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Vocation
Author(s) -
Scholes Jeffrey
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
religion compass
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.113
H-Index - 1
ISSN - 1749-8171
DOI - 10.1111/j.1749-8171.2010.00215.x
Subject(s) - credence , protestant work ethic , protestantism , meaning (existential) , work (physics) , power (physics) , psychology , work ethic , epistemology , sociology , social psychology , religious studies , philosophy , law , political science , politics , mechanical engineering , statistics , physics , mathematics , quantum mechanics , capitalism , engineering
Since Martin Luther, the Protestant concept of vocation has been tied to daily work. Yet, Max Weber famously proclaimed that while vocations used to endow work with divine import, this is no longer the case; the work ethic is actually driven by secular motives. However, if popular self‐help literature is any indication, the need for work to tap transcendent meaning has not abated. ‘Vocation language’ still acts as the primary means for communicating this need. What, then, is the state of vocation in its relationship to work today? In this essay, I present a selective survey of history of the Protestant concept of vocation as it relates to the work world. Such a survey does lend credence to Weber’s straightforward contention that religion no longer animates work in the West. Yet at the same time, the history of the Protestant vocation helps explain its staying power in spite of radical changes in the meaning and nature of work.