Fundamentalists and Scholarship, Part 9

Models of Scholarship

Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, and Part 8.

How does one do the work of a scholar? What does scholarship look like in day-by-day life? Can a fundamentalist hope to offer any contribution to the scholarly conversation?

In order to answer these questions, I want to consider three specific scholars. I choose these three as examples because they illustrate different ways in which scholars do their work. I will not mention their names, but these are people whom I have known and observed, and they are people who have modeled scholarly activity.

Example A is a man who is now at the end of his career. He has had a significant influence within Fundamentalism, and his name would be recognized by most readers of this essay. His books have been read widely within fundamentalist and evangelical colleges and seminaries.

Much of Dr. A’s life was spent in the classroom as a professor. He educated generations of individuals who became pastors, missionaries, professors, and administrators in Christian institutions. His load of teaching and advising was relatively heavy, as was his schedule for traveling and lecturing. Yet he did manage to make an impression upon at least one corner of the scholarly community.

How could Dr. A find time for reading, thinking, and writing? He was able to give himself to these activities by sacrificing avocations and domestic labor. Dr. A pursued few hobbies besides his scholarship. He engaged in few domestic activities. He did not spend hours in his woodshop. He did not remodel his own kitchen. He did not change the oil in his own car. He did not even balance his own checkbook. These tasks were performed or overseen by a gracious and willing wife. By absorbing most of the domestic oversight (i.e., by exercising genuine oikodespotesis), she enabled him to become a scholarly power. Such wives are rare, however, and no would-be scholar should reckon on finding one. Also, hiring carpenters and mechanics is expensive: Mrs. A could not have overseen these areas if she had not had money in the checkbook. Nevertheless, Dr. A illustrates the level of self-denial that is essential for true scholarship.

Example B is from the opposite end of the evangelical spectrum. A younger man, he had become a formative force in evangelical theology before his untimely death. Dr. B was a professor, but he spent only two days each week in his office on campus. On those two days he taught his classes, met with his students, and did whatever grading he could not entrust to graduate assistants. He would also peruse the list of titles from the current journals, and he would assign his assistant the responsibility to make copies of those that Dr. B wished to read.

On the remaining days, Dr. B would work from his study at home. He maintained a significant correspondence and always responded charitably to inquiries, even if they came from students in other institutions. Mostly, he gave himself to reading and writing. At the time of his death, he was publishing a volume every couple of years, besides numerous articles and papers. He had become a controversial figure, for his thought was reshaping the direction of Evangelicalism in ways that some considered to be unhealthy. Nevertheless, he illustrates the kind of influence that a single individual can achieve by giving himself to the disciplined production of scholarly writing.

Both Dr. A and Dr. B had also engaged in popular writing, and in both cases their writings were enormously persuasive. The power of their popular work, however, derived from the depth of study and thinking that they did in order to produce their scholarly work. They did not become scholars by publishing persuasive, popular books. Rather, their popular books were persuasive precisely because they were already engaged in the work of genuine scholarship.

Example C is a middle-aged professor who has moved from mainstream Fundamentalism into broad Evangelicalism. When he taught in fundamentalist institutions, his responsibilities were heavy enough to preclude most scholarly involvement. In spite of this, he did manage to produce an academic paper or a scholarly article once or twice each year. He regularly attended the meetings of the key learned societies, where he fostered relationships that opened publishing opportunities for him. He managed to achieve a fair degree of recognition and credibility within his discipline.

I mention Dr. C for two reasons. First, I have heard non-fundamentalists speak of him as an example of how a fundamentalist could hope to have an influence within the scholarly community. His influence came, not through the publication of massive tomes, but by the presentation of modest projects, each of which developed some aspect of a single idea. By sticking to one subject, he was able to explore it in detail and to offer a contribution to the world of scholarship.

The second reason that I mention Dr. C is precisely because he left Fundamentalism. More than one factor entered into his choice, but at least one of the factors was the chance to have greater opportunity to pursue the work of scholarship. Scholarship takes leisure, and when professors are being overloaded in the classroom, they simply do not have time for scholarly work.

In order to do their work, scholars must have the two “L’s”: libraries and leisure. The leisure that scholars require is not laziness. It provides them with the time and opportunity to do what no one else will: to read, to think, and to write. If we want scholars within Fundamentalism, then we are going to have to find ways to provide the two “L’s.” Until we do, we can expect to see a continued “brain drain” as bright young men and women are forced outside of fundamentalist institutions in order to pursue both their scholarly training and their scholarly careers.

Submission to Afflictive Providences, Job 1:21

Isaac Watts (1674-1748)

Naked as from the earth we came,
And crept to life at first,
We to the earth return again,
And mingle with our dust.

The dear delights we here enjoy,
And fondly call our own,
Are but short favours borrow’d now,
To be repaid anon.

‘Tis God that lifts our comforts high,
Or sinks ‘em in the grave;
He gives, and (blessed be his Name!)
He takes but what he gave.

Peace, all our angry passions, then!
Let each rebellious sigh
Be silent at his sov’reign will,
And every murmur die.

If smiling Mercy crown our lives,
Its praises shall be spread;
And we’ll adore the Justice too
That strikes our comforts dead.

This essay is by Dr. Kevin T. Bauder, president of Central Baptist Theological Seminary (Plymouth, MN). Not every professor, student, or alumnus of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.