The Pathless Path: Imagining a New Story For Work and Life (The Pathless Path Collection Book 1)

by Paul Millerd

With the introduction of a “calling,” Luther and then Calvin both wanted to undermine the authority of the Catholic Church to govern an individual’s relationship with God. Luther took issue with the Church’s system of “indulgences,” in which people paid the Church to absolve them of their sins. He thought individuals should be able to have their own relationship with God. Calvin paired Luther’s increase in individual freedom with the idea that everyone is predestined to serve God through a specific calling. Working hard in the area of one’s calling determines the status of a person’s relationship with God. In the 1940s, philosopher Erich Fromm summarized this transformation, saying, “in the Northern European countries, from the 16th century on, man developed an obsessional craving to work which had been lacking in a free man before that period.” 23 Following the Reformation, then, work as an end in itself was no longer a crazy idea. People traded one master, the Catholic Church, for another, their vocation. But along with greater freedom and self‑determination came the anxiety and insecurity of never really knowing if you were working hard enough or doing the right thing. The Church’s expectations had always provided a way to measure “goodness,” and for many, these benchmarks no longer applied.