PhD PTSD

I have been struggling to shake off repeated PTSD-type flashbacks of a day I have dreaded for five years. So I thought in the interests of reintegration into the world after doctoral studies I should try and breathe, and record what happened. This is long and self-indulgent, so I am just putting it out there for reasons of my own. And having written this, can I please stop obsessing about something that has no possible further value in any way to anybody? Please, subconscious, let this go!

On the day of my viva Lesley and I left at quarter to seven in the morning to creep through the Cape Town and Pinelands traffic and make the 50km trip to Stellenbosch in time for my eight thirty meeting with Johan Cilliers. When we arrived we both needed to go to the toilet, and as usually happens in these circumstances I emerged from the gents first. Joseph, one of the cleaners, came along with a large bag of trash to tip into the bin.

“Why are you here so early?” he says.

“No, I’m here to defend my thesis” I say.

“Oh,” he says, “They’ll hold that in this room here. Now the thing to remember” he says with measured weight, “is not to stop talking until they ask you to stop. Just keep talking and don’t stop for anything until somebody tells you to stop. And remember…you know more about your subject than anyone else.” Lesley turns up at this point and off we stroll, and she says “Is he a professor?”

Anyway, I then get psychologically prepped by Johan and Lesley – “you know more about your subject than anybody else. Listen carefully and answer slowly”. And then the dread hour strikes.

I take my place at the head of a large conference table. In the middle of the table two distant professors (external examiners in every sense) on speaker phone – Professor Nel and Professor Wepenaar. On my left Professor Johan Cilliers, who is not allowed to speak or otherwise assist me as his candidate. Next along, Professor Xolani the missiologist, then another missiologist whose name I didn’t catch. Then a few more professors – an Old Testament guy, an ethics guy (I think). On my right is Reggie Nel, the new dean with whom I have sparred over the years at SAMS conferences. Beyond him Christo, the Church History professor, a new faculty member, and that is our little party.

I get 5 minutes to introduce my work – sorry about the English, but my pa het met ‘n Engelse meisie getrou. Smiles but not the best reception I have ever got to that little joke. And then the grilling begins.

Prof. Nel on the speaker phone wants to know how exactly I position my topic in the field of practical theology…apparently something called diakonlogics is really, really important. And why had I relied on such flimsy definitions of evangelism, since evangelisation defined by somebody else was not taken into account – I merely used Bosch and Hunsberger. And what about the incarnational aspect of evangelism as well as the propositional dimensions? And how did I select my ministers? Did I randomise them in a sufficiently academic way?

Bit of a head-scratcher, some of this this, but fortunately I am able to take it all back to John Wesley who is a unique contributor to a wholistic theory of evangelism as both propositional and incarnational. About my positioning of my thesis within the field of practical theology, I throw in the good ol’ Arbuckle fish-in-water concept – I swim in a practical sea. I fudge some stuff about diakonologics, but since I don’t know what on earth I’m talking about I hope nobody notices. Apparently diakonia is related only tangentially to diakonologics. I didn’t have a hope. Does that answer your question, sir? I have failed to follow the first of my day’s advice about not stopping until stopped.

Next up, on the speaker phone, Prof. Wepenaar. Why no mention of God in my definition of liturgy?

Woops. Sorry, I totally missed it. It should be there. Probably a case of not referring back to earlier work after doing subsequent work – where I certainly do develop a clear understanding that there can be no liturgy without an active God, with complete agency to convene liturgy where he chooses…

Oh, and getting back to Prof Nel’s question about the randomisation of the interviewees, I did indeed have access to all the ministers of Cape Town Methodist churches, but many deselected themselves. I nevertheless got a good spread of gender, age and race. It dawns on me that Prof Nel cannot have read my thesis with too much attention since I spent so much time carefully and conscientiously wrestling with the issue of sample selection. I keep that to myself but I suddenly feel more relaxed – the man hasn’t actually been able to read my stuff well enough to grasp what I was saying 😊

I then talk about how the shape of the study is “Inductive” – part of the point of structuring it the way I have is to allow for important issues to emerge from the data and put the insights together for application to the issues of the Methodist Church.

Then Wepenaar asks me the first question that leaves me floundering (discounting Nel’s pedantic probing). He reels off a list of contemporary liturgical contributors and asks why I have not referred to such. This is puzzling as I have definitely tried to refer to contemporary liturgists but I suppose published books are not as important as the latest journals. But the truth is I definitely feel that all my theoretical structure is tentative and tell the assembled academics so – I was trying to deal with interviews and the Journal, and was simply not able to give as much attention to the specific areas of their concern within the confines of my study. I apologised for leaving out his favourite authors. I am uncomfortably aware Wepenaar agrees with my personal reservation that the thinnest part of my work is the theoretical underpinning of the second chapter.

Does that answer his question? Apparently it does. I hate telephones. I have also failed to follow instrutions for the second time, by stopping taling before being stopped.

Then Xolile SImon, as inquisitor number three, takes up his scalpels.

Now, Reverend, he says…

Nope…I say, I am just a local preacher, not a Reverend…awkward moment, but I am not going to let that slide. I am a layman amongst clergy here- they all HAVE to be clergy in this department and I am not sure that everybody on the faculty likes it.

He wants me to tell him how the beginning of the thesis ties up with the end.  Lovely question! Long hop in the slot, goes for six. That enables me to witter on quite comfortably for a few minutes.

Then he goes in for the kill with a slight sorry-to-have-to-do-this-to-you smile, and asks me why my work shows so much bias – is it not rue that I am merely “discovering” what I intended to discover? Why am I so interested in numbers of converts? Why do I ignore the radical insights of the ministers and return to such well-worn preconceived conclusions? In some ways this was the most combative of all the questions and it was at this point that I seemed to experience a particularly deep sense of assurance and capacity in telling the story and defending it.

Yes, I was and am biased. And in part that bias has to be taken into account to make sense of the work. But my investigations had to be shaped by abductive considerations framed by my hypothesis. Certain things were emphasised because I was asking certain questions, and the ministers were talking about certain issues. The issue with numbers was definitely not my issue – I had shown that clearly in my analysis of Wesley which produced the surprising result that he himself was not interested in the crowds – was in fact deeply cynical about the mass gatherings – and that his primary intention was close, honest conversation. In fact the ministers themselves showed definite bias towards numbers in such interactions as their evaluation of the full attendance at Christmas and Nqopiso, and subsequent poor attendances during the year. I was asking about conversion, and they were talking about church attendance numbers. (very interesting new insight into my data but anyway).

At this stage I was feeling more and more at home in my data. I was realising that I KNEW what had been said and that these guys were just sort of throwing things at it to see how I handled their questions, perhaps to see if anything would stick. I was speaking in an articulate way, without stumbling or pausing to think much, focusing on my defence and driving home my points fairly solidly. This is not my usual public persona.

I tackled the “radically creative insights” with some vigour. Basically my defence was, “what radical insights?” The black ministers used conservative theological categories and promoted business as usual, the white ministers, presiding over churches in decline, used a sort of anti-establishment rhetoric – not particularly radical nor particularly creative - that did not seem to take cognizance of their context/situation and appeared to be aimed at preserving an unsatisfactory status quo. (And that is not biased observation – read the interviews for yourself and see if you don’t agree which is the point of this way of research – I don’t say) My only defense against accusations that I had misread the data through excessive bias was to appeal to the data and by now I was pretty darn sure that nobody had actually read it. Did that answer his question?

And then I noticed it. Xolani smiled and sat back. And each of the other people who questioned me (at least those that were not hidden by the telephone) did the same. I began to realise that this was more along the lines of ritual ordeal, they were more interested in seeing how I responded to attack than in the issues themselves. This irritated me a little. I was now both on an incredible adrenalin high and feeling very centred in myself and my subject. People were praying for me and the power seemed to give my responses extra juice. This was not the usual Martin writhing under the lash of public debate..

The Church history bloke pointed out a book I might have consulted. Sure, I hadn’t seen it. Moving on. He did not expect any further response. Anyway, I could talk about what I had done and read, not on what I had not read or written about. Lots of people commented on how much I had read in impressed sounding terms, so I was not under-read. I was sure the academics would all understand not being able to read everything that might be available.

A theme ran through all the academics’ little build up to their questions – they were alarmed by the bulk of my research, impressed by the data and liked my analysis. Fine by me. What I was realising more and more was that they were just picking at loose ends here and there, bringing up issues related to their fields of expertise. But as for me, I was truly and defensibly the king of my tiny castle.

Next up I got a question from the professor sitting nearest the window, whose name I forget. Why did I not refer to the wealth of liturgical material about art galleries and other such public institutions being used for the convening of Christian liturgical performances? I pointed out again that I was most concerned with deriving insights inductively from situations on the ground in Africa, and that the vast majority of the inhabitants of Cape Town were unlikely to ever enter a museum. See my extensive work on post-modernism not being the primary interpretive category. Did that answer his question. Yes, but he disagrees. What planet are you living on I privately thought, irritably.

Then the Old Testament prof asks me why there is no Biblical component to my thesis? Surely a well-rounded discussion of the subject calls for a scriptural component? No, I said, I had originally intended to run interviews, Journal and Bible narratives side by side, but once I began to realise the vast bulk of the data I realised that another 150-page tranche of Biblical analysis would have meant I would not have been able to have finished, and would not have been able to keep the study within the scope of my research plan, so I had systematically gone through the work and removed scriptural debate. (Not letting on that this had been Johan’s advice – the Biblical scholars will pick on any use of Scripture like vultures, he had said. Rather leave it out and stick to your main points).

But then aren’t you proposing that people should rely on Wesley not the Bible? I was now on a roll. Nope. As Bosch pointed out Augustine discovered Paul, Luther discovered Augustine, and Wesley famously discovered Luther. What I am saying is that we should discover Wesley in the same way – as Pelikan points out we need roots not in order to idolise former heroes but to learn from their ways of solving problems and locating contemporary worlds in the same event horizon as the biblical texts. Wesley turns out to have been deeply interested in whether or not people actually believed the words, and weren’t just formally “Christian” by religious category. Further work of course needs to be done of conversion from a Biblical studies point of view, but by focusing on Wesley’s hermeneutic it challenges us to develop our own hermeneutic to cope with reading the Bible in our context. That seemed to go down well. Smiles again and the interrogator relaxing back into his seat.

What new thing did I bring to the discussion? The professor by the window again. He didn’t see any new way of approaching the issues suggested by my work, no new language or concepts. Nope, I said, I am not that sort of brilliant thinker. I looked at the data and drew some conclusions. Inductively there appeared to be theoretical gaps.  I am just concerned that the Methodist church should in fact rediscover the Journal, and then, actually, that WOULD be something new – a more direct appreciation of context and an emphasis on conversion again. Talking about faith and alternative faith? That would, actually, be new for the Methodists, but be helpfully framed in terms of its Wesleyan DNA. Smile. Concessionary body language.

“Thank you Martin”, says Reggie – can you please leave while we discuss what we have heard. I made some joke or other which no matter how hard I try I cannot recall, and left on a wave of laughter. Lesley says “Well at least they’re laughing” as we retire to the staff tea room whilst Johan gives the last little bits of context the panel needs.

In the tea room the tea lady very, very kindly asks me if I want some coffee. I think she has seen her fair share of shattered post-viva wreckages. Yes please. But it’s only Ricoffee, she says apologetically. That’s fine I say. I have jittery shakes, and desperately need a hot drink. It tastes wonderful.

Johan comes out and joins Lesley and me, having fulfilled his last duties towards me. His father in law had died the night before and I am in awe of his spending time with me today. I know it’s his job but I am not entirely rational in this post-adrenalin decompression phase.

Then Reggie and Xolani come out looking grave, and Johan and I are ushered into Reggie’s office for the Verdict. All cool. They like my work, they like my concept, they like my answers, fix up the brackets and full stops and we’re away! Xolani says it’s the best use he’s ever seen of Osmer’s concept of research. Handshakes all round. I’m stunned.

I’m swaying slightly and Lesley gently takes me away and drives me home, with me convulsively recalling snippets of the exam all the way.