Another Dialectic

One other thought that was different enough to deserve its own post.

So, next week begin entrance exams for the PhD students. Even though we have already been accepted to the program, we have to take these exams. I think, ultimately, it's about gauging what we know, and also about putting us back into an academic frame of mind over the summer so we can hit the ground running in September.

I have been freaking out about these exams. In part, this is because I am a perfectionist - I have to keep talking myself down, reminding myself that I don't have to ace them, just do respectably on them, and I don't have to have PhD level knowledge of this stuff yet, just an "MDiv proficiency."

I think part of my freaking out is also because the exam questions are worded in the language of the academy. And it's been six years since I've thought or spoken in that way.

I had a kind of "aha" moment (and moment of huge relief) today while studying - it's not that I don't know this stuff, because I do (well, maybe not all of it, but a pretty good chunk of it). I know it, it's just that I've spent the better part of the last five years trying to explain and translate it to people who don't have the benefit of advanced theological training, who live in a culture that is generally suspicious of the overly educated. I think over time I got to be fairly decent at that, but it was just a different way of thinking and talking about the same stuff. And now I have to switch gears and go back to thinking and talking about this stuff the way the academy wants me to.

Which, ok, fine - but part of me really wants to resist that. Because I don't want to lose what ability I do have, and in fact, I'd like to continue to develop the ability, to take what could otherwise be pretty dense, heady, mind-blowing theology and have it make sense and be relevant to the average person in the pew. And part of the whole point of this trip to PhD-land is because I feel called to help other pastors learn how to do this, and do it well. So, I'm a little afraid of getting sucked too deeply back into academia, and a little bit ponderous as to why academia thinks it needs to always talk and think like it does, anyway. It sort of reminds me of Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, really, when he's like "That's great you can speak in tongues and all [or: have a huge vocabulary and all], but if nobody else can understand what the heck you're talking about, what's the point? How is that serving God or your neighbor in love?" (obviously, this is my own rough paraphrase, but you see what I'm saying?)

So, I've got a feeling that this will be an ongoing tension for me the next few years - finding the right balance between academicese and the koine English of the body of Christ. . .