A few final, simple points on the lawyer's calling:
1. We are called to love the actual neighbors we've been given here and now, not some ideal or imagined neighbor. The parents we've been given, the folks who live next door, the secretary in our office, the clients who have hired us, the siblings God has given us: to these we are called. As we seek to discern the obligations we have to these folks based upon relationship, gifting, and role, we'll begin to understanding our callings. For lawyers and law students, this can be a real epiphany for those seeking God's purpose in various types of practices.
2. It should be obvious then, that calling is more about today's duties than it is about a lifelong career. Of course, God may call some of us to the same roles, the same tasks, and the same sorts of neighbors over a lifetime, but most often, it seems that God directs us now to one task, then to another.
For example, it is possible for me to say that for most of my life, from childhood through most of adulthood, I am called as a son: that is, I am duty-bound to love specific parents in specific ways that entail obligations and benefits that others (besides my siblings) do not have. On the other hand, I may be called as an employee-- again, with specific duties to specific employers concerning specific gifts-- but only for a summer or a season. My calling as fish fryer at a fast-food joint was a mercifully short-lived one, for example, but I was called to those tasks and those neighbors (bosses, customers, co-workers, shareholders) in a real way by God. Rather than looking for "the thing" to which we are called, we should be aware of the duties we have right now and "the good that we ought to do."
"Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins." James 4:17 (NIV).
3. We need mentors and teachers to help us discern our giftings, sort out the nature of the relationships we find ourselves in, and recognize the duties that come with particular roles. Calling comes-- that is, it is discovered and developed-- primarily within community. Our calling is to serve others as stewards of the gifts God has given us, and it is others who help us discern how to serve and how to develop our gifts.
"Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms." 1 Peter 4:10 (ESV).
Apr 23, 2008
Apr 18, 2008
The Lawyer's Vocation -- Part II
Let's review:
Thinking vocationally means viewing the practice of law as a means to love our neighbors in and through the law. The reality is that God is doing the ministry through us. We are God’s instruments-- limited and sinful instruments, of course, but instruments nonetheless—of mercy, reconciliation, retribution, encouragement, vindication, defense, counsel, or freedom, to, through, or for our clients or law partners (or even legal institutions themselves).
3 Further Points to Ponder
1. If we resist this concept, it is often because we have too narrow a view of the Great Commission or the good news itself. In order to think vocationally, we need to ask: What is the Gospel and what areas of human life and creation does it seek to reach?
In other words, part of our task is to discern Christ’s mission and work in the legal arena. Are there gospel implications in vindicating rights of victims? In the state’s reasonable punishment of criminals? In reconciling parties? In assisting families or groups of individuals to create or shape culture or build wealth? In helping parents leave an inheritance for their children?
2. Being a law student or lawyer, then, involves a diligent seeking for biblical-theological understanding of law and law practice in light of the ministry of the Triune God. What is law? What is the state and what is it for? What is the adversary system and may me be involved and where should we resist involvement? What is the end of criminal punishment? Are there impermissible kinds of punishment? Are corporations helpful tools for carrying out the cultural mandate in Genesis or simply means of avoiding moral responsibility?
Questions like these also lead to other questions, and in our seeking we will begin to find resources and allies throughout the historic and contemporary church. Godly men and women have been thinking through these issues by the power of the Holy Spirit for centuries.
3. For lawyers and law students, this sort of inquiry can be challenging, even for those committed to vocational thinking, because of the biases of American legal education. Law school is not a “hostile” place for Christians, but the foundation of contemporary legal education is generally based on false views about the nature of law and the human person, and, because it is contrary to truth, is hostile to a “Christian” view of the world.
Put simply, a sophisticated historical-biblical-theological approach to law is made difficult by the pragmatism and instrumentalist bent of the American legal academy. Law students, novices at this sort of high level thinking, are at a distinct disadvantage in trying to sort out the truth about torts, contracts, criminal law, and procedural rules. In addition, the conflict in first-order assumptions is made even more difficult to identify in law school, since these presuppositions are just that: presupposed without discussion, acknowledgement or debate.
Thinking vocationally means viewing the practice of law as a means to love our neighbors in and through the law. The reality is that God is doing the ministry through us. We are God’s instruments-- limited and sinful instruments, of course, but instruments nonetheless—of mercy, reconciliation, retribution, encouragement, vindication, defense, counsel, or freedom, to, through, or for our clients or law partners (or even legal institutions themselves).
3 Further Points to Ponder
1. If we resist this concept, it is often because we have too narrow a view of the Great Commission or the good news itself. In order to think vocationally, we need to ask: What is the Gospel and what areas of human life and creation does it seek to reach?
In other words, part of our task is to discern Christ’s mission and work in the legal arena. Are there gospel implications in vindicating rights of victims? In the state’s reasonable punishment of criminals? In reconciling parties? In assisting families or groups of individuals to create or shape culture or build wealth? In helping parents leave an inheritance for their children?
2. Being a law student or lawyer, then, involves a diligent seeking for biblical-theological understanding of law and law practice in light of the ministry of the Triune God. What is law? What is the state and what is it for? What is the adversary system and may me be involved and where should we resist involvement? What is the end of criminal punishment? Are there impermissible kinds of punishment? Are corporations helpful tools for carrying out the cultural mandate in Genesis or simply means of avoiding moral responsibility?
Questions like these also lead to other questions, and in our seeking we will begin to find resources and allies throughout the historic and contemporary church. Godly men and women have been thinking through these issues by the power of the Holy Spirit for centuries.
3. For lawyers and law students, this sort of inquiry can be challenging, even for those committed to vocational thinking, because of the biases of American legal education. Law school is not a “hostile” place for Christians, but the foundation of contemporary legal education is generally based on false views about the nature of law and the human person, and, because it is contrary to truth, is hostile to a “Christian” view of the world.
Put simply, a sophisticated historical-biblical-theological approach to law is made difficult by the pragmatism and instrumentalist bent of the American legal academy. Law students, novices at this sort of high level thinking, are at a distinct disadvantage in trying to sort out the truth about torts, contracts, criminal law, and procedural rules. In addition, the conflict in first-order assumptions is made even more difficult to identify in law school, since these presuppositions are just that: presupposed without discussion, acknowledgement or debate.
Apr 14, 2008
The Lawyer's Vocation - Part I
At the excellent Ivy League Congress on Faith and Action last weekend, I participated in a panel on vocation and law. Since I was to speak for fifteen minutes and I needed to hit just the high spots on the topic, I wisely developed a forty-minute talk. Still, it was a useful exercise to boil down the key points of vocation.
I’d like to summarize my basic points on the lawyer’s calling in a three-part post over the next week.
I’d like to summarize my basic points on the lawyer’s calling in a three-part post over the next week.
Four Introductory Points
1. When we speak of vocation, we are really talking about vocations or callings—plural. The concept of vocation assumes a Caller, one that transcends self and choice, one who brings us into ministry with him in every role and sphere of life. In addition to our call to become his and identify with Christ, generally, then, we are also “called” by God to be husband or wife, parent, citizen, church member or pastor, worker, student.
2. Vocation defines the boundaries of the specific neighbors we are called to love and the means by which we may love them. For example, my calling as husband in a specific sphere defines a specific woman I am to love and the ways that I am to love her. My calling also gives me duties with regard to others, sometimes expanding (in my calling as parent, for example). Thinking vocationally can be quite freeing, since I am not torn about the specifics of many of my roles—for example, I need not fret, pray, and fast over which wife I am to love, which children I must discipline, or which country’s laws I must obey. To paraphrase Calvin on this point, one reason that God places us at our "posts" by means of callings is so we are not "tossed hither and thither," attempting to do "all good things at once."
As Gene Edward Veith summarizes:
“God has chosen to work through human beings, who, in their different capacities and according to their different talents, serve each other. This is the doctrine of vocation.”
Gene Eward Veith, God At Work 14 (Crossway 2002).
3. This view of vocation, then, rejects a hierarchy or spectrum of “more-Christian” to “less-Christian” callings. While the medieval church taught that those in church ministry were called by God to his service and others were not so called, The Reformers took a sharply distinct view. (This is not intended as a knock on Catholicism, btw. In my view, current Roman Catholic teaching and scholarship on vocation is more sound than much Evangelical teaching and scholarship.)
4. Some common theories or justification for ordinary work that fall short of robust vocational thinking:
1. When we speak of vocation, we are really talking about vocations or callings—plural. The concept of vocation assumes a Caller, one that transcends self and choice, one who brings us into ministry with him in every role and sphere of life. In addition to our call to become his and identify with Christ, generally, then, we are also “called” by God to be husband or wife, parent, citizen, church member or pastor, worker, student.
2. Vocation defines the boundaries of the specific neighbors we are called to love and the means by which we may love them. For example, my calling as husband in a specific sphere defines a specific woman I am to love and the ways that I am to love her. My calling also gives me duties with regard to others, sometimes expanding (in my calling as parent, for example). Thinking vocationally can be quite freeing, since I am not torn about the specifics of many of my roles—for example, I need not fret, pray, and fast over which wife I am to love, which children I must discipline, or which country’s laws I must obey. To paraphrase Calvin on this point, one reason that God places us at our "posts" by means of callings is so we are not "tossed hither and thither," attempting to do "all good things at once."
As Gene Edward Veith summarizes:
“God has chosen to work through human beings, who, in their different capacities and according to their different talents, serve each other. This is the doctrine of vocation.”
Gene Eward Veith, God At Work 14 (Crossway 2002).
3. This view of vocation, then, rejects a hierarchy or spectrum of “more-Christian” to “less-Christian” callings. While the medieval church taught that those in church ministry were called by God to his service and others were not so called, The Reformers took a sharply distinct view. (This is not intended as a knock on Catholicism, btw. In my view, current Roman Catholic teaching and scholarship on vocation is more sound than much Evangelical teaching and scholarship.)
4. Some common theories or justification for ordinary work that fall short of robust vocational thinking:
- Finance theory: I want to practice law to make a lot of money. That’s my primary goal for my daily work, in order that I may support my church and missionary workers.
- Platform theory: I want to be a lawyer because lawyers are important and I will therefore have a platform to tell people about Jesus.
- Graffiti Theory: I want to make my mark on the world as a lawyer!
On these views, see Redeeming Law, pp. 63-66.
Apr 11, 2008
Apr 10, 2008
On Calling
Best (or my favorite) Books on Christian Vocation
Gene Edward Veith, Jr., God at Work (Crossway 2002).
Gordon T. Smith, Courage and Calling: Embracing Your God-Given Potential (InterVarsity 1999)
Douglas J. Schuurman, Vocation: Discerning Our Callings in Life (Eerdmans 2004).
R. Paul Stevens, The Other Six Days: Vocation, Work, and Ministry in Biblical Perspective (Eerdmans 2000)
Joseph Allegretti, The Lawyer's Calling: Christian Faith and Legal Practice (Paulist Press 1996)
William C. Placher, Callings: Twenty Centuries Of Christian Wisdom On Vocation (Eerdmans 2005)
Lee Hardy, The Fabric of This World: Inquiries into Calling, Career Choice, and the Design of Human Work (Eerdmans 1990)
The Best Movie on Christian Vocation
The Incredibles (Pixar 2004)
My Favorite Novel About a Called Man
George Bernanos, Diary of a Country Priest
More, perhaps some short reviews, to come.
Gene Edward Veith, Jr., God at Work (Crossway 2002).
Gordon T. Smith, Courage and Calling: Embracing Your God-Given Potential (InterVarsity 1999)
Douglas J. Schuurman, Vocation: Discerning Our Callings in Life (Eerdmans 2004).
R. Paul Stevens, The Other Six Days: Vocation, Work, and Ministry in Biblical Perspective (Eerdmans 2000)
Joseph Allegretti, The Lawyer's Calling: Christian Faith and Legal Practice (Paulist Press 1996)
William C. Placher, Callings: Twenty Centuries Of Christian Wisdom On Vocation (Eerdmans 2005)
Lee Hardy, The Fabric of This World: Inquiries into Calling, Career Choice, and the Design of Human Work (Eerdmans 1990)
The Best Movie on Christian Vocation
The Incredibles (Pixar 2004)
My Favorite Novel About a Called Man
George Bernanos, Diary of a Country Priest
More, perhaps some short reviews, to come.
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