From Survival to Vocation: The Radical and Relevant Call of the Gospel in Times of Chaos and Peril - Paperback

by Wayne L. Menking (Author), Kristin Johnston Largen (Foreword by)

The powers of death are closer than we thought. Their perils appear in the forms of increased gun violence, racism, economic disparity, and global warming, to name but a few. Faced with these threats, Christians in this self-absorbed culture tend to use their faith as a kind of palliative comfort that protects them from the truths of what these powers are doing to us as a human community, and the sufferings they are inflicting on others, particularly the poor and the disenfranchised. Moreover, it is used to shield them from responding to the gospel's call to leave survival for vocation. Using Luther's theology of the cross and the instruction he imparts in his Large Catechism, this book asserts that in the face of the sufferings in which we are situated, the gospel news of Jesus's resurrection is a call to stand in its hope and power to resist these devastations and the dehumanization, exploitation, and domination they inflict. The hope of God's life-giving creativity in the face of the powers of death is given witness when Christians leave survival modes of existence to be in their baptismal vocation of loving neighbors as themselves.

Author Biography

Wayne L. Menking is a retired pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and an Emeritus ACPE Certified Educator. He lives in Fort Worth, Texas, with his spouse, Nancy and is currently an adjunct instructor in clinical pastoral education at Wartburg Seminary in Dubuque, Iowa. He is the author of When All Else Fails: Rethinking our Pastoral Vocation in Times of Stuck (2013).