Let it never be said that academics don't spend too much time in their heads. If anything, spending that much time alone with our thoughts is probably the single greatest hazard for academics. You build and build up circular walls until you've discovered that you're in a well. And I have a suspicion that those in theological fields might be in more peril than other fields. There is an inherent worry because ultimately, if you are working in theology, your subject isn't just an interesting topic. It isn't just something that is important to you. Theology is built upon those questions of ultimate concern. Who is God? How does my understanding of God affect my understanding on myself? The world? Ethics? Salvation? How is God revealing God's self to humanity? To me?These questions are coupled with rote demands of academic life as well. We live in a culture that has started viewing education through the lens of economic models. Society demands that money spent on education be tangibly accounted for at the end. Departments are being downsized, we no longer research for the sake of thinking through these hard questions or to advance human knowledge. We research and publish and research and publish in an endless cycle that a "publish or perish" culture demands. This not only strains overworked and underpaid (and downsized or non-permanent) faculty, but it hurts students because it passes on a model that learning is only valuable if money can be made from it.
And there's a dissonance between this economic model of education and the academic pursuit of theology.
I can't justify in economic terms why one should devote their life and career thinking about the profound mysteries of God. Maybe if I subscribed to the health and wealth Gospel, there would be an economic incentive. Nor can I justify the publish or perish culture, one that ultimately thrives on the lure of upward mobility and notoriety in one's field, with theology. We all can't be Thomas Aquinas or Augustine or Luther. Nor should we want to be. If I'm only studying theology to get a book deal, a tenured position at a leading research university, and that kind of respect from my peers that draws hushes when I speak or fangirls at conferences, I'm in the wrong field.
Today I was at a conference where the keynote speaker addressed the steps to securing, or at least being a viable candidate for, a tenured position at an R1 university. All through the presentation there was a sense of unease in my stomach, let alone my mind. One part of the unease was the sheer amount of everything expected of postgraduate students in order to get a job. There is no way that I am actually going to be capable of doing everything needed to be a contender for a good job, based on that list. That's a hard bit of reality to swallow, but is reflective of the decreased value of higher education and the number of PhD students being produced every year.
It scares me. It scares me because she underscored that a sense of vocation and calling isn't enough to legitimately engage in academic pursuits? But unless you are called to theology, why would you study it?
It scared me because its making me doubt God's call, a call that I hear so clearly sometimes- especially when I envision teaching theology to college or graduate students. That vision of not only passing on the book knowledge I've acquired, but the wisdom that comes from thinking deeply about how the textbook answers in theology match up to our lived reality in the church. The vision that theology in the academy is as much a science as it is a ministry. You can't just toss students to the wind when you engage in academic theology. It's always a subject that begs to be studied and formed through deep conversation. A good theologian can tear down the walls of presumption as well as he or she helps to reconstruct new foundations for understanding.
This is why I started a doctoral program in theology- yes, there was a deep interest in my subject matter that I wanted to explore, but also because I sensed a call to this field and to this type of ministry.
But what if I've been deceiving myself in hearing this call? What if my lack of the proper preparation means that I'm being unfaithful to my call because I won't be able to get a job? What if our presenter was correct? What if the academy simply can't hold theologians in it any longer? It certainly seems that the ethos of the academy is counter to the claims theology should hold on those studying and teaching it. That theologians are called and formed for the church and not for self-interest.
Bonhoeffer, across several works, suggests that the Fall happens the moment humanity starts thinking about God instead of talking to God. I have a deep worry that if those studying theology are doing so for the same reasons the academy tells us are good and right, we run the risk of no longer talking to God. Instead we talk about God and about ourselves. I think I would honestly not work at a top tier university if it meant that I could actually walk with students as they encounter God in academic theology. Maybe I'm not meant for the academy then. Or maybe the church exists in the academy in hidden ways that run counter to the perception of what a successful academic career looks like. I'd like to believe the second proposition is the true one.
But I'm wrestling with this today. I don't know if I'm wrestling with myself or with God or simply with a behemoth that wants me to conform to its rules and expectations. In the midst of that, I'm trying to hold on to Frederick Buechner's insight on vocation, “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet,” and hoping that somewhere at the intersection of my doctoral program and God's call for me there's a great hunger that I can meet. And hopefully a job as well.
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