Higher Learning or Life
I began my PhD in New Testament Studies over 20 years ago. Through a series of twists, I ended up not pursuing my degree. My direction radically changed from heading towards teaching to pastoral ministry. No regrets. Here’s why:
- Even though I was accepted into the program, the university started critiquing my transcripts from my previous schools, which to it were too conservative, and was going to require me to do everything all over again, including my 4 years of New Testament Greek. Uh, nope!
- I realized immediately that the PhD was another loop to jump through and that I was at the merciless mercy of the professorial class, the universities, and the politics of that university’s flavor of Christendom and church. I couldn’t stand the learned arrogance I was bombed with every single hour of every single day.
- Lisa was pregnant with our first son, and the financial realities hit us like a road-block. I chose the quickest route out of education and into a paycheck. I went from studying scripture, theology, theological French and German, etc., and dove into a job as a chimney-sweep. I’ve never been so dirty nor chimneys so clean!
- I had a liberating revelation that I didn’t need to “know” any more. The inability of further learning to transform me was clear. I already had more knowledge than I would ever integrate into my life. I sensed that I was simply going to heap further burdens upon myself that I wouldn’t be able nor need to bear. No more facts were required. No more studies were necessary. No more books were essential.
- Along with this revelation came another more cataclysmic one: the absolute destitution of my heart. My own pride, ambition, hardness and cruelty exposed themselves. I saw at once the fathomless suffering and the beautiful delicacy of life and decided that living was more important than memorizing. There is a transformation that is not planned or manufactured or even wish for, a completely new creation in which truth alone is master and not the efforts of my own mind. This, I decided, is where I would live the rest of my days. Or die trying.
The fine art photograph is the creation of my friend Howard Nowlan.
change, doctorate, education, knowledge, naked pastor, PhD, transformation, truth Share This
from Ecclesiastes,
“For with much wisdom comes much sorrow;
the more knowledge, the more grief.”
Great men and women of the bible are not scholars yet they achieved the fullness of God.
Right on Dave…….givener all the way !!
I think you chose wisely.
Husband was a seminary grad (southern Baptist) and later on in life after about 5 years in the “ministry” and going charismatic (thank you John Wimber) and getting kicked out, came to PA to start a…….. (drum roll please)…..chimney sweep business. He mostly smelled like a smoked ham for years! Thought the parallels were humorous as there are not that many chimney sweeps out there.
Welcome to higher education the world over! Christian theology, child psychology, or economic theory - it’s all the same when it comes to doctoral learning.
The only POSSIBLE exceptions are some of the hard sciences and some medical doctorates. Even in those, arrogance and fossilization abound, it’s just that you’ll actually learn something in those doctorates.
i’ll clarify something right at the beginning: i’m not against higher education. it just wasn’t for me.
If that was a clarification for me, don’t worry, I’m not against it either. I just think it’s a stupid thing in most cases. Most of the doctors I know got the PhD for purely monetary reasons - the company pays higher for higher degrees. They are universal in their abhorrence of the doctoral process.
phdcomics.com/comics.php
a good choice indeed. life versus jumping through hoops… no contest.
that said, some are born scholars and they derive much pleasure from that choice.
horses for courses… you are the right horse on the right course, i don’t doubt it.
have you read ‘mr god, this is anna’? if not, you should. i won’t do a spoiler by telling you about it, i just think you’d appreciate it.
If I could aford it, I’d keep going to school…just not for theology…
I think what is important for really finding success is mastery. Higher education doesn’t give mastery. It is only the beginning. Its great at developing tools, but often it has little information on HOW to learn and integrate the information you are learning. It is the living of life with fearlessness, curiosity, and humbleness that brings about mastery. This cannot be taught from reading a book and thinking.
Your smart enough as it is - not sure I could suffer the naked doctor.
Ph.D. work is definitely a rat race; and the hoops never end. There’s the hoops to get into the Ph.D. (e.g. GRE’s, transcripts, recommendations). There are hoops to get through the program (e.g. obscure language requirements, pedagogical requirements, research positions). And there are hoops to get out with (or without your) Ph.D. Not to mentions the hoops to land and keep a job….
However, I’d rather do the Ph.D. thing than the pastoral thing, so I guess I’ll chalk it up to calling
This entry and the comments remind me of a quote I recently shared with a good
friend from Ken Gire’s book Windows of the Soul.
“Because what touches His heart is not how much we know, but how much
we love. Not how pure we are, but how passionate……..Maybe that is why
when Paraisees were fighting over theology, prostitues were falling at the
Savior’s feet and slipping into the kingdom of God on their tears.”
beth, that’s beautiful.
Recovering said:
“If I could aford it, I’d keep going to school…just not for theology”
And maybe spelling.
I keed I keed
David,
You really are a man after God’s own heart. I love you! Did you read my mind? I just finished Don Miller’s Searching For God Knows What, and I came away with the conclusion that you so ably expressed in this blog. Thank you.
-Daniel in Nashville, TN
David,
Thanks for your post. I completed a PhD - strangely I have found that it has taught me a lot more about other people than myself! I am still the same person, yet somehow the title makes people respond quite differently… Sad really. The American academy is a very competitive environment that produces great scholars. However, after I had completed the doctorate and got to the ‘top’ of that pile, I realised that I was at the bottom of another HUGE pile… That is called publication. Publish or parish is the dictum of the theological academy. I am not all that interested in research….
My experience tells me that the doctorate was not a bad thing to do - the most valuable thing I learned from it was how to read and write (which most intelligent people learn in grade school!) Ha ha! Seriously, it simply gave me the confidence to write. You already seem to have both the confidence and the gift. I would say publish, but not the kind of stuff that no-one reads! My best selling book is 18 pages long - it is a guide to prayer for students to use as they prepare for and write their exams….
Blessings, and thanks for your great blog!
Dion
http://www.spirituality.org.za/blogger.html
PS. If you want a doctorate, search my site (doctorate) and you’ll find a nice MIT certificate that you can edit and print…
Ha ha! You’ll be a Jedi doctor of science!