Beeson Podcast, Episode #649 Dr. Mark Gignilliat Date >>Announcer: Welcome to the Beeson podcast, coming to you from Beeson Divinity School on the campus of Samford University. Now your hosts, Doug Sweeney and Kristen Padilla. >>Doug Sweeney: Welcome to the Beeson Podcast, I’m your host, Doug Sweeney, here with my co-host, Kristen Padilla. We are excited to feature our own professor, Mark Gignilliat on the podcast today, and to speak with him about our new doctoral program in theology for the church, which will launch next year. But before we introduce him, I have a bittersweet announcement to make. After nearly nine years at Beeson, my colleague, Kristen Padilla, is leaving to serve as an acquisitions editor for B&H Publishing. We are really happy for her. This new job allows Kristen to follow her academic passions and advance her career. But of course we’re sad to lose her. She’s been a great marketing manager and a wonderful co-host on the Beeson Podcast. Kristen, I’m sad to say this is the last show you’ll co-host with me. I wonder if you might say just a word or two about your time at Beeson before we introduce today’s guest? >>Kristen Padilla: Yeah. Thanks, Doug. It is really bittersweet. I am a graduate of this school and it was a real joy and privilege when Dr. George invited me back on staff. That was unexpected. And I’ve been able to see a lot of wonderful people come through these programs that we offer. One of the first things that Dr. George told me when I took the job was that I would be producing a podcast – and I had never done anything with a podcast before. He was really a trailblazer in starting the Beeson Podcast. And so I jumped right in, tried to figure it out along with him, listened to a lot of interviews and then when you came in as Dean in 2019 you were kind of enough to ask me to co-host this with you, which is something I’ve never done and have often felt intimidated sitting next to someone as brilliant as you. But you’ve been very kind and gracious and it’s been a real joy, listeners, to be with you each week and to get to talk to some amazing people. So, thank you, Dr. Sweeney, for this opportunity. It’s been a real joy and I’ll still be around because my husband teaches here and it’s a remote job, so I’m grateful that this is not really a goodbye but a see you later. >>Doug Sweeney: That’s great. Well, we love you, Kristen. Don’t be a stranger. >>Kristen Padilla: Thank you. >>Doug Sweeney: Do you want to introduce today’s guest? >>Kristen Padilla: Yes. I’m so glad that Dr. Mark Gignilliat gets to be my final guest as co-host. He is professor of Old Testament at Beeson Divinity School. He is, as Doug has said, the Director of Beeson’s new PhD program. He was my professor – who was actually one of my favorite professors when I was a student. >>Doug Sweeney: I’m not surprised. >>Kristen Padilla: He taught me biblical theology. So, it’s a real pleasure to have you back on the show today, Mark. Welcome. >>Mark: I’m very glad to be here for such a momentous occasion. Your last podcast. I mean, I’ve been here 18 years and you’ve been within the orbit of Beeson for that entire time. So, what a remarkable journey you’ve had. So, I’m glad to be here with you all today. >>Kristen Padilla: Thank you. Thank you. Well, typically we begin our shows by asking the guest to introduce themselves. But our people know you. (laughs) >>Mark: Yeah, I think I’m part of the furniture around here now. Yeah, there’s that lamp shade over there. >>Kristen Padilla: Well, if they don’t know you then they can go back to a previous episode or go to the website. So, I want to begin by asking you about this new development at Beeson that we have already mentioned. Most of our folks will have probably read it on the website, but it’s always good to hear things by a living voice. So, tell us, what is this new exciting development for Beeson and indeed for Samford that we’re talking about today? >>Mark: Yeah, I’m very excited to talk about it. We’re launching Samford’s first research PhD. So, that’s pretty momentous I think for the whole of the institution. And of course for Beeson this is our first PhD as well. And we’ve wrestled with what to call this thing. And it’s still a little bit clunky but we’re identifying it as a PhD in Theology for the church. And that is kind of an intentional description of a degree program that’s covering the theological disciplines in [inaudible 00:04:51]. But has the church as the ecclesial location by which this degree is meant to work itself out. And we’ll talk a little bit more about this as the podcast goes along. But that’s the kind of idea is to broker a PhD that lives in some sort of almost new region, a doctor of ministry was a degree that focused on a dissertation that had a practical outworking in the life of ministry in the context of a parish. Traditional academic PhD’s tend to be very discipline specific with the outcome for most hopeful PhD graduates to be some sort of teaching life in the academy. Our degree is intended to be an academic degree with a research component via its dissertation. But it’s ideal graduate is a graduate that understands their calling within the sphere of the church – to work out that theological call in the context of the church. Now we understand that in sort of broad terms what that might look like. But that’s where this degree is hopefully brokering new territory. >>Doug Sweeney: Dr. Gignilliat, you know as well as I do we received a lot of interest from people, ever since we announced that we’re launching this PhD program. And so probably at least for a while we’ll have to be just a little bit selective. We’re not trying to be snooty or exclusive, but there’s so many people who have expressed interest and we can only handle so many at a time. So, for those who are listening and they think, “Hey, I wonder if this is for me?” Can you say a word about who we are trying to attract to this program? Who are we trying to teach, serve, equip in this program? >>Mark: Yeah, that’s a great question. And really it probably needs to be framed within the larger sense of how we’ve wrestled with this institutionally. I think we’ve talked about a possible PhD at Beeson for some time. And part of that I think maybe not resistance but hesitancy toward a degree program like this is not to allow it to become the tail that wags the institutional dog. Our master of divinity degree training men and women for the ministry, that’s what drives our institutional ethos. And this particular degree program seems to be sort of a natural extension of what we’re doing on the masters level. So, that’s where this sort of organic fit comes into play. But with that said, we’re a small institution. We have a limited faculty. So, to keep our institutional purpose and vision sort of on course we have to keep it limited. So, with that said, I think our idea is to admit five to seven students a year. And our ideal student is someone that fits sort of three criteria. Number one, there’s a certain academic baseline. Number two, there’s a Christian character and orthodoxy component to this. People will need to identify themselves in those terms in concert with our institutional identity. And then thirdly, and this is going to be a really crucial component. The applicants and those that are applying for this need to be able to identify how this degree will serve their own vocation within the church. And that’s going to be a pretty crucial factor in the admissions committee – sorting through who we accept and who we don’t. I can imagine that there may be some who are maybe more academically apt who haven’t quite thought through the way in which this degrees works itself out vocationally for them, that might not necessarily get into the program where somebody else will because they have some vocational clarity about how this degree works itself out for them. That’s something I think for all applicants to think through. And we’ll articulate that more in our publications as we go forward. >>Kristen Padilla: Well, let’s talk about concrete details. Let’s get into some of the nitty gritty. How do you plan to deliver this program? Will students have to move here? Will it be online? Will it be hybrid? >>Mark: Yeah. It’s a hybrid degree. I mean, that’s the nature of this degree program. And let me try to sort of outline the vision for this. We’ll have six doctoral seminars that will be offered over a two year period. And these doctoral seminars are going to be weeklong intensives. And this is what I think makes this degree a little bit different within the spheres of competing PhD’s that are out there. The doctoral seminars that students will take will all be shared within a single cohort. So, instead of someone saying, for example, I want to go and do a PhD in Church History, or I want to do a PhD in Biblical Studies, our students will all come in and take a common set of doctoral seminars together. This is the generalist side of preparing pastor theologians. So, they will all take a course on Old Testament Theology, New Testament Theology II, and History and Doctrine, one in Church and World in the 21st Century, and then a directed reading’s course with their supervisor preparing them for their research prospectus and dissertation. Those courses will be weeklong intensives, offered in the spring, the summer, and the fall. There will be pre reading work, work on site, and then a kind of post ... some sort of research component to the degree. So, those are the actual doctoral seminars that are being offered. And then in the semester we’ll also offer a research seminar which will be a biweekly virtual seminar where the faculty here will gather and the students will kind of chime in via some sort of Zoom component. And the idea for those research seminars is to help to build a research culture. That’s the idea. And we’ll have visiting guests that will come in and lecture. We’ll have faculty that will present. We’ll have students that will present. Those will be the moments I think where students begin to kind of observe what theological research looks like, what virtuous engagement with other people’s ideas looks like, and that’s where I hope the culture building kind of goes within that seminar. >>Doug Sweeney: You mentioned a couple of times the role of supervisors, faculty supervisors in the PhD and for those who have not yet done a PhD, either listening to this or trying to figure out what this experience would be like, just tell them a little bit about generally speaking the relationship between a PhD supervisor and the student and then what will that relationship be like just practically in your program? >>Mark: Yeah, I think that differs from institution to institution. I took my terminal degree in a British institution, the University of St. Andrews. And your relationship with your supervisor in that setting is really everything. Now, there’s a lot of co-curricular activity that you can do to kind of gain knowledge in different areas, but the supervisor is kind of everything. American programs are probably a little bit different than that, but the supervisor still plays a very important role. This is not the most felicitous phrase, but the idea that I’ve been kind of tossing around with our PhD is we want to encourage students to become jack of all trades and masters of one. So, the jack of all trades side of things is where we hope to kind of skin that cat on our doctoral seminars. The master of one is when they’re beginning to take that deep dive in that particular area of research under a supervisor who knows the field and is ably read to help guide a student toward his or her own work. And that’s a very important relationship that develops over time. So, I think my prayer is that it both becomes a professional and a kind of spiritual friendship between supervisor and student, as they wrestle through ideas together. There’s a real practical component to this. I mean, supervisors will help students learn how to write better, how to articulate arguments in a little bit more thoughtful way, and also hopefully be able to point them to various interlocutors in their subject area that they need to be engaging. So, the supervisor’s role is really important. And that will be frankly part of the admissions process. Making sure that we’re aligning people that are fit with one another in such a way. >>Doug Sweeney: And so here at Beeson, we don’t need the whole list of faculty who will be involved, but just for an example, who would be three or four or five people who might be supervisors in the program? >>Mark: Right. And the idea behind that is we want to pair students up with faculty that are actively involved in research. So, they’re participating in the life of the guild, they’re involved in professional meetings, they’re actively involved in some sort of publishing profile. And we just are blessed here at Beeson. I mean, most of our faculty here are doing that kind of work. For example, in history and doctrine we have folks like Timothy George and Piotr Małysz. We’re losing Carl Beckwith, I mean, this is kind of a sad thing, but we’ve lost one professor, but hopefully someone will come in after him. But Piotr Małysz, Timothy George. Gerald Bray will be around able to supervise in history and doctrine as well. In practical theology we’ll have folks like Mike Pasquarello who has done work in Bonhoeffer and preaching and really the Anglican preaching tradition. We’ll have folks like Doug Webster who have done a lot of work on the interface between hermeneutics and homiletics. In biblical studies, John Linebaugh in New Testament who is a Pauline scholar, Oswaldo Padilla is doing work in Paul and the pastorals. We would have myself ... I would do work in Old Testament. We really are kind of blessed to have our disciplines somewhat covered here. And I didn’t mention everyone. There are others as well. Yeah. >>Kristen Padilla: Can you talk to us a little bit more concretely about the dissertation process? So, when someone applies, I would imagine and correct me if I’m wrong, but they would at least have in their mind the type of project that they would like to research and then what does that look like then? They have a supervisor ... what is the dissertation process going to look like? >>Mark: Yeah, that’s a great question. And sort of building off of my own experience on this, building a research prospectus ... I mean, the heavy laden term I was given when I was doing my own work was architectonic ... it’s not a really great term. But that was what I was taught. And this is where students will actually at the end of their two years of course work do some sort of comprehensive examination over their coursework and defend their prospectus. And the way in which that prospectus would work I think is that you’re dealing with a kind of annotated outline of where the whole dissertation is going. And I say this ... and I’ll say this more to students as we go forward ... the question about what the genre is of a dissertation is probably something of an open conversation. I remember back in my own day there was a lot of language about a dissertation is original research. I don’t know how much more original research we need on the bible, for example. We could talk about this. The way in which I’m framing it is what makes a dissertation in the genre of an academic dissertation is recognizing where the scholarship is on a particular field, being able to identify the different interlocutors on that subject, and being able to advance the argument in that scholarly discipline by engaging both primary and secondary sources. That doesn’t mean that it’s going to change the world. It doesn’t mean that you’ve discovered a new planet out there. But you see something in the discipline that needs to be addressed and even if it’s ... can I use the football analogy? Even if it’s moving the ball two yards forward, that’s a legitimate dissertation. But someone that says, for example, I want to know what Karl Barth says about the doctrine of election and I’m going to say everything that Barth said about that. Or I want to know Jonathan Edwards on this. Just describing the work of someone is not a legitimate ... that’s a great master’s thesis. But a PhD has got to do both primary and secondary work. And we’ll help students kind of sort through that. And that gets I think back to Dr. Sweeney’s point that a supervisor will help a student think through that. Now, in terms of process, getting the overarching idea, identifying interlocutor’s, seeing how this argument is going to push forward, that gets you out of the gate. And then we all know it’s going to change. I remember ... I’m embarrassed to even admit this ... but I went to St. Andrews with a dissertation idea. I was going to do this. And I’ll never forget the day I walk into the library to the new books. There was a book ... the horror story – the dissertation I was going to write had just been published by Cambridge. But the dissertation I ended up writing was completely different than my original idea. And that’s part of the fun of the discovery process. You create a kind of architectonic, you begin to dive into it, and then you discover where it’s going to go. >>Doug Sweeney: All right, Mark. So, let’s say I’m a 35 year old pastor. And this sounds exciting to me. I loved my time in seminary. I’m excited about growing biblically and theologically for the sake of my ministry, for the sake of God’s people. I don’t want to have to quit my job, give up my church, to enroll in this program. I don’t want to be doing it for ten or twelve years. Can you give me any help in just thinking about the time commitment, the time table for doing this PhD? >>Mark: Yeah, great question. The 35 year old pastor, whatever age pastor, it is really kind of our ideal target. And so that’s the question that we need to keep asking ourselves – how is this going to be accomplished? I think the challenge for ... well, to put it in more simple terms ... the degree program is intended to be a four year degree with the possibility of extending that into six years. So, there will be a terminus at some point in time at the six year mark. It’s designed as a four year degree. It will require people coming into it who are really committed to it. Because for those who are actively involved in ministry – and this is my prayer, that elder boards or deacon boards or vestries or whoever are those that are supporting local church ministers that they get a vision and a burden for the way in which the investment in this degree will actually yield fruit within their own ministerial context. That’s my prayer. They’re going to have to catch a vision for this. Which means they’re also going to have to be committed to creating space for their pastors or their ministers to be able to actually get at the work itself. I don’t think that will be as challenging, frankly, for the seminar work. My hunch is people will be able to sort through that. The challenge is going to be the dissertation. And that’s going to require a kind of steadfastness and a commitment to the disciple itself that can sustain one to finish the whole writing project. I remember when I was doing my PhD work. I looked at Bruce Longnecker. He was one of my supervisors. And I said, “I gotta tell you. I’m really excited about this work that I’m doing.” And I’ll never forget, he looked at me and says, “Well, I’m glad that you are because no one else is. And you’re going to have to finish this thing.” I teased him about that when I saw him recently. Well, that was kind of a hard word. But that’s the kind of curiosity that someone is going to have to have on the dissertation level as something that will fuel them to the finish line. And I even sort of put out in the student handbook that I’m putting together right now – 10,000 words every three months – you can get this thing done in two years. And for those who do some writing, 10,000 words every three months is actually kind of doable. But creating the space for that in the middle of lived ministry will require I think a network of support. And so we’ll be praying that churches get a vision for that. >>Doug Sweeney: All right. Just one follow-up. So, if I want in on this early on, I want to be involved in this PhD program sooner rather than later, what are some of the dates I need to have in my head? When are you going to start this thing? When do I need to think about applying to enroll in this thing? And so on ... >>Mark: We’re still working through some accreditation sort of bureaucratic hurdles which are a necessary thing. So, some of this is to be seen. But the idea that we’re working with now is we hope to go live with our website very soon. And open applications at the beginning of May 2023. So the application window will be May until probably middle of August. And that will be the deadline. Then we will- >>Doug Sweeney: And that’s to enroll in January? >>Mark: And beginning of the spring 2024 cohort. We’re starting sort of in the January term. And we’ll hopefully make decisions by the middle of September. So, that’s the idea of our timeframe right now. >>Kristen Padilla: You mentioned that you’ve been on faculty for 18 years. So, as someone who has been here for nearly 20 years, what does this mean to you personally, Mark? >>Mark: The degree itself? I think it’s exciting. Again, if I had any initial hesitancy with this degree it was in terms of institutional integrity. We do a certain thing here, or we intend to do a certain thing here well. And that is training future pastors to think theologically and ministerially. This degree fits who we are. And I think we’ve got the faculty to support it. I think we can ... we’re not driven for big numbers. We don’t have to have a lot of numbers to make this thing work. So, I think we can actually, lord willing, build a cohort here around people that are theologically hungry and curious that can really shape the cultural of an institution in a positive way. So, in that sense, that gets me out of bed in the morning. And I think that’s an exciting development here. I also think for my colleagues, there’s a real silver lining in all of this in terms of having the context for a higher level academic conversation. I mean, we do do that in our classrooms at the master’s level but there’s something about a doctoral seminar that provides the ability to kind of dive a little bit deeper. Being able to kind of hone those edges a little bit more I think will be good for all of us, both in the ways we teach on the master’s level and in our writing. So, there’s lots of wins I think on this thing institutionally. >>Doug Sweeney: Well, Dr. Gignilliat, it’s an exciting program. We can’t wait to see it develop. Thank you for your leadership. It’s going to be wonderful. You know because you’ve been on the show before, we always like to end by asking our guests to edify our listeners by letting them know what the Lord has been doing in your life recently – teaching you, showing you – that might be helpful for other people to hear about. So, we ask you – what is God doing in your life? >>Mark: I have four children that are 18 to 8, so I feel like I’m learning deep in that pool all the time. I would say trusting in the providence of God and learning to wait on Him. I’ve thought a lot about that in terms of the Psalms. I think I might have even mentioned it in a sermon around here recently. But the way in which the scriptures tend to shape the language of waiting in terms of waiting on God, not waiting on certain outcomes, not waiting on certain changes and circumstances, but actually being schooled to learn to wait on the Lord. I’m 46 years old. I’ve been a Christian for as long as I can remember. You’d think you’d learn some of these things by now, but it’s kind of remarkable how the Lord will continue to do his work in the school of following him to kind of shape us once again to kind of learn to wait on Him. I think that’s something that ... and I bet if you ask me in 20 years I’d say, you know, I’m kind of working on this whole waiting on the Lord thing. So, that’s somewhere central to the Lord’s work in my heart. >>Doug Sweeney: Yeah. That’s a great word for all of us. You have been listening to Dr. Mark Gignilliat. He is Professor of Old Testament and Hebrew language here at Beeson Divinity School. He’s going to serve as the Director of our new PhD program in Theology for the Church. Mark, thanks for being with us. Listeners, thank you for tuning in. Please pray for Kristen Padilla as she transitions to B&H Publishing coming up here very soon. Please pray for Beeson Divinity School, as we try to remain faithful to the Lord in days ahead. Goodbye for now. >>Kristen Padilla: You’ve been listening to the Beeson podcast. Our theme music is written and performed by Advent Birmingham of the Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, Alabama. Our engineer is Rob Willis. Our announcer is Mike Pasquarello. Our co-hosts are Doug Sweeney and, myself, Kristen Padilla. Please subscribe to the Beeson podcast at www.BeesonDivinity.com/podcast or on iTunes.