Fundamentalism and Vocation

https://rootedthinking.com/2026/04/09/did-god-call-me-to-my-work-is-calling-a-christian-notion/

There's some good balance in this article. By the time I was a third of the way through it, I wanted to know who the author is. I was surprised to find that he's a Fundamentalist. This smacks of the older Fundamentalism that is all but obsolete in our day. While I cannot agree with them doctrinally there is a counter-cultural and ethos of antithesis about them that I always find refreshing - I just don't find it much any more.

He rightly targets Dutch Calvinism as expressing a particularly vigorous form of Vocation - a doctrine that emerged (I'm sorry to say) with Martin Luther.

I find that when you reject this doctrine, the attacks are vicious but are more often than not caricatures and attempts to destroy straw men. Arnold demonstrates how we can pursue our jobs with meaning and purpose and yet they are not an end in themselves. They are not Kingdom work as I would put it. I'm guessing Arnold is at the very least premillennialist if not a Dispensationalist and as such the Kingdom (for him) is not operable in the present anyway.

I would say the Kingdom is very much operable and active and yet being heavenly and eschatological, the language and impetus behind Dominionism and (generally speaking) Vocation (as per the Magisterial Reformation) is at odds with it.

I was very pleased to see that Arnold pushes the New Testament conception of vocation or calling - our calling as Christians. This Biblical emphasis has nothing to do with sanctifying daily work and reckoning it a Kingdom-building activity.

Someone might work in a factory or drive a delivery truck. There's nothing wrong with these jobs but few who are thus employed view their job as some kind of high calling. It's something to pay the bills and as Christians we do our best and make the best of it, bearing witness along the way. But it's completely legitimate to look forward to the end of the shift or the work week - working for the weekend as it were. Dominionist and Vocational teachers often try to make people feel guilty for not wanting to work. A distinction needs to be made - it seems like they refer to work that generates income. There are many types of work and productive activity but it doesn't always pay. It seems to me that 'laying up treasures in heaven' might sometimes qualify as an example. Maybe I look forward to a Saturday so I can spend time with my family or helping someone, or maybe even reading a Christian book, or meditating while walking in the woods. I count such times as highly productive and edifying as any of the times I'm working for money - often just catering to the whims of worldly people who have too much money to spend.

Also, Arnold touches on the legitimacy of work, or rather types of work. I was thinking of this the other day while listening to a terrible Reformed podcast dealing with finances. It was appalling to hear these men speak and know they're proferring Dave Ramsey-type financial thinking in Africa and elsewhere. At one point there was talk of stewardship and how we have these things given to us by God and therefore we must use them wisely. I found it striking because these are all well-to-do middle (if not upper-middle) class people that have made a lot of money by means of what I would consider to be exploitation of others - at the minimum by means of the markets and such like. Or in other cases through sales which is often manipulative and deceptive in the way profit is earned by mark-up. There's a reason many Christians have (over the centuries) viewed such enterprises as un-Christian and less than honest ways of earning a living. Instead of looking out for the interests of others (even while feigning to do so) they are instead seeking to manipulate the subject's thinking so that they will 'want' to buy your product. I know many people in sales would deny this and I also know many who are deceived. And interestingly I know of several people who were once involved in sales (and in one case insurance sales) that left these occupations on the basis of conscience, or upon later reflection have come to convictions that would prohibit them from re-entering that field.

The Reformed podcasters want to steward their wealth but in many cases they are assuming (wrongly) that their wealth is legitimate to begin with. God is not honoured by someone 'stewarding' ill-gotten gain. Such a person is simply caught on a carousel of self-deception akin to a robber trying to 'do the right thing' with the money he's stolen.

Arnold points out something that should be obvious to everyone - there are many vocations that (while necessary) can't be done in an explicitly Christian way. Further, if a pagan do the job just as well (let alone better), then this also tells us there is nothing particularly Christian about it. Now we can conduct ourselves in a Christian manner in terms of work ethic, remuneration, and conversation, but the work itself is not transforming culture, making it more Christian, or exercising righteousness. Things break and need fixing. It's a fallen world and more often than not the problems that emerge are due to some kind of sinful desire or aspiration that has taken place - sometimes even in a previous generation.

And to say the historical record demonstrates that these transformationalist efforts have failed is a massive understatement. As I repeatedly argue, the record demonstrates that those who seek to transform culture end up compromised. They open the doors for the world to enter the Church and in the end, it is the Church that's transformed and not the world. I would point to the post-Constantinian centuries of so-called Christendom as well as the post-war Evangelical movement. They constitute the same kind of worldly-wise and yet fatally compromised (and even apostate) Christianity.

Persecution and second-class status are normative and if the Church isn't experiencing them, it could signal a problem. The New Testament ideal is a pluralistic society - not as end but as a means to an end. For us the end is to glorify Christ with our lives and through the spread of his Kingdom - by the preaching of the gospel and the transformed lives that result. A state that will leave us alone is ideal, but it's a rare thing. Again, I contend that if the American Church (broadly speaking) had been more faithful it would have experienced considerable persecution in the 19th and 20th centuries, and yet there were some who were faithful (in terms of ethics) and did suffer as a result of state policy. Certain Anabaptists suffered for the testimony of the New Testament (even unto death) as have the Watchtower Society, who sadly though completely heretical have a better grasp of New Testament ethics than both the Confessional and Evangelical movements. I'm not sure what that says about these movements but it's troubling to say the least.

The only 'calling' in the New Testament is to be a Christian and in some cases we have to be faithful in the worldly status in which we were called - perhaps even as slaves or soldiers. Faithfulness might result in persecution and even death. There is no assertion of rights, political lobbying, or threat of litigation. We're called to submit in faith - a move the world (and much of the world-compromised Church) sees as foolishness, even lunacy. And so if one is converted as soldier and then called upon to kill - he must refuse and be willing to pay the price, to the glory of God.

Wisdom is required in navigating this world and figuring out how we can live in the world but not be of it and how we can support a family and yet do so faithfully. There are challenges to be found from every angle. However, there are clearly many occupations and paths that are not prudent. Those who pursue them have deliberately chosen to close their eyes and compartmentalize their lives and ethics - even while in many cases they claim to do otherwise!

Live a Christian life and your testimony will affect others. If people are actually Christians and living like Christians then this will in turn shape how they think, what they buy, consume, what they watch, etc.

If a society is being transformed by the Spirit (as opposed to judicial letter) then you don't need laws as people will behave as they ought. You won't need to 'cancel' a book, show, or website because the market dynamics (that are so revered) will take over and the demand will go away.

That's not going to happen very often.

Again, if a state decides to clamp down on immorality, that's fine. But I don't want the sword wielded in the name of Christ. Let Babel concern itself with its own affairs. Augustus famously tried to reform the morals of the Roman Empire through legislation. Some of it parallels what Christians are trying to do today. It failed, but the effort can be appreciated on one level. When Theodosius and others did so centuries later it was obscene as the Church (conflated with the state) took up the sword and crushed unbelief - cancelling out the testimony of the gospel of grace, mercy, and forgiveness.

I wouldn't mind if the state turned against sodomy. I'd like to be able to walk down city streets and not smell marijuana. Obviously the drug war was a disaster but now the pendulum has swung too far the other way.

The Christian position is simple - we don't smoke pot. Christians don't engage in fornication of any variety. Our reasons are Kingdom reasons. The state is not the Kingdom nor ever can be. It's Caesar's coin and always will be.

Live faithfully and there will always be plenty to do and plenty of opposition. Transformationalism is a myth and a destructive one because it always leads to the Church selling out or cutting a Faustian bargain. We've seen it over and over again. Even at this very moment it's playing out before our eyes.