The Call
Os Guinness
1998
Chapters 10-18
Our Utmost for His Highest Still (Chapter 10)
 “…there is no higher or more ultimate
passion than a human being ablaze
with a desire for God.” (p. 75)
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Our Utmost for His Highest Still (Chapter 10)
 “…God’s calling is the key to igniting a
passion for the deepest growth and
highest heroism in life”--Pascal (p. 78)
3
Our Utmost for His Highest Still (Chapter 10)
 The Fall of Heroism
 Debunking—Nietzsche, Marx, and Freud
 Fewer Heroes—media creations
 “A big name rather than a big person, the
celebrity is someone for whom character is
nothing, coverage is all” (p. 78).
 “Death of God”
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Our Utmost for His Highest Still (Chapter 10)
 The Secret of Growth & Key to Heroism
 The Challenge of God’s Call
 Singled out -> sent out -> standing up
 Imitating God
 “Be imitators of me as I am of Christ”--Paul
(p. 81).
 Is NOT self-help spirituality
 God is Original; we are imitations
 Imitation is real, live action
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Where the Buck Stops, There Stand I
(Chapter 11)
 “The notion of calling is vital to the
modern search for a basis for moral
responsibility and to an understanding
of ethics itself” (85).
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Where the Buck Stops, There Stand I
(Chapter 11)
 R-E-S-P-O-N-S-I-B-I-L-I-T-Y
 for or to?
 our life = response to God
 = obedience (p. 86-87)
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Where the Buck Stops, There Stand I
(Chapter 11)
 Morality
 Community standards
 Anonymity
 Audience of One (p. 88-89)
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People of the Call (Chapter 12)
 “…the call of Jesus is personal but not
purely individual; Jesus summons his
followers not only to an individual
calling but also to a corporate calling”
(p. 93).
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People of the Call (Chapter 12)
 Community in Modernity
 shift from voluntary to involuntary
 bias against institutions
 voluntary associations
 shift from moral agency from institutions to
individuals
(p. 93-95)
10
People of the Call (Chapter 12)
 Called to Community
 “the people of Israel” (p. 96)
 denominationalism
11
People of the Call (Chapter 12)
 Challenging Individualism
 attend worship services
 The “Christian Way”
 Reformation
(p. 97-99)
12
Followers of The Way (Chapter 13)
 “Calling reminds Christians ceaselessly
that, far from having arrived, a
Christian is someone who in this life is
always on the read as a ‘follower of
Christ’ and a follower of ‘the Way’”
(102).
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Followers of The Way (Chapter 13)
 Objections to Christianity
 Formalizing and Routinizing
 Christians
 “Jesus, save me from your followers” (p. 102).
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Followers of The Way (Chapter 13)
 Life as Journey
 Followers only when we follow
 “Why do you call me, “Lord, Lord,” and do not
do what I say?” (p. 105).
 Life is a Journey
 Different stages of the Journey
(p. 105-108)
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There But for the Grace of God Goes God
(Chapter 14)
 “The reverse side of calling is the
temptation of conceit” (p. 112).
16
There But for the Grace of God Goes God
(Chapter 14)
 “All truth in a fallen world is vulnerable
to distortion” (p. 113).
 Chosen, Gifted, Special
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There But for the Grace of God Goes God
(Chapter 14)
 PRIDE
 vice or virtue?
 Synonyms:
 “egotism, arrogance, hubris, selfishness,
vanity, haughtiness, presumption,
boastfulness, big-headedness, selfsatisfaction, self-centeredness” (p. 116).
 There is no “I” in Grace
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What is That to You? (Chapter 15)
 “The truth of calling touches closely on
the link between giftedness and desire
and the almost inescapable temptation
of envy” (p. 122-123).
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What is That to You? (Chapter 15)
 Revenge of Failure
 “if we are not inclined to submit to the
rigors of the discipline, we destroy the
standards and pass ourselves off as
acceptable”—Henry Fairlie (p. 123)
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What is That to You? (Chapter 15)
 Envy
 Cancer of Envy
 Envy changes the question
 Envy meets at the crossroads of gift/desire/call
 Competition
 Distorts the perception of the call of others
(p. 124-125)
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What is That to You? (Chapter 15)
 Follow ME
 “Comparisons are idle, speculations about
others a waste of time, and envy as silly
as it is evil” (p. 126)
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What is That to You? (Chapter 15)
 Follow ME
 John 21
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More, More, Faster, Faster (Chapter 16)
 “…calling, which played a key role in
the rise of modern capitalism, is one of
the few truths capable of guiding and
restraining it now” (p. 129).
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More, More, Faster, Faster (Chapter 16)
 “…unless there was vigilance, a sense of
calling would bring forth prosperity, only to
result in prosperity’s destroying the sense of
calling” (p. 128)—Cotton Mather
 “Originally…the menace of unrestrained
economic impulse was held in check by the
Protestant ethic—people worked in response
to their calling. But now, with this ethic
dissolved, including its moral attitudes
toward hard work and saving, only hedonism
remains” (p. 128-129).
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More, More, Faster, Faster (Chapter 16)
 “No one can master money without
mastering the meaning of money” (p. 129).







Mammon
Avarice
Single-mindedness
Other “needs”
Being consumed
Commodity
Inability to purchase desires
 “Just a little bit more”—J.D. Rockefeller, Sr. (p. 132)
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Combating the Noonday Demon
(Chapter 17)
 “…calling is the best antidote to the
deadly sin of sloth” (p. 139).
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Combating the Noonday Demon
(Chapter 17)
 Sloth
 4th deadly sin
 Most misunderstood
 Characteristically modern
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Combating the Noonday Demon
(Chapter 17)
 Sloth
 Spiritual dejection
 Inner despair
 Noonday demon
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Combating the Noonday Demon
(Chapter 17)
 The Modern Sloth
 Loss of Faith in God
 Bartleby’s “dead-end passivity” (p. 141).
 Cultural—creature comforts
 “Better barbarism than boredom!” (p. 142)—
Theophile Gautier
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Combating the Noonday Demon
(Chapter 17)
 Discouragement through failure
 Success/significance
 Not secular v. religious but inspired
gifts & calling v. career
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A World With Windows
(Chapter 18)
 “…calling directly counters the great
modern pressure toward secularization
because the call of Jesus includes a
summons to the exercise of the
spiritual disciplines and the experience
of supernatural realities” (p. 148)
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A World With Windows
(Chapter 18)
 Science and Technology (p. 148)
 Managing without God
 Call v. Secularization
 Kingdom life
 Spiritual Discipline
 Busy Lives
 Sustaining the Call
 Work, Play, Worship ???
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Coming up . . .
November 15: Guinness chapters 19-26
On the horizon:
11/22: Critical Essay #3 (PPT format)
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