Why a PhD?
Why Should Some Christians Pursue Advanced Education?
You will have noticed, I’m sure, that I switched the question from why I am pursuing a PhD, to why should some Christians should pursue advanced education. There are good reasons for the this, one being that I am not interested in self-justification regarding my personal pursuit of this specific degree and discipline. Nor can I declare with that God has specially revealed to me that I should pursue this degree or this discipline. Largely I have left this “calling” in the hands of the Church, the body of Christ; for I believe that the Christian faith is a corporate communion (a community) in which different members support each other through whatever gifts God has graced them.
In this light, over the years I have been quite convicted (and many Christians have suggested so) that I have a gift for teaching. But even in my reluctance to proclaim such a gift, I have pressed forward in seeking to encourage and edify the body of Christ through my teaching and broader ministry. I am confident that God has used me for the betterment of his people. For this I am humbled and thankful. I only wish I could do more.
A good number of Christian scholars (with whom I’ve become acquainted through my work with Summit Ministries) time and again have encouraged me to pursue an advanced degree in either philosophy, theology or biblical studies. Some have noted how such pursuits can serve the Church in many significant and lasting ways. Others have gone so far as to charge me strongly with responsibility to develop my skills and abilities further, lest I fail to live up to my calling. The encouragement and strong advice of these men and women have motivated both me and Angela to move ever closer to PhD studies.
I believe that rather than engaging in “introspective navel gazing” to discern God’s will for my life, a more biblical approach is to look at the needs of the Church today and seek to meet those needs as God enables us. In addition, as for attempting to discern the gifts with which we have been graced, I believe those are more for others to discern. Thus it is the voice of God’s people to which I have listened, though ever through the matrix of Scripture.
With these preliminary remarks in mind, I must say that my response to the question at hand will be brief, at least for now. Here I would like to pass the baton to a great Christian scholar and popularist from a previous generation, C.S. Lewis. Lewis penned the following memorable words in his challenging essay, “Learning in War-Time.” I believe he has adequately answered the question at hand, namely, “Why should some Christians pursue advanced education?”
If all the world were Christian, it might not matter if all the world were educated. But, as it is, a cultural life will exist outside the Church whether it exists inside or not. To be ignorant and simple now — not to be able to meet enemies on their own ground — would be to throw down our weapons, and to betray our uneducated brethren who have, under God, no defence but us against the intellectual attacks of the heathen. Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy needs to be answered. The cool intellect must work not only against the cool intellect on the other side, but against the muddy heathen mysticisms which deny intellect altogether. Most of all, perhaps, we need intimate knowledge of the past. Not that the past has any magic about it, but because we cannot study the future, and yet need something to set against the present, to remind us that the basic assumptions have been quite different in different periods and that much which seems certain to the uneducated is merely temporary fashion. A man who has lived in many places is not likely to be deceived by the local errors of his native village: the scholar has lived in many times and is therefore in some degree immune from the great cataract of nonsense that pours from the press and microphone of his own age.
The learned life then is, for some, a duty.
(from The Weight of Glory, 28-29)
I simply cannot say it any better. But I would like to recommend a few book titles that I believe reiterate what Lewis has written, as well as provide even further insights into why some Christian should pursue advanced education…and why all Christians should pursue the life of the mind. I will list these titles in the order they were published.
Blamires, Harry.The Christian Mind: How Should a Christian Think? Ann Arbor, MI: Servant Books, 1978; first published in London by SPCK in 1963. __________. Recovering the Christian Mind: Meeting the Challenge of Secularism. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1988.
Gill, David W. The Opening of the Christian Mind: Taking Every Thought Captive to Christ. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1989.
Sire, James W. Discipleship of the Mind: Learning to Love God in the Ways We Think. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1990.
__________. Habits of the Mind: Intellectual Life as a Christian Calling. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000.
Moreland, J.P. Love Your God with All Your Mind: The Role of Reason in the Life of the Soul. Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 1997.
Even beyond these wonderful volumes, an excellent discussion of Christian scholarship is the smallish, but potent, treatise by George M. Marsden, The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship (Oxford University Press, 1997).
(I wish to thank my friend, Dr. Charles White, for so graciously giving me a copy of Lewis’s The Weight of Glory in about 1998, encouraging me to read the essay, “Learning in Wartime.” Chuck, while there was a time when I fancied myself at odds with you, I now believe we are much more arm-in-arm as we engage the battles of our day. May our gracious heavenly Father bless you with a steadfast heart, a discerning mind, and an effective hand.)