My problem
14 Jul 2008
Research is always better when addressing a problem, at least that’s what people good at research tell me.
At each supervision I have a fear that I will be unmasked as an idiot with ideas above my station (maybe that explains the dreams preceding my supervisions where I arrive naked and hope my supervisor won’t notice? :-).
So after my last supervision, fully clothed, I came away and tweaked my research method problem and question. In other words what am trying to address and why?
For the few of you who need some sleep aids, the outline for that follows (I wrote a less academic version here):
Research Problem/Question
‘I wish to explore and understand the nature of a consumerist, secular society as a competing religious system in particular its privatising effects upon Christian religious beliefs and practices such that Christianity is unable to function as a genuine public body, and how, without such public life, individuals cannot undergo Christian formation, and the implications for ecclesiology as a result of this exploration.
I will be seeking to show that at the heart of this privatisation of faith, and withdrawal from public life, is the dialectic of structure and agency, best understood by a traditioned theological description of the anthropologies and soteriological teleologies at work.
As a church planter this research seeks this diagnosis in order to address some the symptoms of this problem that impede the daily mission and life of my church community. These symptoms include the idealisation of church into ‘blueprints’ with a separation of theory and practice, so that these idealisation are never attempted or are abandoned at the first experience of human failing and frailty, the inability to engage in church as public and concrete mission despite the desire to do so, the seemingly endless self creation and identity crises of modern society that is then used to provide measures for the assessment of the ‘authenticity’ of church practices. ‘
How I aim to achieve this will follow in some follow up posts.
Tagged: Ecclesiology, Ph.D
3 comments
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Comment by Matt Wiebe
5.09 pm on 14 Jul 2008
Jason, I’ve followed your occasional updated on your PhD research with great interest, as it explores the confluence of so many themes in theology, philosophy, and cultural critique that have been piquing my interest over the past couple of years, especially as they pertain to the life and mission of the church within this milieu.
I’m looking forward to the results, but I’m sure not as much as you’re looking forward to being done!
Comment by Caroline Too
12.47 pm on 19 Jul 2008
hmmmm, Jason
if you came to me with that,
I’d suggest that you have
about 4 PhDs in tow there
are you focusing on
a) consumerist society and the social construction of consumerist belief/church? two PhDs there, possibly able to keep within one but i doubt it
b) private faith vs public faith… doubt if that’s new but I would have thought about 3 possible PhDs in there
c) faith, action, transformation as social process (as opposed to states-of-affairs)
now all of these (a,b & c) speak to each other… the problem will be deciding what you will focus on and I don’t see that in what you’ve written yet….
perhaps… just write in ONE sentence with NO subclauses… what will you be doing differently at the end of this process of research… that might give you a clue as to where your heart is. (and yes, I know that you don’t know yet but you should have an inkling about where and how you’ll be making a difference)
sometimes we academics can be a real nag…. :-)
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2.18 pm on 23 Jul 2008
[...] Jason Clark gives you a peek into his PhD research. [...]
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