I'm preparing to teach a doctoral level survey of therapy research course in three weeks. In the textbook are chapters about various types of investigation, following a chapter that calls for greater sophistication in family research. The next chapter is a guide for graduate students who wish to conduct research in our field. Qualitative, quantitative, mixed method, and postmodern approaches are covered. I'm salivating over this material but I'm sure my students will wish they could die rather than take this course.
Halfway through the second chapter, it occurred to me that the study of the Bible includes almost every element of my textbook. Learning about Jesus Christ through the Bible happens in all of these methods. Here's what I'm thinking:
Case studies. The Bible is full of these. Case studies are detailed, single stories that describe what works. We have case studies from beginning to end--many of which outline the grace of God, who meets us where we are. Other case studies tell about people whose lives went the wrong way but who tried to pull back before they died (Samson). People come alive in case studies. Each story illustrates a specific idea: that even an animal will speak if we disobey God; that God can do the unthinkable (Lot's wife turning into a pillar of salt); that God still works in the lives of people who have horrible belief systems (the Levite and his concubine).
Petit Histoire. This is the postmodern type of a case study. Postmodern researchers say that everyone has a story that is as important as all the statistics that describe what the majority of people do, feel, think, experience. The people who are not like the majority of others can teach us a great deal. We learn much from those short stories in the Bible that give us a glimpse of some facet of our forbearer's faith and life experience. So rather than say that because 70% of the Old Testament characters were male, we can read the petit histoire of Deborah the prophetess and learn something that is just as valuable as reading about all the kings and male prophets of the day.
Qualitative Methods. This type of research is conducted by interviewing individuals with particular experiences. Phenomenology is the study of what people experience. Through lengthy interviews, based on open-ended questions, we hear the stories of people who have all had similar experiences of some sort. For example, although we cannot interview Bible characters, by examining the written stories of women in the early church, we can get a pretty good idea of what it was like to be female in those days. This type of research is feminist narrative analysis--the study of written documents from a feminist perspective. We all do this in our Bible study. Ethnomethodology is a form of qualitative analysis that comes from facts gathered through observation. If you were to come to my church for several weeks at a time and stand in the lobby before services, you would soon understand the lingo in my Christian subculture. That's because you would listen for unusual usage of words and watch for distinctive behaviors. When we study the Bible, we observe how people ate, drank, speak together, etc. Most pastors spend considerable time in exegesis--understanding the context of the Bible subject(s) about which they are going to preach. This is a type of ethnomethodology. Then they make it clear to their congregants what the background is to what is said in the Bible. .
Grounded theory building is something we all have done after reading the Bible. Creating a theory is what we do when we describe the process of accepting Christ. Through a close reading of the scripture, we understand that recognition of our need, receiving the gift of repentence, accepting Christ's grace, asking for forgiveness, moving on to newness of life, and keeping on keeping on--this is a theory that is grounded in all that the Bible teaches about Salvation. By reading over all the material about how Jesus treated people, we could build a theory that He was gracious and benevolent to the common man, while we note that the only people Jesus really rebuked were those who thought they had already arrived, spiritually. By reviewing all the instances when Jesus did rebuke people, we find that it was the scribes, pharisees, and lawyers of his day who got the worst marks. We devise a theory then, about cause. From comparing scripture with scripture, we find that Jesus gave some commentary about this and we use this as the basis of our theory ("Those who are whole do not need a physician," etc.).
Quantitative measures. This is typically what researchers do, historically. We can, for example, review what the word hell, Gehenna, or Sheol means by looking up each verse listed in the concordance that references these words. Then we can say that the preponderance of the evidence (or whatever percentage of the time) indicates that when this word is used, it means a very miserable place. A meta-analysis would be something like reviewing the number of converts at each of the sermons in the Bible and coming up with a list of predictors for people to cry out, "What then shall we do to be saved?" Or what predicted persecution for the apostles after their public sermons.
Mixed methods. Program and outcome evaluation methods fall into this category. Paul did this in Romans 8 when he went on and on about the things that he wants to do he doesn't do, and what he doesn't want to do, he actually does. This was an evaluation of his own efforts at righteousness (evaluation piece) with commentary (qualitative data) about his feelings of repeated failure in the process.
I've heard sermons in which a case study is presented (the story of when God rained fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gommorah), and then a discussion about conditional dire prophecies that were not fulfilled because the people repented as in the case of Jonah and Ninevah. One particular case is examined in the light of the statistical predictors of prophecies coming true. This reflects a mixed method.
Perhaps the most important of all the chapters in my textbook is about the ethical reporting of research findings. We can get research to say anything we'd like if we're clever enough. And people the world over have gotten the Bible to support every type of bizarre belief and habit. It's because an isolated verse, taken out of context, is read as predicting some specific meaning. If I were to read about God telling Noah to build a boat and preach to the antidiluvians about a coming flood, or about the prophet Ezra being told to lie on his left side for 32 days and prophecy naked, but I fail to take note that this is by far the exception rather than the rule, I could be one of those people who believe that unless I'm doing something that I don't like, I'm not in God's will. Or that if something feels good it must be bad. Or, if I read the book of James and all the "do-ism" without reading about salvation through faith alone in Romans, I may have a legalistic faith. You see, it is all about being a good, ethical researcher and reporting on what is there, not on merely what seems a good idea to me, or what is in one verse that I opened the Bible and put my finger on. It also means not approaching research with an idea and then searching out all the data that will support your pet idea. It means allowing the data to speak for itself--and reporting only what is there. For someone to make a blanket statement that all music needs to be classical vocal music to be appropriate in God's sight, is going beyond what the data states.
Halfway through the second chapter, it occurred to me that the study of the Bible includes almost every element of my textbook. Learning about Jesus Christ through the Bible happens in all of these methods. Here's what I'm thinking:
Case studies. The Bible is full of these. Case studies are detailed, single stories that describe what works. We have case studies from beginning to end--many of which outline the grace of God, who meets us where we are. Other case studies tell about people whose lives went the wrong way but who tried to pull back before they died (Samson). People come alive in case studies. Each story illustrates a specific idea: that even an animal will speak if we disobey God; that God can do the unthinkable (Lot's wife turning into a pillar of salt); that God still works in the lives of people who have horrible belief systems (the Levite and his concubine).
Petit Histoire. This is the postmodern type of a case study. Postmodern researchers say that everyone has a story that is as important as all the statistics that describe what the majority of people do, feel, think, experience. The people who are not like the majority of others can teach us a great deal. We learn much from those short stories in the Bible that give us a glimpse of some facet of our forbearer's faith and life experience. So rather than say that because 70% of the Old Testament characters were male, we can read the petit histoire of Deborah the prophetess and learn something that is just as valuable as reading about all the kings and male prophets of the day.
Qualitative Methods. This type of research is conducted by interviewing individuals with particular experiences. Phenomenology is the study of what people experience. Through lengthy interviews, based on open-ended questions, we hear the stories of people who have all had similar experiences of some sort. For example, although we cannot interview Bible characters, by examining the written stories of women in the early church, we can get a pretty good idea of what it was like to be female in those days. This type of research is feminist narrative analysis--the study of written documents from a feminist perspective. We all do this in our Bible study. Ethnomethodology is a form of qualitative analysis that comes from facts gathered through observation. If you were to come to my church for several weeks at a time and stand in the lobby before services, you would soon understand the lingo in my Christian subculture. That's because you would listen for unusual usage of words and watch for distinctive behaviors. When we study the Bible, we observe how people ate, drank, speak together, etc. Most pastors spend considerable time in exegesis--understanding the context of the Bible subject(s) about which they are going to preach. This is a type of ethnomethodology. Then they make it clear to their congregants what the background is to what is said in the Bible. .
Grounded theory building is something we all have done after reading the Bible. Creating a theory is what we do when we describe the process of accepting Christ. Through a close reading of the scripture, we understand that recognition of our need, receiving the gift of repentence, accepting Christ's grace, asking for forgiveness, moving on to newness of life, and keeping on keeping on--this is a theory that is grounded in all that the Bible teaches about Salvation. By reading over all the material about how Jesus treated people, we could build a theory that He was gracious and benevolent to the common man, while we note that the only people Jesus really rebuked were those who thought they had already arrived, spiritually. By reviewing all the instances when Jesus did rebuke people, we find that it was the scribes, pharisees, and lawyers of his day who got the worst marks. We devise a theory then, about cause. From comparing scripture with scripture, we find that Jesus gave some commentary about this and we use this as the basis of our theory ("Those who are whole do not need a physician," etc.).
Quantitative measures. This is typically what researchers do, historically. We can, for example, review what the word hell, Gehenna, or Sheol means by looking up each verse listed in the concordance that references these words. Then we can say that the preponderance of the evidence (or whatever percentage of the time) indicates that when this word is used, it means a very miserable place. A meta-analysis would be something like reviewing the number of converts at each of the sermons in the Bible and coming up with a list of predictors for people to cry out, "What then shall we do to be saved?" Or what predicted persecution for the apostles after their public sermons.
Mixed methods. Program and outcome evaluation methods fall into this category. Paul did this in Romans 8 when he went on and on about the things that he wants to do he doesn't do, and what he doesn't want to do, he actually does. This was an evaluation of his own efforts at righteousness (evaluation piece) with commentary (qualitative data) about his feelings of repeated failure in the process.
I've heard sermons in which a case study is presented (the story of when God rained fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gommorah), and then a discussion about conditional dire prophecies that were not fulfilled because the people repented as in the case of Jonah and Ninevah. One particular case is examined in the light of the statistical predictors of prophecies coming true. This reflects a mixed method.
Perhaps the most important of all the chapters in my textbook is about the ethical reporting of research findings. We can get research to say anything we'd like if we're clever enough. And people the world over have gotten the Bible to support every type of bizarre belief and habit. It's because an isolated verse, taken out of context, is read as predicting some specific meaning. If I were to read about God telling Noah to build a boat and preach to the antidiluvians about a coming flood, or about the prophet Ezra being told to lie on his left side for 32 days and prophecy naked, but I fail to take note that this is by far the exception rather than the rule, I could be one of those people who believe that unless I'm doing something that I don't like, I'm not in God's will. Or that if something feels good it must be bad. Or, if I read the book of James and all the "do-ism" without reading about salvation through faith alone in Romans, I may have a legalistic faith. You see, it is all about being a good, ethical researcher and reporting on what is there, not on merely what seems a good idea to me, or what is in one verse that I opened the Bible and put my finger on. It also means not approaching research with an idea and then searching out all the data that will support your pet idea. It means allowing the data to speak for itself--and reporting only what is there. For someone to make a blanket statement that all music needs to be classical vocal music to be appropriate in God's sight, is going beyond what the data states.
Another point here is that a good researcher situates himself or herself in the work. That means that each person who reports the story can color it according to their personality and experiences. So when I write up my studies, I must alert the reader what my biases are: I am a woman, a feminist, a Christian, a therapist, who may be limited in the area of the study, or have clinical experience with the topic in question, or who has experienced the same issues as my interviewees and therefore, I have a unique take on what the research findings are. If the results of my study are that second-hand smoking doesn't really hurt people, the reader needs to know that I am a non-smoking physician working for the American Cancer Society, or that I work for a tobacco company. Or even that I am sponsored by a pharmaceutical company that produces nicotine patches. The findings will look different and have different credibility according to who is telling the facts.
As a Christian, it makes a difference whether I am imminently aware of my sins and need of God--or whether I'm a theologian who merely enjoys the academic, theoretical study of the Scriptures, or if I am a skeptic, or whether I've been standing in God's grace for a long time or a short time. The hearer needs to know this in order to understand the nuances and emphases placed on various concepts that are discussed. It is all part of ethical reporting, but few do it.
So there are times when I find myself in church, lost in thought about what I am hearing. The Bible is poetry, education, investigation, and so much more. There is a great deal to ponder.
Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. Psalm 119:105
1 comment:
WOW!! I would love to sit in on your class, or just be a fly on the wall and listen and learn. I am truly blessed to be part of your family.
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