Why sport a Honorary Doctoral degree?
Posted by wisdomtree on April 2, 2008
I wonder Why so many Indian-Christian preachers sport their honorary Doctorates with such fanfare? Any and every Christian preacher holds a doctorate. Atleast, that’s what their title suggests. I really find this funny. Worse, they don’t even let their audience know that theirs is no earned PhD – not even in fine print?
So most christian preachers are Doctorates – without an University. We now have doctorates without Universities and academia without doctorates. This is the tragedy of evangelicalism in India.
However, this is a question of integrity. We who speak so much of integrity defy the standards we preach to others. I sincerely feel that sporting a honorary doctorate is no help at all – to anyone except the one sporting it. It is tragic that Christian preachers find their confidence in the titles before their names. Worse, half the audience cannot tell the difference between an earned Doctorate, (re)awarded doctorate and bought doctorates.
Can doctorates be bought? Sadly yes! and worse, they sport their doctoral titles. We must truly give rise to real intellectuals within the evangelical fold. The best thing to happen to Indian evangelicalism would this: a genuine intellectual leading from the front. I hope it happens soon….
We have had preachers leading us. We have had personalities leading us. But… its been a long time since Indian Evangelicals have been led by an Intellectual. We must give rise to sound evangelical scholarship and build our intellectual forte. Thats the way forward… We must learn from our pentecostal brothers who in the last two decades have undergirded their shade of faith with intellectual fortitude.
Please…. let’s give up our pretense of intellectualism by sporting a honorary degree. Let’s safeguard our integrity by telling our audience that it is a honorary degree (given to felicitate many years of ministry). We would have gained a listening ear… with our integrity and the power of the message that we live and believe.
steve lewis said
Greetings. I found your blog through a Google search of “emerging church India.” I’m currently researching the various expressions of the emerging church outside of a Western context. I’d be happy to hear your perspectives on what’s going on there, and how we could benefit from some mutually supportive relationships.
As it turns out, I will be in India in June and July, working with a man named Sunil Sardar on issues of caste. We’ll be in Delhi, which I know is a long way from Chennai . . . but if you happen to be in Delhi, I’d love to meet you.
R said
Consider a very simple question: What makes the world go round? And mind you this is no scientific question. But there are things that make the world go round. Like for instance, if you recall the first time you went for a movie in a movie hall… the experience of sitting in such a large area…in near total darkness… in front of a huge celluloid screen…the popcorn…the thumbs-up… the friends…maybe a girlfriend..etc..etc…etc…these things made the world go round…but today what may make the world go round in a movie hall after having spent some 25 years frequenting such places maybe the story…the cast…the quality setting of the hall… the pricing…etc etc etc…so what has changed…YOU. I’m told Abirami Theatre is now a hangout. I recall watching Braveheart & Schidler’s List in Abirami years ago and the pop corn was soggy…the place reeked of stale coffee machines…and there was the ocassional rat in the hall scurrying over my feet…we were all of 4-5 individuals in the hall on both ocassions… but the world did spin for me that day….
I think christianity is like this experience and christians (whatever you wanna call them Evangelicals, Liberals, Pentacostals, Charismatics, Lutherans, and you know this list is phenomenol) or for that matter human beings… require motivation, change, newness, a dot here and a dot there…an abbreviation for this and an abbreviation for that… so that the world will keep going round…
Why should there be any significant differentiation in reference to an earned, (re)awarded or bought doctorate. The method of acqusition is not the real issue… Did the act make the world go round for that person and the persons who naturally and generally come in contact with this person…if the answer is YES… the objective is met. There is always going to be someone like you who feels this is not the way it should be…but then YOU are clearly not the person(s) for whom the world has gone round… on a lighter note, let’s just say that your discovery that there are individuals who flaunt their acquisitions in ways that seem to you to represent a state of pathos is the world going round for you in a slightly different direction…
And don’t hurt yourself by equating intellectualism with degrees…unfortunately we live in a world where all information comes with conditions… and degrees are one such condition… and your right intellectualism does not have anything to do with degrees… but then what is intellectualism today … your defintion of it is not going to synchronize with anothers… and vice versa… instead of talking abt intelectualism and degrees and intelligence and other such metaphors… let’s talk abt COMMON SENSE.
I think we have more knowledge today that the world has seen in the last 20-30 thousand years of near known history. And access to a big chunk of this information is in the form of a mouse… Imagine 20 years ago when we were in school… if we had the internet then I may have opted for science … because i couldn’t draw for nuts… my fish diagram often looked like a frog… if the computer and internet were there… i could have either done a cut and paste job or used photoshop. I remember the first RZIM seminar I attended at the Lutheran Place on Haddows RD. and I wasn’t an intellectual by any stretch of imagination… I left the seminar feeling like i had marbles in my mouth to chew on… the only difference between what I heard there and what I would hear at the Egmore wesley were a few references to Hegel…Kant…Existentialism and a few other isms…all of which told me that the speaker had some education… you see my point is this… within our own academic circle… a “Dr.” before the name means quite a bit. A sermon or lecture from the mouth of a “Dr.” means even more of ‘quite a bit’. For truly no senate council would have a mere B.Th or B.D sitting on top… would they (whether evangelical, liberal, or whatever)? The reason being… only a “Dr.”
Now my friend our paths have gone in very different ways… and i’ve always been a bit of a boderline controversy… apart from the fact that some of these controversies are genuinely enumerated because of the way I have lived my life… but if there is one thing that will salvage us all from the apathy of our precarious existence today (christian or not)… it’s got to be COMMON SENSE… and surprisingly… it isn’t that common anymore… both among the “DR.” and the others… that’s how the line’s been drawn down academia.
Write to me some time at charlesplato@gmail.com
Rev. Rob said
As a minister who holds an Honorary Doctorate, I agree that it has become an ‘epidemic’ in the evangelical realm for ministers to obtain the title ‘Dr.’ My reason for obtaining-it because of the very reason-it gives a sense of credibility at first recognition and opens up a door of opportunity. But once that door is opened, it’s up to the character and content of the individual to hold his/her worthiness of the ‘Dr.’ title. I see nothing wrong with Bible Colleges/Universities conferring Honorary Degrees to people in ministry that area deserving. Many who receive the honorary doctorates have been doing effective ministry for years, and are at a place where students in colleges earning the degree are trying to get to. Religious colleges/universities have exempt status to confer ‘Religious’ degrees only; therefore, they are in their legal right to do so. Yes, ministers should in their bios state that the degrees are honorary
edzki said
Good point and I agree! I find it unfair to those who have spent half of their lives studying and sometimes leaving their country behind just to earn their doctorate. So do I just wait or prolong a ministry because I’m entitled to a doctorate later on? I don’t think so. I think the difference boils down to who is selfishly seeking a doctorate and to one who isn’t. I know of Christian leaders in my place who are willing to do just about anything or even spend thousands to go to a foreign country just to be conferred.