Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
Millennials, Vocation, and the Challenge of Economic Change
Millennials, Vocation, and the Challenge of Economic Change
Apr 2, 2025 5:40 PM

Earlier this week, Michael Hendrix offered some mentary on the economic future of millennials, fearing that many in our generation are in a similar position as “the horse at the advent of the automobile.”

The economic horizon is shifting, and with such e new opportunities. Yet rather than being energized and agile in response, many are content to simply shrug and plod along.

As Hendrix concludes, there’s hope in the reality that we are not horses, but creative, spiritual beings, fashioned in the image of God:

It isn’t so much that we’ll have winners and losers that gets me. It’s that many millennials aren’t facing up to the tough choices they’ll need to make to align their visions with reality. When the bustion engine came along and rendered horsepower to the pages ofMotor Trend, these animals had little choice over their fate. We are different. We can look square-eyed into a future of vast change. We can work hard at the tasks set before us, for we were made to do so. Put another way, we can avoid the glue factory.

The basic idea of the American Dream e under scrutiny in recent years — most strongly, it seems, from various corners of the church. And though some critiques are clumsier than others, all seem to point to at leastone critical reality: With increased es increased temptation to give way to an overly individualized and materialistic understanding of vocation and calling. Where our ancestors seized economic opportunity through hard work and service, paving the way for a fortable life, we now show a propensity to conflate the former (opportunity) with the latter (a 4-bedroom house in the burbs).

If Hendrix is correct, as I suspect he is, and millennials are set to continue ignoring this trajectory of drastically shifting needs, it may serve to affirm that those critiques about misaligned individualism have some teeth. If we are stubborn and resistant to adjusting our service in order to meet the broader needs of society, have we e too self-centered in our thinking about vocation?

I’m reminded of this helpful bit by David Brooks:

Today’s graduates are also told to find their passion and then pursue their dreams. The implication is that they should find themselves first and then go off and live their quest. But, of course, very few people at age 22 or 24 can take an inward journey e out having discovered a developed self.

Most successful young people don’t look inside and then plan a life. They look outside and find a problem, which summons their life. A relative suffers from Alzheimer’s and a young woman feels called to help cure that disease. A young man works under a miserable boss and must develop management skills so his department can function. Another young woman finds herself confronted by an opportunity she never thought of in a job category she never imagined. This wasn’t in her plans, but this is where she can make her contribution.

Most people don’t form a self and then lead a life. They are called by a problem, and the self is constructed gradually by their calling.

“Our working puts us in the service of others,” writes Lester DeKoster. “The civilization that work creates puts others in the service of ourselves. Thus, work restores the broken family of humankind.”

What is to happen, then, if we get this backwards — elevating our own personal efforts without regard to the needs of others?

God calls us to specific callings and careers, and he can do so without our having some elaborate understanding of the ever-shifting global economy. But the pursuit of such callings requires active prudence and discernment, and that involves reconciling our inward witness with the more obvious needs of our neighbors.If we “feel called” to an area that, in the present or future economy, fails to actually fill a need, it should give us pause. For some, it will require taking an inventory of ultimate allegiances, tearing plenty to the pieces in the process.

The blessings of opportunity and self-empowerment are to be used for the service of God and neighbor. If they are squandered on idols fortability and the mirage of self-enacted self-fulfillment, the room for “dreaming” will get mighty cramped, mighty quick.

[product sku=”1192″]

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Michigan’s Universities Produce Entrepreneurs
According to the 2013 Mackinac Policy Conference, Michigan’s three largest universities (Michigan State, University of Michigan and Wayne State) are producing entrepreneurs at twice the national average. According to Michael Wayland, the report included: …responses from more than 40,000 of the 1.2 million alumni of the University of Michigan, Michigan State University and Wayne State University. The responses revealed that more than 19 percent of the alumni surveyed have started pany, and some have created more than one. The study...
‘God brought me out of the deepest darkness’
Facing a corrupt and repressive government, about 36,000 Eritreans fled last year into the eastern Sudan where they faced harsh weather and the threat of kidnapping. Human trafficking has e a serious threat for these Eritrean refugees.Bedouin people-trafficking gangs find weary travelers then kidnap, torture, and often kill them. The gangs do this hoping to extract ransom from their victims’ families. Despite the dangers that Eritreans face, many still choose to cross into Sudan, looking for freedom. According to the...
The Fruits, the Roots, and the Soil
When we consider poverty alleviation, what areas should be focused on to yield effective and sustainable results? In the blog article, “The fruits, the roots, and the soil,” PovertyCure’s Mark Weber asserts that it is oftentimes the neglected aspects that are most necessary for long-term prosperity. We can often be lured by attractive, short-term assistance approaches, rather than recognizing and building the strong foundations that allow individuals munities to thrive. We need to focus on the soil. He says, We...
Rising Intolerance For Christians In Europe
Catholic Bishop Mario Toso, the secretary of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace says “intolerance and discrimination against Christians have not diminished” but increased, despite more attention to the problem. There are many areas where intolerance against Christians can clearly be seen, but two stand out as being particularly relevant at present. The first is intolerance against Christian speech. In recent years there has been a significant increase in incidents involving Christians who have been arrested and even prosecuted,...
Augustine, Aquinas, and Fusionism
As I noted previously, I’ve been involved this month in a panel discussion over at Cato Unbound on the issue of “Conservative-Libertarian Fusionism.” My two most recent contributions to the discussion phase focus on possible resources for the question that can be gleaned from Augustine and Aquinas. Augustine inaugurated a tradition of Christian reflection on the saeculum, the age of this world in which the wheat and the tares grow up together, and the implications of this mon life together....
Chernobyl: Lessons From a Ghost Town
Twenty-seven years have passed since the Ukrainian city of Chernobyl endured the worst nuclear power plant accident in history. In 2005, the United Nations predicted 4,000 people could eventually die from the radiation exposure, although different estimates exist. In a recent presentation at Aquinas College, Father Oleh Kindiy, a Ukrainian Catholic priest and visiting Fulbright Scholar, and Luba Markewycz, a photographer and member of the mittee at the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art, shared insights on the current state of...
Solidarity: Treating Each Other Justly Even When Government Isn’t Looking
At Aletetia, John Zmirak gives an interesting treatment of “solidarity”, a word we don’t talk about too much, either in government, philosophy or theology. However, as Zmirak points out, without solidarity, “tyranny creeps in.” The central principle of solidarity in practice is simple and timeless – the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” This ethical maxim, which Jesus quoted from the Old Testament, exists in some form in every culture on earth –...
Commentary: A Heart for the Poor — and a Mind for Economics
Isn’t it time that young evangelicals reject economics lessons from “the well-intentioned 38-year-old alum who is super liberal and carries clout with the student body because he listens to the same music as the kids he works with”? R.J. Moeller thinks so, and laments “the staggering lack of serious thought, inquiry, prehension regarding basic economic concepts – many that plainly cry out from the pages of Scripture – among not only the average church-going Christian, but the influential voices in...
Catholic University’s Virtues-Based Business School: An Interview with Andrew Abela
Earlier this year, the Catholic University of America announced the creation of a School of Business and Economics that will be “distinctively Catholic.” The new school offers a model based on Catholic social doctrine and the natural law that is unlike theories prevalent at most leading business schools.“Business schools focus on mercial skills and rules of ethics, but they neglect the importance of character,” says Andrew Abela, the school’s dean and Acton’s 2009 Novak Award Recipient. “Our distinctive idea is...
Babel Inverted: The Power and Promise of Pentecost
Over at First Things, Peter Leithart uses the occasion of Pentecost as a launching pad for highlighting the primary theme of his latest book: “The West has been busy building neo-Babel” and the time is ripe for repentance and revival: We’ve dispensed with the effort to connect heaven and earth, since up above it’s only galaxies. But we share the other aspirations of Babel, as well as Babel’s humanist orientation. Classes and ethnicities can be synchronized, we think, without divine...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved