Academic Conference Rules

A great New Yorker cartoon that well captures the posturing of Q&A at academic conferences.

Room for Theology in "Theory": New Signs in SAQ

A few years back, Eugene McCarraher's review of Terry Eagleton's After Theory posed the question: "After Theory, Theology?" It was a brilliant review of an excellent book and got to the heart of matters in the current state of "theory" (that strange, amorphous mix of continental philosophy marshaled across a range of disciplines in order to do "critique"). Both Eagleton and McCarraher suggested that a thorough, consistent "postmodern" critique of Enlightenment rationality--theory's bread and butter--should ultimately open the door for religious perspectives to get a hearing in a genuinely pluralist academy. (George Marsden made similar claims in The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship, but without all the sexy, pomo references.)

Not everyone got the memo, however, and in some ways the university remains the last bastion of a pretty strident secularism. However, there have been pockets of theoretical conversations across the disciplines which have begun to absorb this point. As a case in point, consider the latest issue of the South Atlantic Quarterly, one of the iconic "theory" journals, currently edited by Michael Hardt and published by Duke University Press. (Ever since I knew what "theory" was, I had always sort of dreamed of getting to publish in SAQ.) The Fall 2010 issue, guest edited by two anthropologists, Matthew Engelke (London School of Economics) and Joel Robbins (UC San Diego), is devoted to the theme, "Global Christianity, Global Critique." But such a title might hide the fact that this issue is actually pressing the implications of something like the Eagleton/McCarraher thesis: that perhaps theory not only needs to consider religion, but that theory might even be "religious"--and that perhaps an anthropology of religion might be well-informed by theology without giving up its critical capacities. In his contribution to the volume, Simon Coleman describes this as a "committed anthropology." (My own contribution is something I wouldn't have dreamed could appear in SAQ: "'The spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets': Global Pentecostalism and the Re-enchantment of Critique.")

There's no consensus represented by the contributors, but there is a set of shared intuitions and sensibilities. I think the issue signals a new day in both theory and the social sciences.

Here's the full Table of Contents so you can see other contributions:

Joel Robbins and Matthew Engelke
Introduction

Joel Robbins
Anthropology, Pentecostalism, and the New Paul: Conversion, Event, and Social Transformation

Elizabeth A. Castelli
The Philosophers' Paul in the Frame of the Global: Some Reflections

James K. A. Smith
"The spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets": Global Pentecostalism and the Re-enchantment of Critique

Jon Bialecki
Angels and Grass: Church, Revival, and the Neo-Pauline Turn

C. J. C. Pickstock
Liturgy and the Senses

Birgit Meyer
Aesthetics of Persuasion: Global Christianity and Pentecostalism's Sensational Forms

Brian Goldstone and Stanley Hauerwas
Disciplined Seeing: Forms of Christianity and Forms of Life

Simon Coleman
An Anthropological Apologetics

Matthew Engelke
Number and the Imagination of Global Christianity; or, Mediation and Immediacy in the Work of Alain Badiou

Douthat on Smith on Religious "Knowledge"

Over at his NYTimes "Evaluations" blog, I appreciated Ross Douthat's engagement with my "off the cuff" piece on the Pew Survey on Religious Knowledge (also noted at the Atlantic's "Daily Dish" blog).

While he's sympathetic to my second thesis, Douthat raises a fair point by asking:

Can one be a serious practitioner of Catholic Christianity who doesn’t know (as 41 percent of Catholics in the Pew survey did not) that the Church teaches that the bread and wine actually become the body and blood of Jesus in the Eucharist, rather than just symbolizing and memorializing Christ’s sacrifice? (Note I’m not even talking about whether you believe in transsubstantiation here — just whether you know that it’s what the Church says is happening on the altar.) There I think the answer is probably no: At a certain very basic level, what you know about a religion and how you practice it go hand in hand, and you can’t really be “a master of the game” if you’re ignorant of its rules — in the same way, say, that you couldn’t be a great baseball player if you didn’t know that three strikes make an out.

Of course, I wasn't saying that there's no place for religious knowledge in faithful religious practice. But his case and the analogy got me thinking further:

(1) In my book Desiring the Kingdom, at several points I discuss how children and mentally challenged adults participate in worship, sort of as "limit cases" to consider. I don't pretend these are the norms. But in both cases, it seems to me one can have devout practice that isn't necessarily attended by reflective knowledge. (Nor does this preclude emphasizing that such reflective knowledge would be a desirable good.) I think these sorts of questions remain germane particularly given my interest in (and concerns with) Christian Smith's work on youth spirituality, which also tends to come down pretty hard (at least implicitly) on 19-year-olds who seem to be playing a game but unable to articulate the rules. I'm not in the least suggesting religious communities haven't failed in catechesis, but I do think there are also modes of religious "understanding" which do not always translate into articulated answers of the sort measured by surveys. And since Douthat specifically raises the Roman Catholic example, it seems to me that Catholic spirituality has always made room for an affirmation of faith that is tactile, kinetic, and visual and thus not always articulated by the believer. That is, while many converts to Catholicism have "intellectual" concerns front and center, global Catholic spirituality is precisely a tradition that has always been hospitable and accessible to the uneducated, even the illiterate, who are no less faithful. Of course, this is also a mode of spirituality that is susceptible to superstition, but the two are certainly not identical. (I'm thinking of the peasant believers in Graham Greene's The Power and the Glory.) So I can imagine all kinds of Catholic faithful who are not able to articulate what Douthat is asking of them, but nonetheless have a kind of tacit appreciation and understanding of just what's at stake in the Eucharist.

(2) I wonder about the baseball analogy: yes, it seems right that I would have to have a kind of propositional knowledge about 3 strikes constituting an "out." And so I think both Douthat and I agree that there are reasons to be disappointed about the outcome of the survey--which sort of shores up my cynical "civil religion" thesis, as Douthat notes). On the other hand, we should also recognize that knowing 3 strikes = an out is not the sort of knowledge that actually makes one a good baseball player. It is just the sort of "spectator knowledge" that armchair batters around the country will be muttering about in October. But of course that's a long ways from having the sort of know-how which enables one to get a piece of a 98-mile-an-hour fastball. And it seems to me that religious "knowledge" is more on the order of that know-how than spectatorish acquaintance with the rules.

FWIW.

Men at Forty

BY DONALD JUSTICE

Men at forty

Learn to close softly

The doors to rooms they will not be

Coming back to.

At rest on a stair landing,

They feel it moving

Beneath them now like the deck of a ship,

Though the swell is gentle.

And deep in mirrors

They rediscover

The face of the boy as he practices tying

His father’s tie there in secret,

And the face of that father,

Still warm with the mystery of lather.

They are more fathers than sons themselves now.

Something is filling them, something

That is like the twilight sound

Of the crickets, immense,

Filling the woods at the foot of the slope

Behind their mortgaged houses.

On the Pew Survey of Religious Knowledge @ Immanent Frame

The Pew Forum's "U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey" has generated some press and buzz (see the New York Times report, for instance). In response, the folks at Immanent Frame have assembled one of their "off the cuff" features on the survey, "Surveying Religious Knowledge." It includes brief assessments from an interdisciplinary cast of scholars. You'll also find my own take there.

Review of "Hipster Christianity"

The Other Journal has now posted "Poser Christianity," my review of McCracken's Hipster Christianity: When Church and Cool Collide.

The review goes in a particular direction, because I think McCracken was asking for it. But I should note that there are some points of overlapping concern. For example, I think McCracken is right to see certain renditions of the emerging church as basically just the successor to Willow-Creekish seeker-sensitivity. And I share his concern about Christian assimilation to cultural trends. We just disagree about what counts as "assimilation."

Post-Ironic? Again with DFW

I'm continuing to live with David Foster Wallace quite a bit. Following his reflections on the tyranny of irony, consider what he says later in the same essay:

"The next real literary 'rebels' in this country might well emerge as some weird bunch of anti-rebels, born oglers who dare somehow to back away from ironic watching, who have the childish gall actually to endorse and instantiate single-entendre principles. Who treat of plain old untrendy human troubles and emotions in U.S. life with reverence and conviction. Who eschew self-consciousness and hip fatigue. These anti-rebels would be outdated, of course, before they even started. Dead on the page. Too sincere. Clearly repressed. Backward, quaint, naive, anachronistic. Maybe that'll be the point. Maybe that's why they'll be the next real rebels. Real rebels, as far as I can see, risk disapproval. The old postmodern insurgents risked the gasp and squeal: shock, disgust, outrage, censorship, accusations of socialism, anarchism, nihilism. Today's risks are different. The new rebels might be artists willing to risk the yawn, the rolled eyes, the cool smile, the nudged ribs, the parody of gifted ironists, the 'Oh how banal.'" (p. 81).

One might wonder whether, already in 1990, DFW had foreseen the coming of David Eggers, Jonathan Safran Foer, Nicole Krauss, even Jonathan Franzen--whether Wallace had prophesied what Melvin Jules Bukiet would later pan as the "Brooklyn Books of Wonder." There is a certain "sincerity" to their work that can look almost naive and quaint alongside Pynchon and even Wallace himself. But perhaps that is their (relative) rebellion. (This reminds me of Zizek's aside about straight marriage as "the most dark and daring of all transgressions.")

I think Wallace "gets" how novelists could head in this direction. And yet, the prose of Franzen and Krauss does feel so flat and predictable and, well, "straight-forward" after the experimentalism of DFW. No doubt avant-garde form can become tiresome and self-conscious, but it also seems to me that we can't just return to the narrators and forms of Updike either. The omniscient narrator has died; any revivification of him (sic) is not a resurrection, but only a zombie.

Those Winter Sundays

Our church newsletter highlighted this wonderful poem, which I'd never read before. As fall's chill begins to crackle here in Michigan, the warmth in this poem was palpable for me, as is the sense of aged gratitude, delayed but now granted:

Those Winter Sundays

BY ROBERT HAYDEN

Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he’d call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love’s austere and lonely offices?

The Material Conditions of a Job Interview

Over at the Leiter Reports blog, there's been an interesting conversation about where philosophy departments should interview job candidates. Let me sketch a bit of context for those not familiar with the meat market that is the Eastern meeting of the APA: this divisional meeting takes place each year between Christmas and New Year's, which is about the only time that philosophers can afford hotel rooms in big cities. Pretty much anyone who is hoping for a job in the coming year will be vetted in a first round of interviews at this meeting. Departments will send a subset of their search committee to meet with 10-15 candidates, rather assembly-line-like.

Many of these interviews take place in a large exhibit hall filled with round tables, tenured faculty seated around them interviewing candidate after candidate in a kind of speed-dating format. These brief meetings at the professional interview are meant to be a way to narrow down the 2 or 3 candidates that departments will then bring to their campuses for a full interview and visit (teach a class, give a talk, meet the dean, etc., etc.).

Now, because of the cattle-call atmosphere of this exhibit hall context (not to mention the horrible din of multiple concurrent interviews happening in an acoustic nightmare of a basement hall), some departments elect to rent a hotel suite and host interviews in a quieter, less public setting. This all sounds good, until you think about one oddity: often this means interviewing candidates in a room with a double bed--sometimes even with faculty interviewers sitting on the bed.

Given that context, one prospective interviewee posed this question to Leiter:

Am I the only female who thinks it silly in 2010 to force departments to pay many hundreds of dollars (coming right out of our budget) to exclude a certain piece of furniture in the interview room? In the past, at least it sufficed to hide the b__ behind a screen (for which hotels charged quite a bit extra). To create what they call "made" suites this year, one must pay for two rooms, but one is guaranteed cot-free (nor does it suffice to drag the offensive item out each interview morning). Isn't there already sufficient incentive to be 100% professional at interviews? Is being interviewed behind closed doors in a suite more acceptable than in a room containing a b__, as opposed to a couch, or a screened bed? does it really help to shroud beds, cots, or couches? (It's a bit like shrouding females to insure no unwanted attention?)

Kick the bed to the side, sit on a chair!

This strikes me as almost a caricature of what a "philosopher" would suggest: "C'mon--we're all just rational here. Why does it matter what's in the room?" That might sound "reasonable" and mature and no-nonsense, but it also strikes me as incredibly naive and inattentive to the complexities of how we inhabit the world. Thankfully comments on the post, from philosophers, show a more holistic appreciation for our embodiment.

In fact, if you imagine the scene, and try to live into the strangeness of the scenario for just a moment, you'll begin to appreciate how much the material environment conditions our perception. Indeed, one could spend all day using Merleau-Ponty to show just how we construe and constitute such a context: how the body sort of "knows" the bed in ways and on levels that are almost inarticulable, but nonetheless really significant and powerful. These ways of knowing are not often the subject of philosophical reflection, but that doesn't mean that our perception is not equally shaped by them.

My Interview with James Davison Hunter

The Other Journal has just posted my interview with James Davison Hunter about his important new book, To Change the World. It was conducted as an e-interview, so it's not quite as chatty as a live conversation, but I think it invites Hunter to clarify some key points, and articulate some new ones.

This is a follow-up and companion to my review of the book, "How (Not) to Change the World," also published in The Other Journal. The interview probably makes more sense after reading the review.

Q & A on Pentecostalism and Philosophy

My home institution has posted a little Q & A about my two new books, Thinking in Tongues: Pentecostal Contributions to Christian Philosophy and Science and the Spirit: A Pentecostal Engagement with the Sciences, co-edited with Amos Yong.

Check it out in order to see what has to be college's dorkiest file photo of me accompanying the story.

More DFW: On Fear of Ridicule, Irony

While, in my last post, I was praising David Foster Wallace's writing and voice--a "formal" praise--he is (was, sadly) also stunningly brilliant, even prescient. For example, consider just one of the essays in A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, "E UNIBAS PLURAM: Television and U.S. Fiction," which is something of a metacommentary on the impact of television on fiction--and more specifically, young fiction writers--written in 1990. (Keep that in mind: this is 1990; there's no discussion of the internet in here, only futuristic talk of TC cables connecting computers by fiber optic lines--like a scene straight out of Infinite Jest.)

It is a long, winding essay, with continual payoffs. Central to his argument (helpfully noted in a section subtitled, "I do have a thesis") is the recognition of the self-consciousness, ironic layering of television, such that television had already beat postmodern novelists to the punch. The general cultural ethos, then, is shaped by "irony, poker-faced silence, and fear of ridicule."

In lieu of a long commentary, let me just give you a taste of Wallace's claims and criticism, which I think are only more true today. For example, consider this little meditation on fear of ridicule:

"And to the extent that it [TV] can train viewers to laugh at characters' unending put-downs of one another, to view ridicule as both the mode of social intercourse and the ultimate art-form, television can reinforce its own queer ontology of appearance: the most frightening prospect, for the well-conditioned viewer, becomes leaving oneself open to others' ridicule by betraying passé expressions of value, emotion, or vulnerability. Other people become judges; the crime is naiveté. The well-trained viewer becomes even more allergic to people. Lonelier" (p. 63).

Thus the dispassionate aloofness of a generation of passive viewers:

"In fact, the numb blank bored demeanor--what one friend calls the 'girl-who's-dancing-with-you-but-would-obviously-rather-be-dancing-with-somebody-else' expression--that has become my generation's version of cool is all about TV. [...] Indifference is actually just the '90's version of frugality for U.S. young people: wooed several gorgeous hours a day for nothing but our attention, we regard that attention as our chief commodity, our social capital, and we are loath to fritter it" (p. 64).

This is then followed by a similar phenomenology of irony, of which a slice here:

"The assumptions behind early postmodern irony...were still frankly idealistic: it was assumed that etiology and diagnosis pointed toward cure, that a revelation of imprisonment led to freedom. [Rortyan irony?] So then how have irony, irreverence, and rebellion come to be not liberating but enfeebling in the culture today's avant-garde tries to write about? One clue's to be found in the fact that irony is still around, bigger than ever after 30 long years as the dominant mode of hip expression. It's not a rhetorical mode that wears well. As Hyde (whom I pretty obviously like) puts it, 'Irony has only emergency use. Carried over time, it is the voice of the trapped who have come to enjoy their cage.' This is because irony, entertaining as it is, serves an almost exclusively negative function" (pp. 66-67).

"Make no mistake," he concludes: "Irony tyrannizes us."

Permission to Write: Thanks to DFW

The book from my summer reading that probably most affected me was David Lipsky's Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip with David Foster Wallace. While Lipsky's voice is a bit irritating, and while the book feels like a sort of theft on Lipsky's part, the transcript of a 5-day of conversation with Wallace is riveting. I read this after working through a number of stories in Oblivion ("Good Old Neon" is incredible), as well as his non-fiction (A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again and Consider the Lobster) and I've now noticed this:

Reading DFW gives me a sense of permission to write in a way that sounds like the voice in my head.

I don't know if that's a good thing, objectively speaking. It won't make me any friends with James Wood & Co. But I have found this to be liberating, energizing, and just generally encouraging. I feel like Wallace has loosened my tongue in a way, and I'm grateful.

Sept. 30: "On the Very Idea of Pentecostal Philosophy"

The Eerdmans Bookstore here in Grand Rapids will be hosting an evening event to celebrate the publication of Thinking in Tongues: Pentecostal Contributions to Christian Philosophy:

"On the Very Idea of a Pentecostal Philosophy"

7:00pm, Eerdmans Bookstore, 2140 Oak Industrial Drive NE, Grand Rapids, MI

Q &A, refreshments and book signing to follow.

Hope to see you there!

Still Thinking About Grad School?

Keith DeRose has some alternative advice about going to grad school, contra the "Just-don't-go" school. Worth a read. See my comments there.

On the Facebook

Well, I've taken the plunge: I'm on Facebook. While my publisher has been encouraging me to do this for a while, what pushed me over the edge was closer to home: our oldest son has gone to college, and the low-grade mourning I've suffered in his absence was just enough to cloud my faculties and enable me to sign-up as an attempt to stay in touch with him.

I'm hoping the kids will give me some tutorials over the weekend, because right now I'm pretty much completely lost--roaming around clicking, sharing, liking, friending without direction or discretion. I suspect I'll always feel more comfortable in the more static, sequestered environs of the blogosphere.

Letters to a Young Calvinist

In a couple of weeks I expect to finally get my hands on a copy of my new book, Letters to a Young Calvinist: An Invitation to the Reformed Tradition. My most "popular" book to date (nary a footnote to be found!), it's a little collection of epistles written to a young friend (and my younger self) who's caught a taste of the Reformed tradition through the "Calvinism" of the young, restless, and Reformed movement. And its an invitation to discover the wide, deep riches of the Reformed tradition--to appreciate that this is a big house with many rooms.

Brazos, as usual, has done a great job with the design, and I'm hopeful that this might find readers beyond academic environs. I'm working on a bit of a "book tour," hoping to take advantage of some engagements that will already put me in Seattle, Minneapolis, and Manhattan this coming year, along with an author event here in Grand Rapids. (If you think there might be interest in a reading/talk/signing in your area, let me know and we'll see what we could do.) I'm also hoping to develop a webpage of resources connected to the book, and even toying with the idea of joining Facebook (though I hope my "better angels" will win out on that one).

Here are some of the endorsements for the book:

"My friend Jamie Smith is never boring. Most of the time I cheered 'Amen!' as I read these letters, but even when I disagreed, I appreciated Jamie's model of charity and humility as well as conviction. In the midst of all the encouraging energy of the 'New Calvinism' movement, it is also important to say that being Reformed is more than TULIP. These are rewarding and creatively written letters for all of us."--Michael Horton, J. Gresham Machen Professor of Theology, Westminster Seminary California

"I wish there had been a Jamie Smith to write letters like these to me when I was a young Calvinist. But, hey, I'm glad to get them today! This is a wise and delightfully written portrayal of a robust Calvinism for the twenty-first century."--Richard J. Mouw, president and professor of Christian philosophy, Fuller Theological Seminary

"Although Letters to a Young Calvinist may not please everyone in the Reformed camp (it is a big and diverse family after all), Jamie Smith has done a fabulous job articulating a winsome and engaging account of the depth, splendor, and joy of the Reformed tradition. I found much of what I hold dear about Calvinism reaffirmed in these interesting letters and at the same time was delighted to learn new insights that got me excited about the tradition all over again. I hope this book introduces a whole new generation to the richness of the Reformed understanding of the faith."--Jim Belcher, author, Deep Church: A Third Way Beyond Emerging and Traditional

"James K. A. Smith winsomely steps into one of the most fascinating conversations in contemporary evangelicalism--the surprising resurgence of Calvinism among younger Christians. Letters to a Young Calvinist is thoughtful, nuanced, provocative, relational, and informed. No one will agree with everything here, but what I appreciated most was Smith's careful insistence that there's much more to being theologically Reformed than believing in the famous (and fabulous!) five points of Calvinism. He shows that the Reformed tradition is covenantal and cosmic in scope, big and bright in scale, doctrinal and devotional in spirit. A thoroughly engaging read!"--Tullian Tchividjian, pastor, Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, Ft. Lauderdale, FL.; author, Surprised by Grace: God's Relentless Pursuit of Rebels

"Letters to a Young Calvinist is a splendid book that speaks to both head and heart, counseling the 'young, restless, and Reformed' toward growth into a wider and deeper Reformed tradition. . . . [T]he journey with Smith into the spacious and expansive Reformed tradition is well worth the ride. This wise and witty book is a delight to read!"--J. Todd Billings, associate professor of Reformed theology, Western Theological Seminary, Holland, Michigan

So You Want to Go to Grad School: Friends & Family

I should clarify one assumption: I assume that if you're writing to me, then you probably have some investment in being a Christian scholar--that in some way your sense of a calling to this vocation is bound up with your faith. That creates all sorts of unique challenges and opportunities, and there are, of course, a host of questions about the nature of "Christian scholarship." I'm not going to wade into those issues here.

Instead, I want to simply emphasize a very practical matter: If you are going to graduate school in order to pursue the vocation of a Christian scholar, there are some very simple but crucially important non-academic things you need to do.

First, you need to find a solid local congregation and commit to it. Resist the temptation to think you're "too busy" for church. Or "too smart" for church. You're not. And the sooner you learn that, the better. The academic life can easily become all-consuming, especially if it's laden with a sense of Christian vocation. It can too easily swallow up everything in its path and become an idol. It's way too easy to sequester yourself in a world that is, in many ways, weird and distorted. Your immersion in a local congregation will be its own sort of discipline: it will keep you tethered to the so-called "real world." And don't just be there as a cynical critic, looking down your nose at the ignoramuses around you. Despite all the knowledge you're acquiring, there are plumbers and school teachers and stay-at-home moms in that congregation that have wisdom you'll never have. Plus, if you're called to be a Christian scholar, in some sense you are called to be a servant. The local congregation is where you learn how to do that.

Second, maintain friendships outside the academy. This is especially true if you are married (and perhaps have children). While I was in my PhD program, our family was part of a small group (with folks who were not academics) that met every Friday night for a shared meal and Bible study, with little kids running around our apartment and young parents frazzled and exhausted, but all in this together. This group was, without question, an absolute lifeline for us during what can be a very difficult time. We also had dear friends who lived nearby and we fostered rituals that prevented us from spiraling inward. All of this was rooting; it took me out of myself; it regularly and persistently inserted me in a world where "my work" really wasn't all that important. And it was a godsend.

Third, if you are married, and especially if you have children, graduate education is going to be one of the single most powerful threats to your marriage. It tends to induce a degree of poverty, and economic issues are always sources of deep tension, especially in young marriages. Graduate education also has the possibility of becoming a mistress, a seductress (a mister? a seducer? if you're woman). You are going to be immersed in a world that is largely foreign and closed to your spouse--and that world will want all of you. And you need to resist--not in the typical evangelical fashion of thinking you'll just muster the willpower and wherewithal to say "no." No, what you need are systems and structures and rhythms that won't let that happen. That's what the first two points are aimed at. To them I would add one more exhortation: attach yourself to an older couple in your congregation who can be mentors, who don't operate with any myths about marriage, who know all the challenges of raising kids, and who are willing to listen. In a dream world, you might even find a Christian professor at your university who can model this, since they'll be familiar with the unique challenges of the academic life. But in any case, look for some folks who are a generation ahead of you and can be a source of wisdom and encouragement.

You are not a scholar first. (I'm talking to my younger self here.) You are called first to be a friend, a disciple, a spouse, a parent. The sooner you can learn to "situate" and relativize your scholarly vocation, the sooner you'll be able to receive it with gladness.

How (Not) to Change the World: On James Davison Hunter

The Other Journal has just published my longish review essay, "How (Not) to Change the World," on James Davison Hunter's important new book, To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World.

In a few days they'll follow up by publishing an interview I conducted with Hunter about his book and these issues.

So You Want to Go to Grad School: Money

Let's get down to the nitty-gritty: how are you going to pay for graduate school? Well, that's easy: you're not.

Seriously.

Here's the baseline advice I tell my students: do not go into debt for graduate study. At least not a doctoral program in philosophy, theology, or literature. There might be a calculus in which taking on debt makes sense for a law degree, an MBA, etc. But in the fields we're talking about, you should not be taking out loans to do a PhD.

In other words, if you do not get a "full ride" to a PhD program--that is, if you don't get full tuition remission plus an assistantship (stipend)--then the Lord is telling you something. I really mean that. I'm sorry if that sounds harsh or callous. But if you're trying to discern your future, and you're admitted to a program but don't receive funding (which probably only happens at lower tier schools anyway), that's the Spirit speaking to you loudly and clearly. I'm not saying that will be easy news to receive. But take a breath, step back, and hear it for what it is.

Now, if you do get accepted to multiple places with funding (congratulations!), then the next thing you have to think about is cost of living, especially if you're going to grad school with a family--which, by the way, is possible: Just for the record, we got married after my freshman year. (I'm not saying I recommend this--but we just celebrated our 20th anniversary last week.) We had our first child 2 years later while I was still an undergraduate. We had our second while I was doing my master's degree. And we had two children while I was in my PhD program. It wasn't easy, but it is possible.

Anyway, if you have the luxury of choosing between programs, you need to consider where you want to live, and how much it costs to live there (proximity to family support networks are also a legitimate concern when considering location). For example, imagine you get into Yale and Notre Dame; while the Eastern seaboard certainly has its attractions, a stipend goes a long way in South Bend, Indiana. Those are things to think about. Scholars are not immaterial minds: we, too, have bodies and need to consider material realities. While the academic life--especially grad school--requires a kind of vow of poverty, you can also make decisions to be the best possible steward of the resources provided.

Next time: Friends & family.