Lee Hardy. The Fabric of this World: Inquiries into Calling, Career Choice, and the Design of Human Work. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001. 213 pages, $15.00

This foundational work on the subject of calling and career choice by Lee Hardy, professor of philosophy at Calvin College, was originally published in 1990 and has been recently reprinted. Its resurgence is a testimony to the renewed focus upon vocation that is occurring not only on the campuses of faith-based colleges and in church pews, but also within the halls of learning in secular universities across the country and in the hearts and minds of many individuals who are in the midst of re-evaluating their life-work choices. In light of this increased interest in finding purpose and meaning in life, Hardy’s book presents an opportunity to ponder the historical, philosophical, and theological underpinnings of the notion of calling and to examine the practical applications he proposes in both the arena of career choice and the social structures of work.

Hardy explicitly sets forth the purpose of his work: “My primary intent is to flesh out the concepts of vocation, to delineate its historical background, to work out its place in the array of possible attitudes toward the meaning of work in human life, to illuminate its full religious content, and to explore its practical applications, both person and social” (xv). In addressing his stated purpose, Hardy presents his ideas under two principle headings: exposition and application. Within the first part, he begins with a philosophical and historical overview of Western thought on the subject of work. He finds that human attitudes toward work have been either negative or positive depending upon the thinker’s understandings of man as they follow from his understanding of God.

Hardy’s abbreviated survey traces the concept from Aristotle’s view of work as a “curse and nothing else” (7) to the Medieval characterization of work that merely meets temporal bodily needs as being of “no lasting religious significance” (17). Through a reversal brought on by the Renaissance’s notion of God as a cosmic craftsman, man’s productive activity was seen in light of man as no longer a mere thinker, but now an artist “who both contemplates the idea of beauty and shapes the world accordingly” (27-28). Hardy extends his primer on Western thought into the Modern era with an assessment of Marx’s idealistic notion of self-realization through work in contrast with Freud’s realistic view of work as a form of self-denial.

From these many low views of human work, Hardy turns his attention to a high theological apprehension of work that was inaugurated, he argues, by the leading lights of the Protestant Reformation—Luther and Calvin. He asserts that the Protestant tradition has attempted to incorporate both the negative and positive experiences of work in a larger concept—the concept of work as vocation. A deeper understanding of vocation arose from its theological location within Luther’s description of the kingdom of this earth where man’s relationship to his neighbor is based upon love. “Vocation is the specific call to love one’s neighbor which comes to us through the duties which attach to our social place or ‘station’ with the earthly kingdom” (46) and according to Luther, “our stations include all the typical ways in which we are related to other people,” for example, husband and wife, parent and child, teacher and student, employer and employee, and governor and citizen. This conception of vocation countered the earlier monastic idea that viewed the contemplative life of the monk as the call to the religious life. Instead, Hardy points out, Luther maintained that when we faithfully discharge the duties of our stations, we will find ourselves suffering for the sake of others, and thus in some small way imitating Christ, who suffered greatly for our sake (53).

Hardy finds in Calvin further support for dismantling the false dichotomy between the contemplative life and the active life. Noting Calvin’s interpretation of the Mary and Martha story in Luke 10, he remarks that Calvin found no basis for the accepted allegorical interpretation that portrayed Mary as the picture of the religious and Martha the mundane; rather, Calvin concluded that Jesus commended Mary for knowing when to sit and listen in his presence in contrast to Martha’s apparent constant pre-occupation with work. There is a time to work and a time to listen. While aptly accounting for Calvin’s advancement of a more biblical understanding of vocation, Hardy does not move beyond his stated descriptive purpose to pose what might here be a mild critique of the Protestant reaction to monasticism. Was Martha rebuked for merely working when Mary listened, or was her fault more in focusing upon a comparison with her sister rather than doing her work with only her Lord in view?

Hardy concludes Part I of his book with a further refinement of the Calvinistic approach to vocation. Extending from Luther’s concept of calling “discerned in the duties of our station in life,” Calvinists characterized vocation as deriving from the gifts of talents and abilities that God has given to each person (66). Consequently, calling presses one beyond existing social relationships to the engagement of new relationships and the reform of those corrupted by man’s sinfulness. Finally, Hardy traces the theological foundations for calling into the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as he describes the contemporary Catholic position, citing Pope Leo XII’s Rerum Novarum, at length. He notes that “we are witnessing a remarkable ecumenical convergence in the practical theology of work” in which “both Protestant and Catholic, give to human work a central role in the understanding of human life in its relation both to God and the world” (76).

In the second half of his work, Hardy turns to the practical application of the ideas he has surveyed regarding calling and career. Here his focus is not only upon the individual’s choice of a particular job or profession. Rather, he also devotes considerable attention to the social issue of job design. It is in this latter application that Hardy makes his more significant contribution to the renewed dialogue on vocation. Others have recently written on the popular perspectives on personal calling (e.g. Os Guinness’s The Call and Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven Life), but few have undertaken the deeper analysis of vocation in light of community, and now have done so as thoughtfully as Hardy does here. The question of how best to pursue one’s individual chosen career is examined in light of the social structure of work. Hardy challenges the oft-time readily accepted capitalistic notion of “enlightened self-interest.” While not throwing the baby out with the bath water, he convincingly argues that our work can count as a vocation only if it occurs in the kind of social structures that make it a genuine service to others through the responsible use of our talents and abilities.

Whether the reader is a young person standing on the threshold of an unfolding career, a perplexed victim of crisis in the midst of re-examining past choices at life’s middle-age, or even one concluding a successful career with anticipation of greater opportunities for service in the remaining years, all who attend to Hardy’s words will be challenged with a renewed sense of calling and exhorted to a deeper engagement in community through their work.

Cordell P. Schulten, JD
Associate Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies
Missouri Baptist University

V. James Mannoia, Jr. Christian Liberal Arts: An Education That Goes Beyond. New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000. 240 pages, $74.00

Written from a Wesleyan perspective, Christian Liberal Arts is a convincing defense of Christian higher education in the new millennium. V. James Mannoia, Jr., president of Greenville College in Illinois, discusses the intrinsic and instrumental values of a Christian liberal arts education and offers practical tips for instilling Christian ideals in students. The author argues that Christian liberal arts colleges provide the kind of education that secular institutions of higher learning cannot. Practically, Christian colleges need to clarify their identity to succeed in the competitive educational market today. Pedagogically, Christian instruction should be in line with the mission statement of the institution. Theologically, teaching at Christian liberal arts colleges is not merely an occupation but a “calling—a ministry in the Body of Christ” (4).

The intrinsic value of Christian learning lies in the critical commitment that it promotes in students. Students who are critically committed have “a rare combination of passion and humility toward what they believe” (7). Critical commitment means more than knowing facts, reasoning, or making judgment calls. It is a virtue that involves important attitudes and passions. It goes beyond both dogmatism (unquestioned answers, uncritical indoctrination, intellectual totalitarianism, and legalism) and skepticism (unanswered questions, relativistic secularism, cynical multiplicity, and license). This kind of commitment is produced in an environment where constructive dissonance and diversity are affirmed in the context of community. The Christian community should be willing to take a risk, respecting the liberty of all the participants and promoting ongoing discussion and criticism (87, 89).

According to the author, a Christian liberal arts education has four kinds of instrumental values: it is useful for graduate studies, for employment, for research, and for citizenship (23). More important, it equips students to tackle real-world problems. Tackling real-life problems necessitates (1) a community of people who are deliberately committed to finding common interests and (2) the presence of controversy or constructive dissonance (126, 127).

Part III is the most original section of the book. Here Mannoia discusses specifically how programs and people can promote Christian liberal learning. The author proposes that the formal curriculum be developmental: it must be “informed by the very best we know about student cognitive, moral, and faith development. Faculty should do all we can to take students beyond dualism and beyond multiplicity to become persons of critical commitment” (136). The formal curriculum must include such components as case studies, seminars, practicums, and faculty-student joint research. The informal curriculum must include such elements as living-learning experiences, cross-cultural experiences, residence life, mentoring programs, and chapel/convocation.

Christian scholarship transcends both dabbling and esoteric scholarship. It is imperative for the Christian academy to hire a liberally educated faculty capable of providing students with a liberal education. Christian faculty must be student-oriented, teaching-oriented, and institution-oriented. They must be willing to transcend dogmatism and skepticism and to grow intellectually. Appropriate Christian scholarship should include the presentation of a colloquium to colleagues, the writing of textbooks, the creation of curricular materials, the revision of syllabi, the reviewing of books related to coursework, and eventually the writing of critical studies and articles.

The final paragraph of the book is somewhat bleak about the current state of Christian higher education. After listing a series of key questions, the author answers them on a measured note:

Are there Christian colleges prepared to come of age, to recognize their distinctive genius, to do what others likely cannot do? Are there Christian colleges prepared to be different from both Bible colleges and secular universities, as valuable as these others may be? Are there Christian colleges prepared to go beyond both dualism and multiplicity, beyond both dabbling and overspecialization? Are there Christian colleges prepared to embrace both the intrinsic and the instrumental values of higher education? Are there Christian colleges prepared to focus on educating graduates with the character of critical commitment and the calling to integrate by tackling real-world problems? Are there Christian colleges prepared to be genuine communities of trust, communities of diversity? Are there Christian colleges willing to address Derek Bok’s dilemma—to struggle with the tension of avoiding both indoctrination and relativism? At the present time, I am not convinced there are many (if any) institutions prepared to do this. But there are some with the potential for it. I pray that the Holy Spirit will equip and empower them to the task. (195)

As the author admits, few Christian colleges today are distinctly Christian or capable of tackling real-life problems posed by postmodernism. Indeed, virtually all Christian institutions of higher learning profess to integrate faith and learning, but each institution seems to hold a different view of the integration. How should Christian institutions be faithful to both Christian doctrine and intellectual integrity? How do they maintain balance between what Mannoia calls “community” and “controversy”? How much controversy (e.g. free enquiry) should be allowed for Christian faculty? Does free enquiry mean both enquiring unlimitedly and publishing the results that may contradict the doctrinal stance of the sponsoring denomination? The answers should vary simply because there are different types of Christian institutions of higher learning—the fundamentalist, the evangelical/conservative, the moderate, and the liberal. Unfortunately, due to the wide array of theological perspectives that exist among numerous Christian schools, there seems to be little consensus on what Christian education really means and how it should be carried out.

One of the strengths of Christian Liberal Arts lies in its balanced approach to faith-learning integration. The author stresses Christian humility, character, and charity while not slighting doctrinal fidelity. He rightly contends that, rather than retreating from the mainstream culture into the pious enclave, Christian education should tackle real-life problems with both intellectual acumen and the spirit of Christian charity. Apparently, the author’s idea of community and controversy has been augmented by his personal encounter with the world of diversity. (A physicist and philosopher by training, he has taught philosophy for two years at the University of Zimbabwe as a visiting professor and preached every week as a tent-making missionary.) Christian Liberal Arts is occasionally repetitive and dense. It also lacks textual attributions for some citations although the author adds reference notes at the end of the book. Overall, it is a well-researched work for those who are involved in Christian higher education, especially for those who seek to promote service learning and diversity.

John J. Han, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of English
Missouri Baptist University

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