KEITH GRABER MILLER. Living Faith: Embracing God’s Callings. Telford, PA: Cascadia, 2012. Pp. 126. $12.95 (U.S.)
The notions of calling and vocation are grounded in centuries-old tradition but are also dynamic and contextual. Some may suggest that this leads only to confusion, but various theological interpretations actually add nuance and richness to the vocational conversation. In Living Faith: Embracing God’s Callings, Keith Graber Miller fleshes out a particular understanding of vocation and calling in an “Anabaptist key” (p. 14). His resounding point that the “primary calling of all Christians is simply to be followers of Jesus Christ” is a crucial voice in the calling dialogue (p. 15, italics original).
Following an engaging forward by Valerie Weaver-Zercher, the text includes an introduction, nine chapters, and epilogue by the author. Graber Miller describes the text’s ideal audience as an intergenerational gathering in which the “discernment tasks of young adults” blend with the “reflective tasks of older mentors” (p. 14). Several questions at the conclusion of each chapter make the text ideal for use in small group settings but also quite suitable for personal reflection.
The first four chapters focus on how calling and vocation have been understood in the Christian tradition, providing a rich and generative backdrop as to why examining vocation in the Anabaptist tradition is a unique and meaningful endeavor. Chapter one highlights historical factors that contextualize Anabaptist perspectives on vocation, specifically prohibitions against participating in some crafts and professions, concerns with fusing “God’s will and calling with existing political systems and economic structures” (p. 25), and discomfort regarding officially designated church leaders. Chapter two considers various calling experiences and ideas in the biblical text. Chapter three examines calling in the context of the Protestant Reformation, emphasizing the reformers’ contribution that what ultimately imbues vocational significance is “seeing one’s work in a larger context” (p. 38). Chapter four draws on sixteenth-century documents in a manner that leaves room for authentic shifts in Anabaptist considerations of vocation but nonetheless emphasizes the principle of discipleship as fundamental. Collectively, these chapters raise particular sensibilities that infuse vocation from an Anabaptist perspective, notably the call to a “different way of being in the world” (p. 43) and its resultant concern with particular occupations that involve coercive force or violence as well as reticence to accept the societal status quo.
Chapters five through seven wrestle with Anabaptist notions of work within and beyond the church. Chapters five and six outline sociological shifts in professional practices and the impact of professionalism on Anabaptist-Mennonite identity, highlighting a fascinating shift in emphasis from “wealth redistribution” historically to contemporary emphases on “wealth creation” (p. 53). Chapter seven addresses ministry in the church, and draws out the theological tensions between calling and humility in Anabaptism. Graber Miller posits that the vocational ideal is an “integrated life” in which one’s call is lived out within the whole of one’s daily responsibilities, as opposed to segments of one’s life (p. 67). Graber Miller’s argument that vocation is best clarified at the intersection of both an “outer call” from the “body of believers” and an “inner call” through “one’s own prayer, reflection, recognition of gift, and commitments” (p. 72) is an important counterpoint to the broader conversation surrounding vocation which has succumbed to individualism in our culture.
The final two chapters frame a contemporary Christian theology of vocation from an Anabaptist perspective. Chapter eight offers three points of historical continuity. First, Graber Miller suggests that calling should be understood as “primarily and fundamentally as being a follower of Christ” (p. 78). Second, he affirms calling as that which “honors and blesses the ways followers of Jesus live out their faith in their occupational, professional, and worldly roles” (p. 78). Finally, he notes that a “commitment to being Jesus’ disciples ought to shape and transform occupational, business, and professional roles” (p. 79). Chapter nine offers three guiding principles for embracing vocation. Specifically, Graber Miller affirms that vocation should “honor the place of called-out leaders in the church” (p. 83); recognizes that “God’s callings may not always line up with our initial hopes, expectations, or particular occupational preparation” (p. 85); and concludes that the “primary content of our vocation as disciples of Jesus Christ is to work at bringing healing and reconciliation in God’s good and groaning world” (p. 87). The framing of these broad points of continuity from history to present is valuable, but unfortunately none of these principles explicitly identify commitments to peacemaking and nonviolence as central to calling in the Anabaptist tradition.
Overall, Living Faith is well researched and carefully draws out important contributions and critiques of Mennonite historians. As such, it is an important text for the Anabaptist scholar’s reading list as well as a generative addition to the burgeoning scholarship on vocation. Like others, Graber Miller distinguishes between “general calling,” the idea that all Christians are called “to become God’s people or disciples of Christ” (p. 32), from “particular calling,” the notion that individuals are “called by God to specific tasks, roles, offices, or responsibilities within the church and broader society” (p. 33). However, Graber Miller clearly names general calling as primary. For the Anabaptist, vocation is the pursuit of an “upside-down kingdom” (p. 43), and seeing one’s work within the context of furthering the reign of God is key.
One critique is that occupation/profession is overly dominant for a text whose fundamental argument is that following Jesus is central to vocation. Graber Miller proclaims clearly that following Jesus is a commitment to “Christ’s radical vision of social transformation” (p. 87), but his illustrations and analyses of vocation emphasize theological perspectives on paid, professional work. The personal and social transformation implications play a secondary theme at best. More illustrations of vocation that include but transcend occupation would have more fully fleshed out a composition of vocation in an Anabaptist key.
Graber Miller concludes that faithful vocation involves commitment to a life-transforming faith just as the early Christians recognized the import of the “decision of faith, the way in which being a disciple of a crucified Christ would shape the entirety of their lives” (p. 33). Beyond the rich contribution of this central argument, this text identifies several capacious notions that genuinely enrich the broader contemporary vocational conversation. In particular, in considering our call we should take note of the centrality of living an integrated life that reflects the call to follow Jesus and also be attentive to the intersection of personal and communal as a faithful context for vocational discernment. In the end, Living Faith is a lovely composition that attunes the ear to vocation in an Anabaptist perspective.