Recommended Reading: “Callings” and “Leading Lives that Matter”
Pastors wanting to re-explore their own call or help young parishioners figure out their own life paths should consider two recent books on vocation: Callings: Twenty Centuries of Christian Wisdom on Vocation, by William Placher, editor, and Leading Lives that Matter: What We Should Do and Who We Should Be, by Mark R. Schwehn and Dorothy C. Bass, editors, both published by William B. Eerdmans.
The two volumes grew out of the Project on Theological Exploration of Vocation, a program funded by Lilly Endowment Inc., and were underwritten by a separate Lilly grant to Wabash College.
Callings, published last fall, gathers select passages on work and vocation from the greatest writers in Christian history, from Augustine to Karl Barth. The selections are accompanied by introductions written by Placher, including introductions to each of the four main historical sections and a brief introduction to each reading.
“While the vocational questions faced by Christians have changed through the centuries, this book demonstrates how the distilled wisdom of these saints, preachers, theologians, and teachers remains relevant to Christians today,” says Eerdmans. The book was named by the Detroit Free Press as one of the Top Ten Books of 2005 on Spiritual Themes and was included by Preaching magazine earlier this year in its list of “Ten Books Every Preacher Should Read.”
The PTEV Web site features both an interview with Placher about the book and a study guide.
Placher is the Lafollette Distinguished Professor in the Humanities, professor of philosophy and religion, and chair of the department of philosophy and religion at Wabash College.
Leading Lives that Matter, the companion volume published this spring, draws together a wide range of contemporary and classical texts — including fiction, autobiography, and philosophy — offering challenge and insight to those who are thinking about what to do with their lives.
Instead of giving prescriptive advice, Schwehn and Bass approach the subject of vocation as an ongoing conversation, the publisher says. They include in this conversation some of the Western tradition's best writings on human life, its meaning, purpose, and significance, ranging from ancient Greek poetry to contemporary fiction. The excerpted authors include such varied figures as Aristotle, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Frederick Buechner, Willa Cather, Dorothy Day, Annie Dillard, Robert Frost, Abraham Heschel, Thomas Lynch, John Milton, Martha Nussbaum, Theodore Roosevelt, Amy Tan, William Butler Yeats, and many more. Leo Tolstoy's novella The Death of Ivan Ilych is also included as an extended epilogue.
The PTEV Web site features an interview with the editors.
A study guide is also being prepared by PTEV and will be available on their Web site later this fall.
Bass is director of The Valparaiso Project on the Education and Formation of People in Faith, based at Valparaiso University, Valparaiso, Ind., and Schwehn is professor of humanities and director of the Lilly Fellows Program in Humanities and the Arts at Valparaiso.
