Why study? Why do a PhD?

On September 20, I had the great honor of being invited to the conferment of PhDs at Lambeth Palace London, as part of a scheme for research studies awarded by the Archbishop of Canterbury in a program going back to the mid-1500s through an Act of Parliament. Through this program, I became a Doctor of Philosophy.

I did this not as a natural academic, but more because I valued deep theological reflection and practice in the real world to guide my sense of being an ordained Anglican priest, with a calling to be involved in mission and evangelism in the incredibly complex context of the 21st century.

Some have asked why bother? Why spend six years studying at that depth? Isn’t it just a thorough waste of time? Are you trying to escape to the ivory tower of detached academia?

In recent years, I have sensed in the Church in the United Kingdom, Canada, and wider society, an increasing anti-academy and anti-intellectualism sentiment in the belief we need to just focus on activism and practices. That study is a waste of time and money. I could not disagree more. I studied at a PhD level precisely to inform my practice as a Christian. To help me understand and appreciate the complexity of contemporary society. To help me think through and pray deeply about what it means to choose to be a follower of Jesus Christ and understand what Jesus preached and taught, in the challenge and disconnect of living in a post-secular, post-Christendom and importantly, the post-modern context where much of the societal culture that has sustained the modern world for the last five hundred years, is passing.

I do believe many in and outside of the Church, are addicted to the values of modernity. Secularism, rationalism, capitalism, and colonialization are all deeply connected, and even though the time of modernity is passing, we find it nigh on impossible to imagine another way of being outside of a culture that impoverishes our imagination, our faith, and our Church. We have focused on the advantages of being in a market society, but we try to avoid or forget the violence, oppression, colonialism, and ecocide to sustain an unsustainable way of life. Studying practical theology, which was the discipline I was involved with, seeks to explore practical questions around ministry and mission. So, in the six years, I spent a lot of time with many non-churched people who were interested in spirituality but assumed the church had nothing to offer them in their spiritual questing. Up to my starting research in this area, no one had done any comprehensive work on this, so there was a huge area where very little had been engaged concerning mission and this group of unchurched people.

Studying at any level, including at a PhD level helps you to sit back from your strongly held convictions. It helps you to engage with critical thinking, to listen, and learn. To engage with subjective and objective truths of different disciplines, that help you to explore the prophetic and the call to be in, and not of, contemporary society.

My PhD course of study was about listening and understanding the worldview of those who identified as being ‘spiritual but not religious.’ It was about understanding mission theology and practice, to engage with the views and understandings of this social grouping, drawing on the rich Christian contemplative traditions.

The theology and practices I explore in the thesis, based on five years of fieldwork, has radically changed me. It has deepened my faith and helped me to understand and appreciate contemplative and mystical theology, as a resource for contemporary spirituality. Of course, when you study you often learn how much you do not know, as much as what you do, but what I have learnt, has been invaluable for me as a Christian, and also as a community missioner, so that I can share wisdom with the ordained and licensed lay missioners I supervise and mentor.

So, I am pleased that I bothered. I have found it deeply rewarding to be able to work on research for six years, and that it most certainly, in my opinion, was not a waste of time. And no, I have not started to ‘climb an ivory tower of detached irrelevance.’ To the contrary, this learning has helped me to be more effective, to understand the concepts and understandings of those who consider themselves to be ‘spiritual but not religious’, so that I can be an informed and in touch Anglican Christian missioner in how to respond to their missional needs.

In a world of increasing Christian fundamentalism, uninformed political populism, and ill-considered social action, Christian study and research has its place to deepen, and inform. It can enable the Church to have the tools and resources it needs through us, to be equipped for the complexity of being the Church and being missional in the 21st century.

If you are interested in engaging more with Ian’s PhD research, the book The Seeking Heart: A Contemplative Approach to Mission and Pioneering is being published by SCM Press or consider enrolling in the intensive course ‘The Seeking Heart’ with the Niagara School for Missional Leadership in November.