One Calling, Two Kingdoms

 By Kurt M. Wagner - Posted at American Reformer:

Published July 19, 2023

How to Win Over Baptists and Save the Country

I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call—one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift.” -Ephesians 4:1-7 (ESV)

“…called to be saints…” -Romans 1:7, I Corinthians 1:2

Introduction

Much of the recent confusion and noise around the debate over Christian involvement in politics and culture within evangelical Protestant circles stems from a disregard or a forgetting of the traditional teaching of Christian calling, or vocation. Remembering this principle would serve as a skeleton key for opening our discernment to what often appear as complex, interwoven, and conflated categories. More importantly, a renewed interest and understanding of vocation would infuse a much-needed dose of charity and humility into the conversation, helping those with different callings, debating in good faith, to recognize and affirm the callings of others, peaceably encouraging everyone to stay faithful, productive, and even zealous “in their lane”.

Every Christian is called to be a saint and is called to membership in a local church and is to be equipped there in order to build up the Body of Christ. However, most Christians aren’t called to full-time, vocational ministry, such as being a pastor, evangelist, or missionary. Most Christians are called to live ordinary lives, faithfully using the gifts and opportunities God has given them to do good. Pastors ought to equip them to do this in whatever the various callings and contexts demand of them rather than dismissing their valid temporal concerns in the realm of politics and culture.

Though vocation has remained an important point of Catholic social teaching from the Middle Ages on (though having been mixed with much error), modern day Protestants—and especially Baptists—seem to have lost the appreciation and practical application of this historic, formerly mainstream heuristic. The category of “calling” has helped previous generations of believers throughout the centuries navigate a faithful Christian life in their times.

That pillar of Reformation doctrine, the priesthood of all believers, was a much-needed corrective to the wide and unbiblical gulf between clergy and laity which eventually grew monstrous leading up to the 16th century, largely having been influenced by ancient monastic culture with its false ideals. Much has been written about this elsewhere, but I would just note that in our modern Protestant era the pendulum seems to have swung to the other extreme, and without the help of a robust appreciation of biblical calling many evangelicals are unable to clearly see, think about, or articulate what the teaching of vocation would otherwise enable them to.

Continue here.