Emerging Scholars Blog

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James Sire on ESN

Is a Tenure-Track Job a Futile Dream?

First, I realized I had to become a scholar if I was going to take seriously the vocation of an academic . . . Second, I learned that I needed to become a student. . . . Finally, I know that it is easy to say this and very hard to live this, but I found that it is important to remain rounded.
Hope for a graduate student?

Probably.

Last week, I addressed the question of whether graduate school was a path to certain doom. In the comments of that post, John questioned my use of statistics to show that people with Ph.D.s had relatively good job prospects in this economy. He shared a personal experience with trying to find a tenure-track faculty position in the humanities. Now that is a completely different matter than simply getting a job, and the outlook isn’t nearly as bright.

James K.A. Smith has written a series of posts offering advice on going to graduate school. He puts it very well:

Do you want to be an academic superstar, teaching at Harvard or Yale or at least Notre Dame? Do you want to be at the very pinnacle of your discipline? The go-to guy or gal that NPR calls for comment? Do you want to become moderately wealthy?

Well, then let’s be clear: In some cases, you simply can’t get there from here. If you’re at a Bible college right now, or a little Christian college, or probably even just a local state university, I hate to break it to you, but that route’s pretty much blocked for you.

Smith goes on to address the question of simply being in academia, not at the elite level, and offers a bit more hope. Still, I would compare the dream of getting a tenure-track job (especially in the humanities) to the dream of becoming a professional basketball player. Many things have to break just right for a person to even have a chance, and the chances still aren’t great. I’m not sure what’s a more amazing stat: that 17% of 7-foot-tall American men play in the NBA, or that only 17% of them play in the NBA.

Does this mean that you shouldn’t get a PhD in the humanities? Not necessarily, but it does mean that you should count the costs very carefully. And keep an open mind about alternative paths that might make themselves available.

James Sire: Yes, Virginia, There Is Life After Traditional Academe!

After my post last week, James Sire sent me the story of his decidedly nontraditional career. With his permission, I’d like to share it with you below.

When I graduated from the University of Missouri in 1964 with a Ph.D., all those who graduated with me were offered and took jobs. I had 3 choices — Nebraska Wesleyan; a new branch of Miami University (OH) in Dayton, now a university on its own; and the University of Baghdad. I chose the one that offered a traditional liberal education (my core interest). Three years later I began looking and interviewing for a Ph.D.-granting institution. I wanted to advance my narrowing academic interests (literary criticism or Milton or 17th century English Lit) and teach doctoral students. [Read more…] about Is a Tenure-Track Job a Futile Dream?

What comes after Postmodernism?

James W. Sire
James W. Sire (Ph.D., University of Missouri), retired editor of InterVarsity Press and author of The Universe Next Door and other books on worldviews and apologetics.

A question from friends at Evangelical Seminary:

What comes after Postmodernism?

What does James W. Sire have to offer in response to the $64 Question — now by inflation the $64 Million Dollar Question?

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This question is easy for me to answer. I don’t know. In fact, I don’t think anyone can know. I like the ad for one financial service. “Can you tell me, Dr. Hammerslammer, as dean of the Business School at Havitall University and the head of the most prestigious financial institution in the Western world, what will be the interest rate of a 3 year CD a year from now?” “No,” he says, and the camera pans away.

Or take this question. The date is January 2, 1982, and you are asked, “Where in the world is the next armed conflict going to occur?” You puzzle a bit, consider the Middle East, North Korea, Egypt and Israel and choose one. Exactly three months later war breaks out in the Falkland Islands between England and Argentina.

Prophecy in either political or intellectual history is wild speculation. [Read more…] about What comes after Postmodernism?

Insights from works by people from other worldviews?

James W. Sire
James W. Sire (Ph.D., University of Missouri), retired editor of InterVarsity Press and author of The Universe Next Door and other books on worldviews and apologetics.

James W. Sire addresses another excellent question from Micheal Hickerson, ESN Blog Contributor:

Should Christians worry if they find themselves enjoying or gaining insight from artistic, literary or academic works by people from other worldviews?

I know that this has been a question within the Christian world from the ancients to the present. Didn’t Tertullian (c. 160-230) ask, “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?” But, though I was brought up in a modestly fundamentalist community, the question has always seemed strange to me. Why not? I respond. All truth is God’s truth.

But let’s say that we find ourselves falling in love with the works of Virginia Woolf or Albert Camus — which, by the way, I have. What then? What truth could there be in their explicit rejection of orthodox Christianity? Well, for one thing, no writer can reject all truth. It takes quite a bit of truth just to continue living. For another, all people have something true to contribute to our understanding of the world and its wonders. If nothing else, they contribute the knowledge and wisdom they’ve accumulated by living out the image of God in which they were created.

[Read more…] about Insights from works by people from other worldviews?

Does worldview theory lead to relativism?

James W. Sire
James W. Sire (Ph.D., University of Missouri), retired editor of InterVarsity Press and author of The Universe Next Door and other books on worldviews and apologetics.

James W. Sire addresses another excellent question from Micheal Hickerson, ESN Blog Contributor:

Is there a danger that acknowledging different worldviews will lead to the position that “all truth is relative”?

Yes and No.

Yes. If in fact there are different worldviews (and indeed there are), then one way to avoid frustration in dialog between those holding divergent worldviews is to give up the notion that any worldview is more likely to be true than any other worldview. This situation has been realized in our American culture, notably on college and university campuses both in the dorms and the liberal arts and social science classrooms. Science and technology assume a determinate, objective reality. It keeps the chemistry building from exploding. It is, in other words, a fact that the presence of multiple and divergent worldviews exist in many cultures and that this has been a factor that has led to the notion that there is no way to determine which, if any of them, is true.

No. But this is only a socio-psychological situation. There is no logical connection between the fact of worldview pluralism and the rationality of worldview relativism. It is patently obvious that this sort of relativism cannot be true. The statement is nonsense. Why? Because if it were true, then it would be false. For the statement that “all truth is relative” is itself a claim to a truth that could not be true. The statement is an illustration of “self-referential incoherence,” an obvious logical fallacy. Pluralism (the existence of many worldviews in one society) in no way entails relativism.

Furthermore, in order for “all truth is relative” to be true, a host of contrary views would have to exist. There can be no relativism if people are not making contradictory claims. Such relativism cannot be the understanding of, say, Muslims, atheists, Hindus and Christians. Their worldviews involve many notions contradictory to each other. They must refuse to believe the “truth” of relativism. [Read more…] about Does worldview theory lead to relativism?

What is the biggest challenge to today’s apologist?

James W. Sire
James W. Sire (Ph.D., University of Missouri), retired editor of InterVarsity Press and author of The Universe Next Door and other books on worldviews and apologetics.

James W. Sire addresses:

What is the biggest challenge to today’s apologist? — A question received by email inquiry.

I doubt that there is a “today’s apologist.” Every person engaged in presenting the Christian faith is “today’s apologist.” Moreover, I can address the question but I am no longer an active traveling apologist with exposure to “today’s” campuses. Among my current friends are a bitter Dawkins-type atheist and retired scientist, a mid-forties New Ager, a curious high school grandson, a liturgical Christian devoted to the Prayer Book, and a couple of dozen close friends and fellow evangelical suburban Presbyterian church members mostly in the professions or retired. I will therefore answer briefly and more from what I observe about present culture than what I understand from my friends.

Apathy heads the list of challenges. Who cares about serious issues of religion and faith? Of course, apathy is more a cultural or spiritual condition than an intellectual puzzle. Pascal said wine, women, song and gambling were the major ways of escaping doubt and the terror of a universe empty of the divine. Today we could add sports, TV and video games. But on to some of the intellectual challenges. [Read more…] about What is the biggest challenge to today’s apologist?