Vocational Identity After Vocation Essay

Vocational Identity After the Reformation The idea of vocation has grown throughout Christian and world history in order to feed society’s constantly growing desire to find every person a calling or career. The evolution of this term is the result of a steady shift in balance from deciding vocation based on a divine call or impulse to choosing a job based on secular interests. Distinct eras during the past two millenniums have created religious and secular values for citizens that largely determined their vocation. The era that arguably saw the biggest change in vocational identity was following the Reformation. From around 1500-1800 the notion of a vocation drastically changed from the Middle Ages belief that Christians were meant to serve in the priesthood or for some type of a monastic order. After the Reformation Europeans began to subscribe to the idea that every job could be seen as a vocation. The idea that everyone had a vocation that was more than being part of a priesthood, monastery, or covenant was far different than the preceding era. As the world became more sophisticated and complex a variety of occupations became available to many people. People could be adventurous by finding jobs in
In “Trade and Usury”, Luther explained how to pursue a calling in business without allowing the temptations of money to cloud a person’s judgment. Luther advocated for a system of selling items that fairly rewarded the seller while at the same time being fair to the consumer. Selling at a cost that fairly factored in time and labor put in by the worker was a Christian way of being a business person, while selling at a price based on competition with others was wrong. The reading emphasizes Luther’s main idea that all occupations have the potential to serve in the way God