Knowledge and living

Yesterday I came across this interview with NT Wright who's book Surprised by Hope I'm reading through rather slowly. What struck me about this interview is how much I don't think about the matters being debated between Wright and Piper. And that got me to thinking why I have resisted the encouragements to go to seminary.

You don't earn a doctorate without some scholarly bent; and being someone who likes to think about the life of faith, a number of people have thus suggested that seminary might be a good thing. I'm not here to suggest that seminary can't be a good thing. However, I'd like to use some of my experiences in the language classroom to explain my resistance.

As I've spent time on both sides of the language classroom as both a learner and an instructor, it is obvious that rule knowledge is not the same as being able to converse with people. I have a love hate relationship with learning grammar. It's neat in a "hmm. They chose to express things using that way. Interesting." kinda of a sense. It's maddening in a "ARG! I need to squeeze my thoughts into those rules and its just.not.fitting.right!" My learning style has typically been to learn a massive amount of rules, try to speak but be overwhelmed by all the rules I'm trying to keep track of and apply, get frustrated, and then actively try to forget most of the rules, selectively apply a few of them and sting words together.

As an instructor, I've seen that sometimes my grammar nuts are my best language users, but frequently that's not the case. Peter MacIntyre a language researcher has proposed that "Willingness to Communicate" is a trait that varies from person to person, can be fostered or discouraged, affects language learning outcome. So my students with ok grammar knowledge but enthusiastic willingness to communicate tend to improve a lot faster (and are more fun to work with). My grammar freaks with low willingness to communicate can surprise me with bursts of fluency, but frequently do better in writing tasks where they can be methodical but scared stiff in speaking activities.

When I say that I am resistant to the idea of seminary, I am resistant to the idea that more knowledge necessarily helps me live a life of faith more coherently. As I read 10-20 pages a week of Surprised by Hope, I do think that Wright's explanation of resurrection will ultimately change my outlook on life and how I make decisions. But I don't think that resolving the debate between Wright and Piper will. To me going to seminary would be like my experience of studying Latin grammar intensively for 3 years and then attending a 45 min class on speaking Latin and only being able to produce "The soup is hot. The soup is cold." (True story.) It's far, far too much information at once to integrate into practice.

When I tell people I'm a linguist they frequently think that I know many languages. As a personal preference, in the past I have studied quite a few. However, on a day to day level, I don't study a particular language at all. I am not learning a new language. I look at language use with little reflection about my own experience. I don't want this to happen to my spiritual life. I don't want to dissect, examine, and write about other people's thoughts and experiences on the matter. I actually want to live a faith-filled life. So I'm taking it slow. I appreciate the hard work of others, but I only digest a bit at a time.