Description
Book SynopsisVocation, or calling – the idea that everyday work is the locus of Christian obedience – is, at first glance, peculiarly a theological notion. But doctrines of vocation formed the core of much of the economic and social theory of Protestantism at a time when such theory was culturally and politically influential. Hence it has also attracted attention from, and caused controversy among, sociologist, economic historians, and political theorists. Max Weber made vocation one of the foci of his celebrated studies of the ‘Protestant ethic’ and the ‘spirit of capitalism.’ In this book, Paul Marshall offers the first systematic study of the development of the idea of vocation in England from 1500 to 1700.
Vocational theory illuminates four themes that are examined in this work: the relationship between Renaissance and Reformation social thought; the nature of the competing political forces in mid-seventeenth century England, particularly as they re
