Creaturely Labor and the Problem of Christian Vocation

In his classic The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1904-1905), Max Weber suggests that Martin Luther’s expansion of the idea of vocation is an important early catalyst for what eventually becomes the “spirit of capitalism” that Weber saw exploding around him. Martin Luther’s expanded the idea of call to encompass all of life’s activities, not just for those who had dedicated their lives to religious orders, but for the everyday Christian as well. The daily tasks of every Christian should be offered as acts of service to God. Eventually, Weber argues, embodying a Calvinist, ascetic lifestyle, good Protestants engage in a life of restless work, tireless cogs in the capitalist system, living out their “vocation.”

The concept of Christian vocation has long centered around work. Today, mainline Protestant denominations in the United States particularly engage in an expansive employment of vocational language, emphasizing a God-given “calling” as an integral factor in discipleship for clergy, potential-clergy, and lay persons alike. Most often, vocational rhetoric is equated with discerning a career pathway, or engaging in other short or long term service labor projects. Mainline denominations are reinforcing the idea that vocation, a God-given life purpose, is equivalent or nearly equivalent with the work a person does. How does such a narrow focus of vocation limit humans and contribute to the oppression of nonhuman animals? 

This narrow concept of vocation conflating “call” and “career” is problematic for both humans and all creatures. I examine how problematic interpretations of vocation are oppressive for humans and nonhuman animals. If nonhuman animals are laborers, then the theo-ethical systems that protect human workers should also include nonhuman animal workers. However, simple support for nonhuman laborers is insufficient as a just theo-ethic. I explore attitudes towards labor in Christianity, and how a persistent rhetoric of “call as career” denigrates the concept of vocation for all creatures. I also explore how intersecting concepts of animality, class, ability, and race coalesce to maintain the forced labor of creaturekind. I argue for the delinking of labor and vocation, and a repudiation of the idea that the purpose of existence is work, calling out Christianity’s complicity in the oppression of human and nonhuman workers. I argue that vocation, understood as a call to flourishing, kinship, and relationship between Creator and creation and between creature and creature, is the true purpose of being.

If vocation is equivalent to work for humans, then it is no great leap to see that the church also endorses an understanding of the vocation of nonhuman animals as labor-based as well. If God’s call is to engage in godly work - whether paid or volunteers, then nonhuman animals are certainly not exempt from needing to contribute their labor to be deemed worthy. And indeed, they do contribute: nonhuman animals labor and support human animals countlessly, in agriculture, food and clothing industries, entertainment, scientific fields, law enforcement, and more. Their labor is often uncontested and unacknowledged. Capitalism and industrial agriculture profit from speciesism while oppressing all creature-kind – nonhuman and human animals alike. Unfortunately, the church has too often reinforced rather than problematized rhetoric around work, particularly when it comes to nonhuman animals. Creatures are robbed of their God-given call - vocation - to co-create and flourish. The contributions of nonhuman animals encompass more than what their physical bodies are capable of producing or the amount of capital they are able to generate. In contrast to the normative in our churches and society, I advocate for understanding labor to be just one possible aspect of vocation, one part of what one might do in order to maintain the flourishing of life.

As long as Christianity understands vocation as limited to and conflated with labor and one’s ability to produce, so that the only acceptable expressions of vocation are useful “careers” that earn “a living,” focusing on success and accumulation of wealth in a capitalist system that values conformity to the white hegemonic ideal, liberation for human and nonhuman animals will be impossible. Instead, we propose an understanding of vocation that can include but is not defined by labor. I argue that vocation is better understood as a call to kinship and relationship: the relationship between God and creation and between creature and creature. Drawing on the work of Max Weber, Sarah Ahmed, Donna Haraway, and others, I argue that human “usefulness” and purpose has been limited to valuing humans only as they contribute to capitalist pursuits. Engaging with theologians and ethicists like Aph and Syl Ko, David Clough, and Christopher Carter, I further demonstrate that nonhuman animals have suffered greatly by the same paradigms of “usefulness,” valued only where their labor can be exploited for profit, and considered expendable, killable, when the cannot contribute to human accumulation of wealth. Instead, I propose a vision for a revised understanding of vocation, one that allows for the flourishing of both humans and nonhuman animals, valuing our shared creaturely roles as co-laborers for justice and and a sustainable world.  

Note: This proposal was previously submitted as a joint paper in 2023, but had to be withdrawn due to changing circumstances for some of the contributors. With permission of the previous co-authors, the proposal has been revised and resubmitted as a solo paper.