What Is Your Calling?

About the Book

In this riveting memoir, What Is Your Calling?, the author describes his journey from a picture-book childhood in suburban Detroit to early family tragedy and dislocation. This created an inner quest for meaning that over time convinced him that a fulfilling life demands commitment to equality and justice for all. Philip Newell became a minister at a time when the majority of religious denominations in the United States confined themselves to “caring for their own.” Convinced that religious teachings call on us to care for all and most especially the dispossessed, Newell played a pivotal role in the 1960s in mobilizing first interdenominational and then broader-based support for the Black population of Wahington D.C., and for the national cause of civil rights. Later in his career, he worked to help organize and empower working-class people throughout the country who had lost jobs and livelihood through deindustrialization. Newell founds his vocational and avocational commitments on his understanding that the Bible clearly articulates that true living is living for the empowerment of each and every person. A profoundly personal memoir, this book also raises the question for each of us: “What is your calling?”

About the Author

This book, What Is Your Calling, is written by the Reverend Philip R. Newell and describes his work during over thirty years as a minister who played a leading role in the Protestant Church’s efforts to mobilize support for the disadvantaged, including the Civil Rights Movement of the sixties and seventies and labor organization in the seventies and eighties in the United States. It also describes his understanding of what ministry is. Newell lives in New York City, is married, and has three children and numerous grandchildren.