Since coming to England for my postgraduate, theological studies, I have come to the realisation that there needs to be a “suspension of belief” — that, in my writing, I cannot appeal to my biblical or doctrinal convictions as authoritative. To put it frankly, my beliefs don’t matter — the only thing that cuts it in the academia is rational logic.  This doesn’t mean that I should have no passion or practical applications or anything of that sort.  What it does mean is anything I say must be defendable and should be defended.  I must constantly navigate towards my thesis statement but I also must be dialectical and willing to bring to question all opinions, including those which I hold close.

What is at stake is one’s soul.  It has been said that “seminary” is like “cemetery” because so many people who have left it leave behind their faith.  But the counter-argument is that if you cannot be baptised by fire and survive, perhaps your faith really wasn’t that strong to begin with.  We must constantly challenge ourselves and our minds to grow and be refined.

At times I feel as though I want to think and write my thesis for the local congregation — afterall, theology must be rooted in the church.  Yet, I am also reminded time and time again that my audience, at least for this genre of writing, is not the congregation but the guild of academics.  It is a testing time but, as the Lord wills, His grace is sufficient.

One book I have come across that has been rather helpful is by Scott G. Brown entitled A Guide to Writing Academic Essays in Religious Studies (New York: Continuum, 2008).  Coming from my background, two quotes that I have greatly appreciated:

[A] strictly academic approach is not apt to shed light upon the ultimate questions of human existence.  But for pragmatic reasons, metaphysical investigations of religious truths are best conducted in places where all persons involve already agree upon a set of theological presuppositions, and that kind of consensus rarely occurs outside of academic communities that are based on religious affiliation, such as seminaries, Bible colleges…  In a context that is as religiously pluralistic as a public university, researchers cannot derive axioms from their faith, support their claims through appeal to revelation or dogma, or cite scripture as an authority that is above question.  Rather, they are obliged to limit themselves to theoretical assumptions, methods, forms of argument, and kinds of evidence that are open to scrutiny and challenge by anyone. (p. 5)

Academic [sic] essay writing is not a forum for defending personal or religious convictions or for disclosing one’s private thoughts. The writer of a research essay engages in the impersonal exercise of analysing a phenomenon in order to gain some rational understanding of its occurrence. The persuasiveness of the argument should therefore be logical rather than rhetorical, aimed at the intellect and not the heart. Appeals to the emotions or to religious values not only are out of place in academic writing but actually weaken one’s position, for by relying on these things one is tacitly acknowledging that the evidence does not provide sufficient strong support. (p. 10).

Over the past three decades, I have lived for extended periods of time in three different countries.  Each, however, have been English speaking.  The first being my beloved U. S. of A. — my homeland and my place of birth.  The second being Canada, where I found my beloved Betty.  And now, I find myself in the third, England, where I have lost my beloved sanity in pursuit of a PhD.

Yet, as I have moved to these various places, I have learned that English is not the same in all three.  When I was in Canada, I resisted any pronunciations like “a-GAINST” instead of the American “a-genst” and “zed” instead of “zee.” As I wrote my thesis, my spelling maintained its American sensibilities.

But then coming to the UK, I have found myself needing to repeat myself a lot since I have been misunderstood so much (I thought American English was like the de facto standard!).  I have tried to resist the temptation to use British spelling (which, incidentally, is actually slightly different from Canadian spelling which is sort of a hybrid of American and British English).  But then, a few months ago I was applying for a bursary and was informed that my American spelling may be subtly seen unfavo(u)rably, though it should not really impact the results.  So, alas, I have changed my computer’s default language to British English now and am trying to get the hang of the Britishisms… <sigh>  My PhD thesis is going to have so many misspellings!

I don’t know why anybody would want to do a PhD.  Some people think people who are in PhD programs are smart.  I beg to differ.

I have been working on my research proposal since September.  5000 words due in April.

When people ask me about it, they wonder why it stresses me out.  Well, because in 5000 words you must state your topic and argue why your thesis holds any water.  Later, it gets revised and is used as the introduction to my 80,000 word dissertation.  But for the most part, you have to come up with something that nobody else has done before (you ever hear of the phrase, “There is nothing new under the sun”?), cover every angle of your argument, every possible critique to your argument, and have read enough to substantiate what you are proposing to do for the remaining two or three years of your life.

My supervisor has already read four different versions of my research proposal and heard me talk about quite a few different thesis topics.  Each time, he tears it apart.  On one hand, it is instructive and he gives very helpful criticism.  On the other hand, it is hard work.  It is emotionally draining.  I mean, I spend hours and hours trying to figure out what these random writers are trying to say and if what they say is “authoritative” or not and then spend hours and hours trying to frame my arguments on paper (or Pages, to be precise) only to get slaughtered for not thinking things through enough.

Its brutal.  Don’t do it.