Listen! God is Calling! Luther Speaks of Vocation, Faith, and Work

Listen! God is Calling! Luther Speaks of Vocation, Faith, And Work. By D. Michael Bennethum. Lutheran Voices. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2003. 95 pages. Paper. $9.99.

Vocation is on the minds of many pastors and other leaders in the church. Until now there hasn't been an introduction to the topic aimed at the general audience. Thanks to Pastor Bennethum, such an introduction is now available.

In the first chapter, "The Sunday-Monday Split," Bennethum notes that "all too many Christians think of the church as the people in the building or at least as people who are doing church-related things" (p. 14). That is, church and faith have to do with our activity on Sunday, but not the other days of the week. In the second chapter, "How the Split Came to Be," Bennethum names reasons for this split.

It is in chapters 3 and 4 that the value of this book shines forth. There Bennethum explicates Luther's understanding of vocation: "Martin Luther's bold claim was that all the tasks of one's life, any Christian's life, no matter how menial or mundane the tasks performed, provide an opportunity to express one's faith. For Luther, vocation was not a call to abandon the nittygritty of the world for a more pious and more prestigious status. Rather it was a calling to and within the place where one carried out one's everyday labors" (p. 45). Bennethum, following Luther, emphasizes repeatedly that we are not justified and loved for our activity in the "sacred" or "religious" realm. We are justified and loved rather on account of God's saving activity in Jesus Christ. The upshot of this is that no occupation is outside the pale of God's redemptive activity, and no occupation has a special place in God's heart.

The final two chapters offer strategies for lifting up Luther's teaching on vocation and examples of what such a congruence between doctrine and practice looks like. All in all, this is a wonderfully practical and timely book that ought to be read for its presentation of Luther's teaching on vocation as well its theological application to the present age and its practical pastoral strategies for implementing Luther's teaching.

David C. Ratke

Lenoir-Rhyne College

Hickory, North Carolina

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