Dr. Veith has often tied the show Dirty Jobs to a Lutheran view of vocation.
Now, Mike Rowe has written a letter to Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney (He did the same four years ago to President Obama) suggesting that we stop denigrating jobs involving manual labor as “vocational consolation prizes”.
I have heard from some in my area that there are a lot of skilled labor positions (vocational training or apprenticeship required, but not a college degree) that are going unfilled no matter how much salary is offered. There simply aren’t enough trained people. Meanwhile, college graduates are living in the house they grew up in because (shockingly) the world has enough people with a background in “Feminist studies” or “European Film” or “Subaqueous Receptacle Reticulation”.
Luther called this “vocation”. And the idea that “vocational training” is not to be highly exalted as a good work in the sight of God is simply non-Christian. Of course, that’s not really Mike Rowe’s point, he is simply speaking of the economic benefits.
Politically, I think that Mitt Romney is a fool if he doesn’t read this, and respond very publicly and favorably to it.
Musings of a Circuit Riding Parson 