper was Cranach subscriber and sometimes commenter Bob Foote.)

Anyway, in 1956, President Dwight Eisenhower ran for his second term. I was five years old. Somehow, I was captivated by the man, whom I saw on our black and white TV. I don’t remember how I acquired it, but I started wearing an “I Like Ike” button, to the consternation of my parents. I have to give them credit for respecting my civil liberties, even when I kept saying “I Like Ike” over and over again.

At one time, Eisenhower was considered a do-nothing president, but today his stock has risen to the point that historians now are ranking him in the top tier of American presidents, even in the top 10. No one can deny his accomplishments: as a general he whipped the Nazis; as president he stopped the Korean War; he built the international coalition against communism while opposing McCarthyism; he signed the first modern Civil Rights Act and sent in troops to integrate the Little Rock schools; he started NASA; he gave us the Interstate Highway system; he warned us against the “military-industrial complex”; and he balanced the budget. That’s a fairly decent record.

Eisenhower was a great administrator, as evident in his various careers in the military and the government. Administration is a lost art and greatly under appreciated today, but it is the key to getting things done and doing them effectively.

It turns out, Ike laid out some principles for the vocation of staff member. These were based on his own experience both as a staffer working his way up the unforgiving meritocracy of the military and as the man at the top of the hierarchy being served by his staff.

Think tanker Luke Strange has written about these principles in his National Review article One Thing New D.C. Staffers Must Understand about Their Jobs, with the deck, “The many who are about to get new jobs in Washington can thrive in their roles if they master ‘Policy Hill.’”

Strange is offering advice for the legion of new office-holders and their subordinates who will be taking positions on Capitol Hill. What Eisenhower says applies to government, politics, and the military, yes, but also to business, academia, non-profits, and religious organizations, including churches large enough for pastors to have a “staff.” It includes insights both for employees and bosses, explaining both what staffers need to do and what bosses needs to do in order to use their staffers effectively.

I’ll let Strange explain it:

Ike developed an ingenious concept called “Policy Hill” to give him and his staff the ability to prepare for, make, and implement effective decisions. On the uphill side, a staffer is responsible for developing, or “teeing up,” a decision for the principal. At the top sits the principal — the key decision-maker. Down the other side of Policy Hill lies implementation — all the things that the staffer needs to do with the boss’s decision to ensure that it is successful.

To start pushing an idea up the hill, the staffer needs to first be an “‘honest broker’ who can understand and explain the risks and benefits of any solution — both to the principal’s strategic goals and to his or her key relationships.” The staffer needs to determine the time-lines necessary for the idea to become a reality. “And a staffer should know whose buy-in the principal needs for each option, and in what order — and what way — they should be approached ahead of time.” After working through all of the options, the staffer knows more about them than anyone and should then be prepared to offer honest recommendations.

At the top of the hill is the “principal” who will make the decision and be accountable for it to the various constituencies. The staffer should support the principal’s decision with these groups, smoothing over disagreements and tamping down opposition.

Then comes the implementation of the decision, the downslope of “Policy Hill”:

Staff members must be vigilant that the departments and agencies are on board and doing what they are supposed to do. Along the way, a few tasks are paramount. First, measure success and trumpet impact. Second, deal with blowback — from the Hill, from frenemies in your coalition, from the media. Third, and most important: Do as much as you can to make the principal you work for look good either publicly or, oftentimes, simply within his or her party or department.

And thus the staffers will have loved and served their neighbors–their boss, their organization, the public–and fulfilled their vocation.

Photo: President Dwight D. Eisenhower by New York Times via Picryl, Public Domain

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Vocation and Cabinet Posts

Last updated on: November 26, 2024 at 7:53 am By Gene Veith

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President-elect Donald Trump’s nominations for cabinet posts, which must be deliberated by the Senate, raise issues about vocation. We can consider their beliefs and qualifications. But do they have a vocation for the job?

In his first term, Trump, who had little experience in Washington, depended on mainline Republicans to propose his cabinet members, who, in turn, often thwarted his policies and when they were ousted, wrote nasty books about him. So this time Trump is picking personal friends and loyalists. He also wants to deal with the entrenched professional bureaucracies that make up most federal agencies and stay in their jobs no matter who heads the Executive Branch. So Trump is also favoring nominees who would disrupt the status quo.

Trump himself didn’t have conventional qualifications to be president–he does now, after four years on the job–so he isn’t stressing conventional qualifications for his nominees either.

Still, as Trump must know from his business days, successful candidates must have more qualifications than personal loyalty and having been on TV. The question is, can they do the job?

Often, candidates are put forward mainly because of their beliefs. This happens in politics and also in Christian institutions, as well as other ideologically-committed organizations. In those cases, it is essential that the candidate has the right beliefs in accord with the mission of the institution. That’s the foundational requirement. But it isn’t enough.

In hiring a professor for a Christian college, the candidate’s orthodoxy, in my mind, is absolutely necessary. But then the question must arise, can this candidate teach? If not, the professor’s orthodoxy will do the students little good, and a bad teacher may even turn them against it.

Help me think through these nominations and whether these candidates should receive the call to serve in these offices. . . .

Attorney General

At first, President-elect Trump nominated Rep. Matt Gaetz to be Attorney General. He had the right MAGA beliefs, personal loyalty, and a reputation for being a disrupter. But he was probably the most disliked person in Congress even in his own party and even among fellow right wingers. It wasn’t just that he torpedoed the speakership of Kevin McCarthy, which others approved of. He kept the Republicans from unifying around anything, making their close majority pretty much useless. But it wasn’t just that. His personality and his character were obnoxious. Oklahoma senator Markwayne Mullin is as arch conservative and as MAGA as they come, but he was repelled by Gaetz’s practice of bragging about his sexual exploits–to the point of showing videos–to his colleagues on the House floor. And he was under investigation by the Department of Justice that he would supervise and by the House Ethics committee of having sex with a minor. And not only that: Gaetz was up for Attorney General, even though he had no background in law enforcement or prosecution, and hadn’t really even practiced law, having gone from law school straight into politics.

Upon his nomination, Gaetz immediately resigned from the House, which kept the Ethics report from being released. But when it became evident that he would never get confirmed, he withdrew his name from consideration. Whereupon Trump nominated Pam Bondi. She had served as Trump’s lawyer during his impeachment and had the requisite loyalty and beliefs. But she also had many years of experience as a prosecutor and served two terms as the Attorney General of Florida. She is much worthier to be called to serve in that high office.

Health and Human Services

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., was nominated to be the Secretary of Health and Human Services. His background, in addition to being a scion of the fabled Kennedy family, is as an environmental and health activist. He is a longtime progressive Democrat who ran for president in that party, then, after the party put the kibosh on his candidacy for running against President Biden, ran as an Independent. And when that effort was going nowhere, he threw his support to Donald Trump.

That helped Trump, and it may be that Health and Human Services was the price of his endorsement. That’s not wrong, as such. Political patronage is a long and storied tradition in politics, though it has often gone wrong. But a political progressive who endorses Trump remains a political progressive.

Kennedy is a pro-abortion extremist. He has stated his support not just for late-term abortion but for full-term abortion! He was so extreme that his own running-mate, Nichol Shanahan, made him walk that back, changing his platform to approving of abortion up the point of viability outside the womb. But still, Health and Human Services would supervise the government’s abortion policies.

Kennedy is also a supporter of socialized medicine, extreme environmentalism, and nanny-state measures to dictate what Americans eat. He remains a progressive, not a conservative in any of its many senses. Even if we accept his populist approach to health care, including vaccine skepticism and alternative medicine, we might want to think twice about putting him in charge of the the largest department in the federal government that spends one-fourth of the government’s budget.

Secretary of Defense

Pete Hesgeth as the Secretary of Defense might work. The Fox News commentator is a decorated combat veteran who served as a captain in the National Guard in both Iraq and Afghanistan, retiring at the rank of major. He has been a strong critic of the current Pentagon establishment for its woke policies and other deficiencies. I can see that putting someone who has fought on the front line in charge of the top brass would be a much-needed morale booster to America’s troops.

His nomination, though, has been met with charges that he sexually assaulted a woman. The police report seems to vindicate him, but I am still troubled at the defense made by men who are so accused–Hesgeth, Gaetz, also Kennedy, and, yes, Trump–that the sex was “consensual,” as if adultery and fornication are not a big deal in themselves. How can we trust those who do not keep their marriage vows to keep their oaths of office?

Other Nominations

Then there is Linda McMahon, former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment, the scripted sports venture founded by her husband Vince. She has been nominated for Secretary of Education. She has no education experience, other than briefly being on a state school board, and yet she might be able to handle the department’s bureaucracy, having served in Trump’s first term as Administrator of the Small Business Administration.

Trump nominated South Dakota Kristi Noem to be Director of Homeland Security. Federalist editor Joy Pullman cites her history of caving on transgender issues and concludes, in an article with this title, Kristi Noem Isn’t Courageous Enough To Be Trump’s Homeland Security Secretary.

Trump nominated former Democratic congressional representative and presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence. Nicky Haley accuses her of being a “Russian, Iranian, Syrian, Chinese sympathizer.” Haley, Trump’s primary foe, is quoted in Politico:

“She opposed ending the Iran nuclear deal. She opposed sanctions on Iran. She opposed designating the Iran military as terrorists who say death to America every single day,” Haley said on SiriusXM’s Nikki Haley Live. “She said that Donald Trump turned the U.S. into Saudi Arabia’s prostitute. This is going to be the future head of our national intelligence.”

Trump nominated TV doctor Dr. Mehmet Oz to be the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Is running an agency like that really his skill set?

In general, I believe presidents should have the team they want. Many of Trump’s picks, such as Marco Rubio for Secretary of State, strike me as good choices. But Senators have, as part of their vocation, the responsibility to “advise and consent” when it comes to approving nominations, as opposed to just giving their blind approval.

Photo: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Donald Trump by Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

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Baptism & Vocation; Identity & Purpose

Last updated on: September 27, 2024 at 1:30 pm By Gene Veith

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There is a connection between baptism and vocation, which in turn connects to our identity and our purpose.

I’ve made that point, but Peter Leithart makes it too and goes on to show how the eclipse of baptism and vocation has brought about our society’s confusions about identity and secular modernity’s rejection of purpose in science, philosophy, and individual lives.

He does so in the course of an article in First Things that I’m less certain about: Can Nations Be Baptized? He argues that they can, citing Christ’s Great Commission: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:19-20).

Here, Leithart says, we are told to baptize nations. And, indeed, he points out, entire nations were baptized in the early days of the church. When King Clovis of the Franks converted to Christianity and was baptized, the rest of the Franks followed suit, giving us the nation of France. When Vladimir the Great was baptized, so did the rest of the “Rus” people, giving us Russia (and the war in Ukraine, since Vlad I’s baptism was at Kiev in Ukraine, a sacred site that Vlad Putin wants for Russia). When Charlemagne conquered the Saxons, he gave them the choice of either getting baptized or getting executed, giving us the German principality that would give us Martin Luther and the founders of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod.

So Leithart thinks that nations as a whole can and should be baptized, making Christian nations possible. I don’t agree with that. I think that Christ’s words are an example of the figure of speech synechdoche, in which the whole refers to the parts, or the parts to the whole. But even if it isn’t, the baptizing of the nations that Leithart cites happened not just by baptizing the King, thought to represent in his person the entire nation, but by baptizing each individual who constitutes the nation.

But this isn’t what I’m posting about. In the course of Leithart’s discussion, he says this:

As the Presbyterian missionary Wes Baker has argued, baptism has to do with both identity and vocation. When Jesus is baptized, the Father’s voice confirms his identity as beloved Son, and Jesus is simultaneously commissioned to his Messianic work, initially by combatting Satan in the wilderness. Because baptism incorporates the baptized into the one baptism of Jesus, our baptisms have the same double significance as Jesus’s own. We are sons in the Son, beloved in the Beloved, and also sent in the Sent One.

These facets of baptism are inseparable. Vocation is inherent in identity. To be in Christ is to be sent by Christ. Our vocations set the contours of the unique human beings we are, lend purpose to our lives, and so thrust us forward into the future. Through baptism, that future is folded into the future of the kingdom of God. Baptism clashes with secular modernity, which is founded on the separation between identity and purpose. Modern science removes purpose from the natural world. Modern philosophy removes purpose from human nature and relocates it to the realm of will. The only purposes that define me are the ones I choose. This seems liberating, but it’s the opposite. Detached from a given vocation, identity collapses. We don’t know who we are unless we know where we’re going and why, and we know the way forward only when we’re called by an unchosen future. By conferring identity and direction, baptism heals the rift in secular modernity, reintegrating who I am with what I do.

I get into some of this in my book Embracing Your Lutheran Identity, which begins with the identity we are given in baptism, as in the sample I posted. But that “baptism clashes with secular modernity, which is founded on the separation between identity and purpose” raises the stakes. As does “baptism heals the rift in secular modernity.”

Illustration: Charlemagne Forcing the Saxons to be Baptized, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=36897903

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“Everyone Has a Vocation, But Not All Have Jobs”

Last updated on: September 14, 2024 at 1:13 pm By Gene Veith

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I quite randomly stumbled upon a Labor Day piece at Religion & Liberty Online entitled Toasters and Trade: How Misguided Policies Can Burn the American Dream by economist Anne Bradley.

Imagine my surprise when she cited me and my work on vocation. Imagine my even greater surprise when she called me a “theologian”! I have never thought of myself as a theologian, just a layman and English professor who finds what he has learned at church applicable to his work, his life, and his other interests. I’m hardly unusual in that–lots of laypeople, maybe most of them–feel the same way. I just write about it, that’s all. As a teacher in Christian colleges, I’ve had lots of experience in relating my faith to literature and to the culture more broadly, but that doesn’t make me a theologian.

Anyway, I bring this up because Bradley not only sums up what I’ve written about vocation (see my trilogy: God at Work, Family Vocation, and Working for Our Neighbor), she draws on something I’ve emphasized, but I don’t think I have put it as clearly and succinctly as she does. Here is what she says (my bolds):

Christianity provides a spiritual and dignified understanding of work and vocation. Theologian Gene Veith argues that Martin Luther transformed the doctrine of vocation to apply to all of Christian life; it is the “mask of God” in which he is present in our ordinary affairs. Veith contends that “the priesthood of all believers is another name for the concept of vocation. … God calls some Christians to be pastors, but … other Christians will ‘exercise their royal priesthood by plowing fields, forging steel, and starting businesses.’” A culture that honors hard work, creativity, and service informs the institutional transformation necessary for economic development.

Everyone has a vocation, but not all have jobs. Paid labor can be a part of how you fulfill your vocation, but it’s not the only way. When politicians speak about the importance of jobs, they refer to the labor you sell in the marketplace. A robust economy creates job opportunities across various skills and education levels, from aeronautics to manufacturing. Meaningful work, not just jobs, can happen inside the market where we buy and sell our labor and outside the market in our homes, neighborhoods, churches, and civic institutions; it all matters.

Several people have asked me how I reconcile my retirement with what I’ve written about vocation. (Here is how I’ve answered that in print.) I’ve said that now I have time to pursue my other vocations–ones that I had sometimes neglected in the busyness of making a living–more fully: in my family, in my local congregation, in my writing. (I’m realizing that I’m still neglecting my citizenship.)

Retired people, the unemployed, the independently wealthy–they all have vocations. Each has stations in life in which they can love and serve their neighbors. We have vocations in each of the estates that God designed for human life: the home, the church, and the state. Luther added one more, a general realm of informal tasks and relationships: the “common order of Christian love.” That would include our friendships, our neighbors across the street, people we randomly encounter. Luther classified our economic vocations as being part of the “home,” how the family makes its living. (The very word “economy” derives from the Greek word for “house” combined with the word for “laws.”) Some vocations–such as that of rulers, judges, soldiers–he also related to the state. Or in the case of pastors–and theologians–to the church.

At any rate, we often today use “vocation” to refer just to “job” or “occupation” or “profession.” Maybe ramping those up a little, as in, “This is not just a job, it’s a vocation.” But the term as used in “vocational training” or “vo-tech schools” is an extreme narrowing of a theological concept. The word comes from the Latin for “calling.” When the Bible talks about “calling,” it is revealing the doctrine of vocation. For example, 1 Corinthians 7:17: “Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him.”

What Bradley said also reminded me of an important corollary: the importance of “our homes, neighborhoods, churches, and civic institutions; it all matters.”

Vocation means we must not neglect any of these estates, that God is masked in all of them, that the Christian life involves loving and serving neighbors in all of these spheres. And that they all are in need of revival.

Photo: “Congratulations on Your Retirement!” by Jim the Photographer via Flickr, CC BY 2.0

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