A short time ago I met a cheerful conservative gadfly in the tiny Bella Vista Post Office, so small it should be called the Postette Room.
This meeting led to a local teaching assignment that I enjoy immensely, force-feeding English to reluctant young college students. Various claims are made about this class, some of them true. I did promise to flunk instantly all who spelled Bible as "bible" and run them out of the college for good measure. One of the terms they are learning is hyperbole.
I was happy to send the baseball team on their tour with my favorite sound effects machine. The recipients lit up - but others cringed at the thought of hearing it on the bus - for hours.
My entire day is spent teaching, either online or in the classroom, on blogs and Facebook, or through publishing and giving away books. I am the Johnny Appleseed of libraries. When I find a good book someone would like, off it goes, from my ever-changing collection to theirs. Books are like seeds - they should not be stored in dark places without being broadcast.
Recently a former confirmation student wrote about home gardening, so I sent him Wormhaven via Dropbox, through Facebook. When a graduate student wrote about losing two daughters, I sent her Angel Joy, the same way. She thanked me and shared it - so easy to do on the Net.
Unique
One of the current language felonies is saying "very unique," which is wrong. Unique means "one of a kind." Nothing can be very one of a kind.
This blog is unique because I earned a PhD in theology. When I look at various blogs, and even at blog hives, where various Lutheran bloggers buzz about UOJ - I find no academic credentials. The exception is Lito Cruz, PhD, who earned his degree in math and computers. His writing is a model of critical thinking.
http://extranos.blogspot.com/
The Lutheran Church used to have respect for credentials. The European Lutheran theologians earned doctorates as a necessary union card.
Now the "conservative Lutherans" get drive-by DMins and call themselves "Dr" five seconds after graduation - often before. Two Shrinkers in Columbus - who did so much to damage young Tim Glende - went about bragging that they had been in doctoral programs - Floyd Luther Stolzenburg and Robert Schumann. Neither one finished, of course, because that requires work rather than gabbing and bossing people around.
The most ironic example is the man at the pinnacle of conservative Lutheran publishing - Bruce Kintz. He has a drive-by "doctorate," which he managed to obtain online in three years at Lindenwood - while switching from financials at an airplane factory to publishing theology books. Pretty agile, eh? How many people can pivot from Excel into education while working in a full-time job that has nothing to do with all previous work? And become "Dr"?
A master's in education, online, normally takes two years. I know - because I teach in one such program. Needless to say, I have never heard of Lindenwood University, which went bankrupt in 1989.
Paul McCain comes to mind for hanging around Ft. Wayne extra years and earning nothing. Perhaps he did too much xeroxing, if you get my drift. I xeroxed for the Yale Medical Library, but I never put my name on the articles I sent to the doctors who requested them. I would have loved the honors - "Livers in Diseased Cows" by G. Jackson, etc etc. I would have published letters thanking me for my writing - "Thank you Dr. Jackson. Now I understand Bossy so much better - and she is giving much better milk. Keep up the great work on livers." George Bauer
I am sure Matt Harrison is called "Dr" by everyone, even though he failed to finish an in-house degree at a Concordia. When an LCMS pastor becomes SP, they get someone to grant an honorary doctorate, to fool the maximum amount of people. A genuine honorary doctorate is worth more than an academic degree, because academic peers grant it to honor intellectual achievement. Perhaps working with ELCA while running as a conservative is proof of cerebral dexterity. If that be the case, then McCain should get one for plagiarizing Rome and promoting UOJ while posing as a "confessional Lutheran."
PhD
A PhD program can teach the basics of scholarship, doing original research. The original meaning of scholarship comes from the Greek word for leisure - taking the time to study a subject at great length.
Brett Meyer has shown everyone the meaning of scholarship. He has relentlessly pursued what others have claimed for UOJ and compared that to the Scriptures and the Book of Concord. He is polite and reserved while the UOJ Storm-Brownies boil over with incoherent rage. He is also in contact with like-minded Lutherans and asks for opinions and facts.
Not all PhDs are scholars. Many put their brains on hold and teach the same things until they reach room temperature. They can teach a lifetime on the strength of a dissertation that no one except the committee members read.
Being a PhD does not mean being right all the time. Ideally, it means developing a habit of research and independent thinking. My information about Kintz and McCain comes from their own LinkedIn profiles. Unlike news stories, the only one who can change the LI profile is the individual who posted it. The claims are the ipsissima verba of Kintz and McCain, though they may change when the horrified authors realize they are being quoted verbatim.
Dr. does not mean smarter than anyone else. The word means "teacher" and not "physician." The physicians were the first to change the name of their degrees, to add prestige. An MD who gets a specialty earns the MA degree. He has to enter a PhD program to earn a PhD in his field. My best friend at Yale, the sainted Bruce Wenger, explained this to me. He earned an MD at Yale Medical, then a PhD in physiology at Yale. LI gave him this evaluation at the age of four, "You are a pretty smart fellow, Bruce." Bruce smiled.
Lutherdom suffers from a superfluity of parsons who want to teach without studying. That is why the Net is burdened with endless excursions about forgiveness-without-faith, repeating the same errors. They start with Pietism and Halle (Easter absolution) and circle around the same modernist experts, Talmud-like, burying the original text in their unwarranted opinions.
Unpleasant Truth or Smooth Lies?
The complainers love to gripe about my posts, but I am dealing with cancer, not PR. When my dermatologist diagnosed a patch on my leg as basal cell carcinoma (skin cancer), he blasted it with a cattle prod for a long time. Smoke rose from my BBQed calf, not the roast I wanted.
He should have begun with, "This will only hurt for a few months." It was numb at the time, but not later. And it really, truly hurt - as any deep burn would - for many weeks.
Lutherans are dealing with their cancers by using makeup, band-aids, and excuses.
