Life update: Brad

I updated on Claire's life a couple of weeks ago, so I thought I would update on Brad this time. He is, after all, the entire reason that we moved to North Carolina in the first place.

I just want to reiterate that Brad is getting a Ph.D. at DUKE. Let's all take a moment and reflect on how big a deal this is. He is such a smarty-pants, and a prestigious university recognized that fact and asked him to grace their halls. I could not be prouder. 

For those of you who may be unsure, Brad is studying Early Christianity. He is particularly studying the theology of the Church fathers (think: Augustine, Irenaeus, Origen, Athanasius...plus many an obscure man that you have likely not heard of). Study of the Church fathers is called Patristics, by the way (side note: the North American Patristics Society is abbreviated as NAPS. I think there are way too many jokes that could be made about that acronym by those of us who aren't quite as enthusiastic about the study :). In his program, he also has a minor, which is New Testament. 

This semester, he is taking three classes: New Testament Theology, Virtue and Theology in Early Christian Thought, and Syriac (an ancient language that is kin to Arabic). He also participates in a Latin reading group once a week. Every weekday, Brad does school from 8:00-5:00 (classes, library time, plus 4 hours a week of assisting a professor with research), takes a break between 5:00-7:00 to eat dinner with Claire and me, help with Claire's bath time, and play for a little while pre-Claire bedtime. After she goes to bed, he usually puts in another hour or so of studying. It's really quite impressive how much time he puts in.

Something I've found myself explaining to folks is that Brad is not part of the Divinity School but rather the Graduate Program of Religion (GPR), which is a conglomeration of the Divinity School and the Department of Religious Studies, which is a little confusing. A kind of basic explanation of this is that the Divinity School is much more like a seminary--it has lots of students who are going to be pastors or in some kind of church ministry as well as more academic-track folk. The Religious Studies department does more of studying religion in general.  Brad applied to the Th.D. program within the Divinity School, as well as the Ph.D. program within the GPR (the Department of Religious Studies doesn't have it's own doctoral program). He was accepted to the Ph.D. program, which means his degree comes through the GPR. Although, his adviser in the Ph.D. program would also have been his adviser had he been accepted to the Th.D. (sidenote: I've learned through this Ph.D. process that you choose the program and school you apply to based on the scholar you wish to study with more than just a place that has your program.) The GPR is much broader in scope than the Divinity School. It encompasses Christian/Jewish/Islamic/Eastern religious/etc. studies. Now, before you fret that Brad is learning New Testament Theology from a professor of Buddhism, know that he is not. He takes classes from both the Department of Religious Studies and the Divinity School, so he will have several (many?) courses from the Divinity School, taught by the folks who are teaching the seminary-type students. Confused yet? It's a little tricky.

Another question that we address frequently regarding Brad's studies is "What does he want to do?" Answer: Teach. He would like to teach at the undergraduate level. And, I'm pretty sure that he will be awesome at it. While I'm not always super interested in everything that he studies, he has a way of talking about things that is entertaining and accessible. Good qualities in a professor of historical theology, I think.

He will be doing course work for the next year and a half, followed by dissertation writing and teaching a few courses. The goal is a five-year program, followed by job offers. :)

That's the basic gist of things. Make sense? Maybe, over time, I can make more sense of it. We'll see...