Studying Religion

As most of you may well know by now I have chosen the immediately post-Seminary period of my life/early years of marriage/late-twenties/early-thirties/however-I-end-up-labelling-the-last-two-and-next-five-or-so-years pursuing [more] higher education. This educational journey is: (1) inspired by my wife’s similar pursuits and a vision for our shared future in our respective fields of academia and (2) a result and continuation of a period of doubt and skepticism in my own religious thought. I’m hoping to add some insight into these two aspects of the decision to work towards a PhD in Religion at FSU.

(1) If I had a nickel for each person who said either “don’t do it.” or “why would you want to do it?” or “you can’t know how frustrating/difficult/trying it will be unless you do it” when I asked advice about applying to and beginning a PhD program I wouldn’t have to take out loans to pay rent this fall. While it does take a special breed of intellectual masochism to go down this road, I feel like I have somewhat of a unique perspective acting as housecleaning arm candy for Abbey’s doctoral journey for the past half decade. We are both excited at the prospect of a change of scenery as well as the eventual hope of teaching at the same university. This would likely work out a lot better than Abbey being on the schedule of whatever institution of higher learning is fortunate enough to have her on their faculty while I am on a quite different career-related schedule (which might include spring break easter week and December Christmas things). This first aspect of the decision made the most sense in both the short and long term planning of the Carrico, Jr family.

(2) Doubt and skepticism in Tommy’s religious thought. This sounds much more serious than it is (unless, of course, I wind up on the wrong side of judgment day in which case I guess I’ll at least have some certainty). One needs look no further than the esteemed winner of the Fall 2009 Semester American University of Paris Quotable Quote contest which was "The beauty of theology is that we are just going to sit here and argue about it until we all drop dead or doomsday happens." There are those who will tell you (and have told me) that there is a right and a wrong answer and a big, bold line between orthodoxy and heresy within the Christian tradition (and within other religious faith structures). The truth is there are a lot of Christians who read the same Bible and come to different – valid – interpretations. This is my religious-thought-related starting point – that even if there is “one correct interpretation” of this collection of books from different times and places written for different audiences, even if this correct reading exists, the realist in me sees many people interpreting – and acting on their interpretations in the socio-political sphere – differently – same goes for another text-based tradition that I study. The fun part of comparative religious study is that you are always being told you are wrong by someone you are reading – and therefore always learning about how people perceive God acting in the world and, in the realm of comparative religious ethics, how they believe they can and should join in. Religious thought, religious textual interpretation, and religion-inspired-action (be it evangelism or violence) doesn’t occur in a social, cultural, or political vacuum but rather ends up being one element among a conglomeration of factors (race, gender, socioeconomic status, among others) which shape a religious person’s worldview. So the doubt/skepticism would be that I don’t know that there are purely religious motivations for action and extreme doubt that there is only one valid way to interpret a religious text or to live within a religious system – though there are both helpful and harmful ways to interpret and live. I believe that undertaking the study of religion and teaching religion at a public state university will be the most appropriate venue to explore the interactions between religious thought and society (Go Noles!).

While there are many factors that went into this decision, these two were the most recurring and prominent in mine and Abbey’s deliberations. Hopefully something amusing will happen in the near future so I can unburden you faithful readers with blog posts that aren’t particularly funny.

As always, thanks for reading.