The Doctrine of Calling

[By Douglas Groothuis, adapted from Truth Decay: Defending Christianity Against the Challenges of Postmodernism (InterVarsity Press, 2000).]


One potent dynamo of postmodernist instability—intellectually, morally and spiritually—is the rootlessness and restlessness of many postmoderns concerning the meaning of their identities. The self becomes saturated, sated with possibilities, options, and preferences—yet without an inner gyroscope for direction, correction, and inspiration. When all values are constructed, no hierarchy of objective values is possible, no guiding ideal is available, and no taboos intrude; there are only experiments, amusements, and diversions. The postmodern self is protean and dynamic, but also fragmented and ultimately empty of objective meaning. The self was made for better things.

In this toxic cultural environment, the Christian needs to know who she is and who she serves. She should be crystal clear on what she is summoned to know, who she is summoned to be, and what she is summoned to do before the face of God. As postmodernists vainly pose and preen for effect, experience and power, Christians can and must lodge their identities firmly in the transcendent reality of the triune God.

As their primary calling, all Christians are enjoined to love God with all of their beings (Mt 22:37-39), to exemplify virtue in the Holy Spirit (Mt 5:1-12; Gal 5:22-26), and to obey God’s commands (Ex 20:1-17). But followers of Christ are also called to find their unique life purpose, in order to use their particular gifts and abilities to their utmost for God’s glory.

The doctrine of calling has fallen on hard times in the postmodern world. People speak of their “religious preferences” and “spiritual lifestyles” instead of their God-ordained duties, responsibilities, and privileges. I cannot adequately broach this weighty subject, but I will offer a few ideas that might assist us to better represent “the fixed point” of truth today. On this matter, Os Guinness’s excellent work, The Call, is pivotal.

First, Christian calling brooks no separation between the secular and the sacred. All of life is to be lived under the comprehensive Lordship of Christ (Matthew 28:18). One does not don a spiritual self for religious activities and another self for entertainment or one’s profession. All of our actions should be unified in obedience to God and for God’s glory (1 Cor 10:31; Col 3:17). Similarly, neither are church-related work nor missions is more spiritual than other professions such as law, business, education, journalism, or politics. The Kingdom of God bears on every dimension of life, and agents of that Kingdom serve as salt and light wherever the Spirit leads them. As Christians incarnate their world view in public life they help reverse truth decay in myriad ways. In the midst of the fragmentation of postmodern pluralism, the Christian sees all things as unified in God’s over-arching plan for the universe, summed up in the supremacy of Christ. All has meaning in reference to that fixed—and living—point (Col 1:15-20; Heb 13:6).

Second, the discovery of one’s particular calling involves aligning at least three key elements. One should focus one’s life on: (1) what one is good at doing, (2) what needs to be done for the common good, and (3) what gives one deep satisfaction and meaning.

1. Christians have natural and spiritual gifts that ought to be identified and utilized to the utmost. In a fallen world, we cannot always employ our talents to the fullest, but we should strive to find our areas of excellence and develop them for God. We identify the truth about our gifts best through the dynamics of personal Bible study, prayer, Christian friendship, and in the matrix of the church community. In this way, we model what biblical community should be, a community where we “speak the truth in love” (Eph 4:15) to one another, to stimulate each other to love and good deeds (Heb 10:24). It should be noted that this is not the postmodernist sense of community or lifestyle, which is self-contained and horizontal, without a stable, vertical reference outside of itself.

2. However, our gifts need to be coordinated with those that stand to benefit from them. Professor Howard Hendricks reportedly once said that if you think you have the gift of teaching, you had better be able to find a good number of people who have the gift of listening to you! What does the church and world lack that we can uniquely provide? We are gifted to serve, not to glorify our gifts or to duplicate what others have already done well in their place of service. Just as Paul’s ambition was to preach the gospel where Christ was not known, so that he would not be building on someone else’s foundation (Rom 15:20), so should we employ our gifts where they are truly needed.

3. Lastly, if we are employing our real gifts for worthy purposes, this should give us a rich sense of joy and even adventure in knowing that we are moving in God’s will for our lives (Rom 12:1-2). “The joy of the Lord is your strength” (Neh 8:10). This is not a superficial titillation or (heaven forbid) a postmodern diversion, but a purpose and practice that orients one’s fundamental identity toward specific ends. As Frederick Buechner wonderfully phrases it, “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” The soul should celebrate its contribution to others’ well-being.

As followers of Jesus refuse the false seductions of style, hype, and spiritual consumerism, they regain and retain a resonating sense of what it means to hear and heed the call of God, come what may. While postmodernists madly “reinvent” themselves (to no ultimate end) ever more rapidly, radically, and frantically, the Christian can rest in his or her identity in Jesus Christ, his Kingdom, and his calling. As we “seek first the Kingdom and its righteousness” (Mt 6:33), our lives are brought into greater harmony with God’s truth and, therefore, into greater disharmony with all untruth, postmodernist or otherwise. In so doing, we serve as signs, clues, and rumors of God’s objective reality in a world moving toward depravity in nearly every direction.