The Protestant Calling Theme Analysis

In the 1500s, German Catholic monk Martin Luther began challenging the Catholic Church on its teachings about salvation and serving God, which initiated the Protestant Reformation and marked the beginning of Protestantism’s spread across Europe. Among other things, Luther fiercely criticized the Catholic monastic tradition—which, as a monk, he participated in—that separated those who wanted to serve God from the secular, non-religious world. As a result, Luther developed his concept of the Christian’s “calling,” which states that the best way for one to serve God is to simply do whatever work God placed before them to the utmost of their ability. This concept of calling became a staple of Protestant theology, present in nearly every Protestant denomination, validating any and all lawful occupations as divine work when performed by faithful Christians. As such, sociologist Max Weber argues that Luther’s new concept of the calling contributed to the rise of the “capitalist spirit” by moving work from a secondary aspect of life to the divinely mandated “moral responsibility.” This, in turn, encouraged an idealization of money-making and brought about classicism and economic inequality.

Weber describes that Luther rejected Catholic monasticism as egoistic and “completely worthless,” since it does not actively participate in the world around it. In Luther’s Catholic tradition, the most religiously devout people became monks or nuns, separating themselves from the outer world by living in a monastery to reflect, privately serve God, and care for the poor. Luther himself lived as a monk for many years. However, as Luther separated from the Catholic Church, he began to see the monastic tradition as “completely worthless” and a “manifestation of unloving egoism and abdication from secular duties.” He reasoned that separating oneself from the world and the people that God made does not honor God, but instead spurns his creation. Contrasting with the Protestantism Luther soon brought to life, Weber suggests that monasticism contributed to Catholicism’s decidedly un-capitalist position, since it discourages the faithful from gathering earthly positions or participating in the competitive marketplace. Luther broke from tradition by deciding that such removal from the world is effectively “evil,” a rejection of God’s earth.

As Luther pushed further away from monasticism, he developed his concept of humanity’s “calling” that argues that all work pleases God, which Weber suggests became the foundation of the Protestant idealization of work and labor. Rather than hiding away in a monastery, Luther eventually preached that “labor in a secular calling appears as the outward expression of Christian charity,” since “division of labor forces each individual to work for others.” That is, participating in the world God made is the best way to serve and please him. Weber argues that, for Protestants, this shifts the role of one’s occupation from simply a way to earn money and feed themselves to their divine duty, the reason God created them in the first place. “Economic activity is an end in itself,” the primary means by which they serve God. Consequently, Weber argues that the “‘productivity’ of work in the capitalist sense of the word was given a powerful boost by this exclusive striving for the kingdom of God through fulfillment of the duty of labor as calling.” That is, Protestants’ religious fervor translated into economic success as well, since secular, for-profit work and spirituality became inextricably linked.

However, Weber argues that Luther’s idea of a calling relies on the idea of God’s sovereignty and thus establishes classism and inequality, which are also enablers of the capitalist spirit. As Luther develops his concept, he teaches that the “fulfillment of [earthly] duties is absolutely the only way to please God, […] therefore every legitimate occupation is quite simply of equal value,” because God sovereignly placed each person in their particular occupation. Weber argues that this furthers the shift away from Catholic monasticism, which emphasizes service to the poor. In pursuing their calling, Protestant Christians become less concerned with self-sacrifice and social good, and more focused on pursuing whatever profit-making work they may happen to have, since that is the “absolutely only way to please God.” Additionally, wealthy Protestants have the “comforting assurance that unequal distribution of this world’s goods was the special work of the providence of God,” suggesting that wealth inequality is some part of God’s divine plan. Business owners who are immensely wealthy while their neighbors starve can now “interpret[] the employer’s money-making as a ‘calling’ too.” Weber suggests this feeds into the capitalist spirit by freeing profit-makers from their scruples about the poor, traditional charity, or economic inequality, and justifying their focus on profit.

Although Weber attributes a significant aspect of the capitalist spirit, both good and bad, to Luther’s concept of the calling, he is careful to point at that this never appears to be Luther’s intention. (He notes that Luther even criticized capitalist mechanisms such as interest and usury.) Rather, Weber argues that the effects of Luther’s calling are unintended “consequences of purely religious motives,” realized long after his death.