Why a New Theology Ph.D. Program at ORU? Three
Since we like to add the “practitioner” dimension to the Ph.D. program, an immediate question arises: “What’s then the difference between this and the traditional professional degrees such as D.Min., and D.Miss. (or DICS)?” If field-based data is brought to research, one may ask, “Is this Ph.D. a glorified version of the professional degree?” Not at all!
It is NOT where you obtain your data for theologization, but how and for what outcome one processes it. The prime goal of a Ph.D. study is one’s contribution to the existing knowledge. Any part of the existing knowledge can be criticized, revised, or added to.
Therefore, a Pentecostal leader’s work to bring elementary education to Muslim families in Francophone Africa can use the field data and experiences into the building of knowledge on Christian mission, education and poverty, interreligious engagement, and/or even the relationship between the church and state. The researcher naturally interacts with the literature available in the relevant areas. But the lively field data plays a critical role in validating, challenging and enhancing the existing understanding. The new knowledge is also “generalizable”: in spite of its specific contextual locatedness, the principles learned can be applied to other contexts. For this reason, epistemology (“how do you know what you know”) and methodology (“how do you evaluate and process raw information”) become the hallmark of the Ph.D. program.
How about professional degrees? Yes, they will help to improve one’s practice by reflecting on what he or she has been doing. Both are valuable but serve different purposes. #ORUtheology #ORUPhD