Following Jerry Sittser, continuing from a previous post from * The Problem with Careers:
I have witnessed this tragedy first hand in college teaching. A bright student wants to become a college professor and scholar as a way to reach generation Z, “the lost generation.” But graduate school has a deleterious effect on him, and what graduate school starts, his first teaching appointment post finishes. His scholarly interests become increasingly obscure, his writing abstruse and inaccessible. He cares less and less about the ordinary, tedious work of classroom teaching and more and more about research. He spends as little time as possible with students, who he sees as a distraction. Instead, he attends as many scholarly conferences as he can, where he prances around like a rooster trying to impress and intimidate. His idealism and vision gradually disappear. He has forsaken the calling that once motivated him, and he does not replace that calling with another that reflects his Christian convictions.
Third, some callings never translate into formal careers. Our modern obsession with careers, especially with the power, status and income they provide, has marginalized people who have chosen not to pursue one. Some homemaker fathers and mothers see their parental role as central to their sense of calling and have been deprived of cultural validation because they have no formal careers. Many people, especially retirees, have cut themselves loose from a career in order to devote more time and energy to volunteer service, but they are put on the shelf by a culture that evaluates the worth of people according to a career, not according to their devotion to service. Little do we realize what would happen to our society—what in fact is happening to our society—without the contributions to the common good that homemakers, retirees, and volunteers make.
I’m not suggesting that living in the suburbs, handling divorce cases, or becoming scholars is wrong. But what should concern us is the subtle and insidious ways that a career can undermine our commitment to serve God. Most careers have enormous infrastructures—graduate schools, professional guilds, bureaucratic institutions (like unions), methods of evaluation, standards of success—that impose values not always compatible with Christian convictions. Careers far too often emphasize competition over cooperation, wealth over generosity, power over service, and ideology over truth. They can become self-serving. Having a career, therefore, runs the risk of subverting our commitment to God. ~ Jerry Sittser, the Will of God as a Way of Life (Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2000,2004) p.163-65
