270 - Work in the Spirit: Toward a Theology of Work

Work in the Spirit: Toward a Theology of Work
By Miroslav Volf
New York, Oxford University Press, 1991. 252 pp. $32.50.

Miroslav Volf challenges the vocational understanding of work that has dominated Protestant thinking since the Reformation. As a former student of Moltmann and a professor of theology at both the

272 - Work in the Spirit: Toward a Theology of Work

Evangelical Theological Faculty in Osiek, Yugoslavia, and Fuller Seminary in Pasadena, he does so with an unlikely combination of approaches - a liberationist analysis of alienation in work and an evangelical insistence on the gifts of the Spirit to each individual. His evangelically-chastened appropriation of Moltmann results in an ambitious recasting of the Christian theology of work.

Volf deems the vocational understanding of work, at least in its Lutheran manifestation, inadequate for today's "increasingly mobile industrial and information society." Modeled on the medieval concept of religious calling, it implies a singleness and permanence of vocation that does not correspond to much of human work experience. The vocational understanding also has not been sensitive to the dehumanizing and alienating potential of work. If work is defined as divine service to be carried out in cheerful obedience from one's present station in life, the Christian has no mandate for questioning and reforming present social and economic structures.

The alternative Volf proposes is a pneumatological view of work, centered in the Pauline notion of charismata. Volf anticipates and responds well to evangelical suspicions about correlating earthly work with gifts of the Spirit. According to his reconception, the Spirit's gifts " are related to the specific tasks or functions to which God calls and fits each Christian" in all spheres of human activity. Persons may receive various gifts at different times and exercise more than one gift at the same time. Volf thereby gives theological recognition to what women have known for a long time-that work is a plural noun.

The pneumatological view also addresses the potential for alienation in work. Work must be a "free, personal activity," respecting the particular psychological disposition and gifts of each worker. Moreover, because all work is an avenue for cooperation with God toward the establishment of the new creation, no one is called to forms of work that contradict God's intent for human nature. While his focus is primarily on Christian self-understanding, Volf briefly indicates why the pneumatological conception of work is more conducive than the vocational one to a positive estimation of the work of non-Christians.

Volf is adept at dispelling stereotypes about the individualist and otherworldly tendencies of a "charismatic" theology. He rejects an exclusively individualist and introspective view of spiritual gifts, stressing that the charismata are mediated through social contexts and are given for the benefit of the community. And, following Moltmann, he shows how a pneumatological view of work can affirm the intrinsic value and goodness of creation itself and of human cultural involvement in it. In this way, he incorporates the basic insights of the vocational approach-the Lutheran appreciation of the communal context of all work, and the Reformed understanding of vocation as the calling to transform culture.

Readers will, on occasion, be frustrated by Volf's quick dismissal of nonevangelical views on issues of enormous theological discussion and

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disagreement. Regarding his claim that secular worldviews lack an adequate basis for moral discourse, Volf cryptically directs his readers to [Jeffrey] Stout "for a different view." He brushes aside eschatological alternatives to either the annihilation or transformation of the present world as "theologically and religiously not very persuasive." These shortcomings are due in part to the enormous scope and highly condensed exposition of Volf's argument. There is far more here than Volf can adequately address in a book of this size. But in a world in which liberation and Pentecostal theologians are searching for common theological ground, Work in the Spirit is book worth pondering.

Amy Plantinga Pauw
Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary
Louisville, KY