Calvin taught that there is comfort in knowing “that no task will be so sordid and base, provided you obey your calling in it, that it will not shine and be reckoned very precious in God’s sight.” The greater comfort, however, comes from the gospel, where Calvin says, “we are apprehended by God’s goodness and sealed by his promises.”

As Christians who want to think biblically and theologically about the workplace, we can always rely on the media to make us say, “Well, at least I know that’s not what I had in mind.” Science journalist Matthew Hutson, writing an article “Still Puritan After All These Years” for The New York Times, provides that service for us. In it, he attempts to summarize the “Protestant work ethic”:

Martin Luther and John Calvin argued that work was a calling from God. They also believed in predestination and viewed success as a sign of salvation. This led to belief in success as a path to salvation: hard work and good deeds would bring rewards, in life and after.

Where is the intern fact-checker when you need him? Later in the article, Hutson writes, “Calvin argued that socializing while on the job was a distraction from the assignment God gave you.” I’d love to see that source in context. Nevertheless, Hutson gives us opportunity to say more than simply boo! to poor caricatures of the Protestant work ethic.

God’s Work and Our Work

Hutson starts off in short-lived agreement with Protestants: “Martin Luther and John Calvin argued that work was a calling from God.” True, indeed. Calvin remarked that each individual has his own kind of living assigned to him by the Lord as a “sort of sentry post so that he may not heedlessly wanter about throughout life,” and that “the Lord’s calling is the beginning and foundation of well-being” (Institutes, 3.X.6). Similarly, Martin Luther remarks in his Appeal to the German Ruling Class that unless our work is from God and by his power, then “the greater the power we employ, the greater the disaster we suffer.”

And that’s about where the agreement ends and the funny business begins. From there Hutson writes, “They [Luther and Calvin] also believe in predestination and viewed success as a sign of salvation.” True, they believed in predestination, but how that relates to “success as a sign of salvation,” I’m not sure. For Calvin (and any other Protestant), it’s likely to be the opposite. In fact, it was a great comfort to know that when success is far away from a Christian, “God is his guide in all these things.”

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