Take Up Your Dream, and Follow Me: The Cuddly World of Christian Career Advice

Written by Thomas Kelly

If you have a certain type of pastor, you’ve probably heard that repentance, “metanoia”, literally means changing your mind, or changing your route. And depending on your denomination, you might get a pre-baptism warning that conversion might involve abandoning certain past times, pleasures, or sleeping in on Sundays. But you probably weren’t told that following Christ meant a career change. 

Because that would be crazy.

Tim Keller, a famous Presbyterian pastor, wrote an entire book, Every Good Endeavor, on how Christians should approach work. Here’s how I’d summarize it: 

Keller (correctly) thinks work is good and thinks that all work should be honored. He throws in some touching stories of people demonstrating great moral virtue in their worklife. He is very insistent that we should avoid treating some types of work as better than others- “[w]ork of all kinds, whether with the hands or the mind, evidences our dignity as human beings—because it reflects the image of God.” He thinks this is one of the distinguishing marks of Christian culture - pagan Greeks despised manual labor, Christians honor all work. 

Does Any Career Honor God?

The reasonable version of this is that people of all vocations can and should be Christians, and class and career doesn’t determine closeness to God. 

But the unfortunately popular version of this implication is that each individual can pursue whatever career they want to. Here’s an article on “Why ‘Follow Your Passion’ Is Bad Career Advice for Christians (and Anyone Else)”.

Keller is hardly an outlier. The popular Bible Q&A site, GotQuestions, answers “what sort of careers can a christian consider” by rejecting the idea that Christians should feel limited to ecclesiastical or “helping careers” and making it clear you can pretty much do whatever.

“Christians may consider any career in which they can honor God and use the uniqueness with which God created them. Of course, there are certain careers that are inherently dishonoring to God—most of them not strictly legal, such as prostitution or pornography. But any career that does not require sin in its performance is laudable Christian work and can be done to the glory of God”

The career center at America’s flagship Catholic university, Notre Dame, seems to agree, they aim to “prepare students for lifelong career readiness by guiding them to discern, pursue, and achieve career goals that align with their values, interests, and skills” (emphasis added).

Wheaton College’s Center for Vocation and Career presents a pyramid diagram for career discernment and suggests that faith should be the basis of this choice, and explains that “there is a theological base that infuses and undergirds everything we endeavor to accomplish. Life looks different for us as Christians—as it should!“ But the rest of the site quickly moves on discussing how students can find what works for them, suggesting students intern so they can figure out “what you will actually enjoy doing, rather than what you think you will enjoy doing” and urging them to think about their interests. 

Some Careers Are More Impactful Than Others

On one hand, part of this perspective is right and Keller’s book is good - most people would probably be happier and holier if they took it to heart. It doesn’t seem likely that on Judgment Day, God is going to scroll through LinkedIn or compare your occupation to some Bureau of Labor Statistics codebook.  And it feels very wise and good to say “bloom where you’re planted” or a bit more Christian-y, “serve where God placed you.” 

But of course, modern people in the developed world have huge discretion over what to do for a career. The correct claim that you should try to honor God anywhere and everywhere, and fulfill your duties to your neighbor anywhere and everywhere, shouldn’t be used to obscure the reality that your choice of career can be extremely consequential and should not be made on the basis of personal passion and enjoyment.

It's obviously true that some careers are more impactful than others - even when they’re very serious on paper. If someone takes evangelism seriously, where should they plant a church - a city with 90% church attendance or a church with a 0% baptism rate? Should you be an advertising account director for an online casino or a journalist? Should you focus on the world's greatest problems or the world's most trivial inconveniences?

Factors in Career Decision-Making

Keller is right that Christians with prestigious jobs shouldn’t look down or consider themselves holier than those with low-status jobs, but a promising cancer researcher who quit their job to live a personally fulfilling life as a beachside yoga teacher has probably made a major moral mistake.

Trying to make the most moral career choice, the most sanctifying career choice, the most impactful career choice doesn’t mean ignoring what you care about. Psychological constraints are real, risk of burnout is real, your choices should reflect your real limitations. The best career choice for a Christian probably lies somewhere between self-indulgent, passion-chasing and doing what the idealized version of yourself would be doing. 

And sometimes the right choice involves doing less at work, rather than more. In First Corinthians, Paul expresses his personal opinion that staying single is better than getting married, because married people will legitimately shift their focus and loyalties to their spouse, rather than solely focusing on pleasing God. So it seems pretty reasonable that  people with husbands, wives, aging parents, and similar obligations, can choose less demanding or impactful careers to fulfill their familial obligations. 

But if you’re a 22-year old, headed straight out of college without an engagement ring, I think the situation is quite a bit different. 

The Seculars Got There First

Normally, when Christians face criticism, I often think the criticism is bad and Christians are doing what they’re supposed to (more or less). Christianity is founded on a miracle claim so it would be embarrassing if all our miracles were poorly substantiated. Fortunately, from the resurrection, to magic fireballs, and regenerated amputee limbs, some Christian miracles are well evidenced.

Christians are supposed to care about the sick- it would be embarrassing if we didn’t. Fortunately, we created hospitals.

Christians are supposed to do everything for the glory of God, so it would be embarrassing if we forgot that when it came to career choice. 

Oops.

The first serious attempt to get people to not just do good with their career but try to maximize their positive impact, as far as I’m aware, came from the secular effective altruist movement. The catchily named 80,000 Hours was founded to convince people to try to devote their working career of approximately 80,000 hours to trying to do the most good. Christians For Impact came later.

This might be slightly unfair to Christians - some major Christian traditions tried to get at least some of their young members to pursue the most valuable vocations, according to their theology. Roman Catholics promote the priesthood and the religious life (brothers, sisters, monks, nuns) to young people, hold special events for people to consider such vocations, and pray for vocations. 

Protestant traditions with a heavy emphasis on evangelism- try to route their most devout and energetic members- to missionary work, work as pastors, or work as church planters.  So it’s true that many Christian groups try to get a small but crucial minority of people to pursue the most valuable vocations. 

That’s great! But what about everybody else?

What about every Catholic who is pretty sure they’re not called to celibacy. Or the majority of Protestants who are not meant to be pastors, evangelists, or church planters. 

Is the status quo of following your passion and maybe praying about it, good enough? I don’t think so.

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