I got some good news today. A few months ago I told you that there was a conference coming up this year that I’d like to take part in. Well, I’ve been chosen to present a paper at Merton College at the University of Oxford, as part of the 18th Conference of the European Society of the Philosophy of Religion.

The only reason I know this is that I bugged them about it. The official notifictions are about to be sent out, so I’m told.

The theme of the conference is Religion in the Public Square, one of my special interests, and the keynote speaker will be Nicholas Wolterstorff. My paper will present an argument that I’ve addressed in other formats, namely the question of whether or not religious convictions and by extension the policies that they might be used to support could meet any standard of “public justification.”

It’s a great opportunity for me. It is a way of getting exactly the right kind of exposure in the international academic arena, and for professional academic roles it’s a great addition to my C.V. It would, in theory, push me one step closer to that elusive big time. There’s one problem. The keynote speaker, as well as the other speakers on the schedule, along with virtually everyone presenting a paper, will be from university departments that provide funding for travel to conferences. I on the other hand am not, and will need to meet the expenses myself. I’ve been crunching the numbers and it’s pretty painful. Flights, conference registration and accommodation will cost around $4,400 New Zealand dollars (using today’s exchange rate, that’s about $3,136.02 US).

I’m putting the word out there: If you are able to and you would like to assist me in meeting these costs, I would warmly welcome and appreciate it. The “donate” button on the right, or the “buy me a beer” button at the bottom of each post is an easy way to do this via Paypal. If you’re in New Zealand and you think you might be able to assist, feel free to get in touch with me (Paypal is convenient for overseas payments, but there is a small fee involved). If you’re a blogger, I’d appreciate you putting the word out there and asking people if they’d be interested in supporting me with this.

I live in the wrong part of the country. Dunedin is lovely, don’t get me wrong. However there are opportunities of a whole range of sorts that I am missing because of where I live. I won’t go into all the details of that, just trust me. We’ve decided that we should move to Auckland. Plus it’s much warmer, and we have family in that part of the country who we haven’t seen much of.

I’m a family man and we’re not particularly well off, so I can’t responsibily move unless there’s there’s a job to move to. I’m applying for jobs already, and while I’m explaining each time I apply that we do intend to move to Auckland, there’s going to be a natural reluctance to hire people from out of town when there are local applicants. I thought I’d give a shout out here in case there are readers in that part of the country who might know of something, or who might even be in a place of influence who might be able to offer something. There’s a whole range of areas that I could work in. I currently work for the Inland Revenue Department in Student loans, doing technical work on accounts and also liasing with other agencies (like Studylink, the Ministry of Education, the Immigration Department and tax agents). I also get in touch with customers by phone and also address their queries by email. It involves applying legislation, and I’ve also played a role over the last year and a bit in clarifying the legislative requirements of the roles that my team has been involved in, and also coaching fellow staff members. Prior to this role I worked as a customer service rep in the call centre for Inland Revenue. Prior to that I managed a bookstore.

You already know (probably) about my academic background, but in general my approach is that unless a role requires years of experience in a highly specialised field, I can do it: anything involving communication, coaching, training, tutoring, or anything that involves explaining technical information. I also work well with numbers, and I even have a couple of papers in accounting. I could do web based work and even some graphic design work (it’s not like I have professional expreience there, but I made this site and the graphics here – bearing in bind that the blog is a wordpress blog, although the graphics are mine). I also have a background in music, recording and audio engineering (have you seen my site www.podcastermusic.org ?).

So if you’re in a position to suggest anything in the Auckland area – anything at all really – please do drop me a line and let me know.

This announcement arrived in my inbox today:

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Call For Papers: Religion in the Public Sphere

18th Conference of the European Society of the Philosophy of Religion

Merton College, Oxford, August 26th-29th 2010

Keynote Address: Professor Nicholas Wolterstorff

Speakers: Stephen Clark, Elisabeth Grab-Schmidt, Oddbjorn Leirvik, Michael Moxter, Anne Sofie Roald, Roger Trigg, Henk Vroom, Theo de Witk

The conference will bring together questions in the philosophy of religion with basic issues of political philosophy. Contemporary liberalism often wishes to treat religion as a private matter, and considers religious reasons cannot be ‘public’ reasons. Science is acceptable in the public sphere in a way that religion is not. The Conference will consider how far law, and politics, should give greater recognition to the role of religion in public life. The main conference subtopics are:

• Religion and Law
• Religious Freedom
• Multiculturalism and Pluralism in the Secular Society
• Blasphemy and Offence

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I should be at that conference. In 2008 I graduated with my PhD in philosophy, writing on the subject of religion in the public square. I have a couple of as yet unpublished papers in this subject area that would be ideal for presentations at this conference. As far as I can see, it will not be possible for me to make the trip. Such luxuries are for those who are working in academia (which, as you’ll know, I also wish I was doing). However I am going to submit a paper anyway. If I submit a paper, and it actually gets accepted (no small hurdle for an event like this!), then there exists an almost nonexistent possibility that I will attend. I don’t know how, but it’s still possible (many crazy things are possible). If I do not submit a paper, then there exists no such possibility. So it’s a no brainer.

To borrow and misapply the words of the Apostle Paul, “I am in a strait betwixt the two!” I’ve been reading through Gary Olson’s recent piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education, titled “It is who you know and who knows you.” What he had to say in that piece resonates with me. Here’s an excerpt:

… I was reminded of an odd paradox of academic life: Faculty members are expected to become world renowned in their disciplines and well respected within their institutions, yet are also expected to avoid appearing to be self-promoting or, worse, boastful. In fact, many professors overcorrect by adopting a false humility—feigning, for example, not to want a particular award, honor, or position when the exact opposite is the case.

Apparently, this stance is so much a part of our collective DNA that it begins even before we become faculty members. Learning to network early in your career is one way to increase the likelihood that you will be successful in academe. I routinely advise new scholars that networking—forming professional relationships with other scholars in a field—is an important way to help build their credentials. I have spent three decades serving as a mentor for doctoral students and junior faculty members, and yet I am continually surprised to hear them dismiss networking as a clear form of self-promotion.

At workshops when I mention networking, someone inevitably blurts out, “Aha! Just as I thought: It’s who you know that counts!” The implication is that, somehow, that system is corrupt and people are rewarded or advanced based principally on favoritism and personal relationships, not on intrinsic merit.

My standard reply is, “Of course it’s who you know. How could it be otherwise? If no one knows you exist, how can you expect you and your work to be ‘known’? Networking is the way you become known, and recognized, in your discipline.”

Clearly, some people have confused the important work of promoting your ideas and research with a kind of fatuous promotion of self. Promoting yourself (“Look how great I am”) is different from promoting your scholarship (“Here’s what my research has discovered” or “Here’s what I’ve been working on lately”). Central to the research endeavor is the desire to disseminate the results of your scholarship widely, and while interesting or groundbreaking research will certainly reflect well on the researcher, the focus should be on the former.

Head on over to the Chronicle’s website and read the entire article, it’s well worth the few minutes it takes. He concludes by saying: “Sure a few academicians go too far in the self-promotion department. But being too shy may well hold back your progress in becoming a player in the discipline. In short, it is who you know (and who knows you) that counts—but that’s a good thing.”

OK, so not everything he says there applies to me because alas, I am not a faculty member. But the kind of tension that the author refers to is one that I do grapple with. I can’t help but feel that – especially as someone who wants to display Christian character as best I can – I don’t want to emphasise my own merits or sing my own praises. It just feels wrong and alien to me. And yet, the very nature of what I want to do – namely to get ahead and actually break into professional academia – requires that I do just that. I know of nobody else in New Zealand who tackles the (specific) issues that I do in the whole area of religious convictions in political philosophy. Does that mean I should tell people that I am New Zealand’s foremost expert on those specific issues? That sounds absurd to me! On the relationship between theology and meta-ethics I can think of one other person who I would trust nearly as much as my own (yes Matt, that’s you ). Should I tell people that? How pretentious that sounds to me! These are examples of what I mean. They are the kind of thing I generally like to let the audience decide, but of course there are times when the person I want to communicate my credentials do hasn’t had the luxury of being an audience member for longer than the five or ten minutes he or she will spend initially reviewing my job application. I need to tell them and tell them succintly. Should I tell them “just Google my name, you’ll see what I mean”?

It’s a fine line, and one that I have difficulty with.

Glenn Peoples

I’m getting weary of job advertisements in academia that state that recent graduates and even ABD candidates are welcome to apply (ABD = “all but dissertation,” in postgrad degrees where the defence of the dissertation is the final step required), and then I see the following: Those same advertisements go on to list the essential qualities in a candidate, followed by the preferred qualities. The list of essentials lists things like “must have excellent university/college teaching record” or “must have research supervision experience” or “must have experience lecturing int his subject.”

Those are the essentials? Look, either you’re open to people who have just graduated and not worked full time in the field, or you’re not. If you’re not, just say so. It’s a bit like advertising for a wife and saying “Virgins welcome to apply: Must have sexual experience!”

Under most circumstances, homeschooling is the best form of schooling/education for children that exists in the world. I say most to allow for extreme or unusual cases where things don’t work as they should – severe disabilities or disorders, long term illness, I don’t know, there are probably other cases too, but you get the idea. Having said that though, homeschooling provides scope for a much more individualised approach for your child’s education, meaning that there will be plenty of people for whom a special needs child will make them better suited to a homeschooling environment.

As far as educational outcomes go, the worldwide evidence is simply overwhelming: Homeschooling is superior. It is a hands down victory. This cannot be stated clearly enough: If anyone suggests to you that the case is not obviously, clear cut, backed up universally by all the available evidence and beyond dispute, they need more exposure to the information. This is a settled issue: Homeschooling on average produces markedly better academic results. This, for many parents, is the main drawcard for the homeschooling option.
See here, here, here, or… you get the idea. I won’t multiply examples. Just Google it.

It is simply a falsehood that you can’t teach children well unless you’re an accredited teacher. Homeschooled children receive a superior education to children who attend the local government school. It also enables a far more customised approach to education. Children are diverse, they don’t all learn the same way, and what works for one child may not be as effective as another. While a school might be able to pump extra teaching resources and time into catching up with this diversity and moving away from an “education mill” model, for the homeschooler it is natural – why wouldn’t the education of each child be uniquely tailored to that child?

The one comment that I hear more often than any other when somebody finds out that we homeschool our children – and other homeschoolers will guess what it is before I ever say it – is, “what about the social aspect? Do they learn to interact with other children?”

Here’s how I look at it: Take animals in the wild vs animals in farms. Do animals in the wild get to interact in a normal, healthy way with other animals? Of course. What about animals in a farm, or maybe a zoo? Do they interact naturally with each other? To some extent, yes. Children in homeschooling are like animals in the wild. They, with their families, form natural communities: Families, neighbourhoods, churches, sports clubs, social organisations, you get the idea. What’s more, because it’s not a forced environment like a zoo or a farm, you don’t have the serious social problems associated with schools: bullying and being forced to belong to the same social group as the bully, being forced to associate with groups that are frankly bad for them (gangs, antisocial behaviour, violence, smoking/drugs, fill in the blanks). Picking up a line from my sister (they also homeschool their children), when people ask me whether our children are “missing out” socially I tell them: “Oh no, we make sure they don’t miss out. We beat them up, steal their lunch, teach them bad habits, encourage them to be promiscuous, all that stuff.” The other person usually sees the point! Do we shelter our children? Of course. We’re their parents, and they’re all younger than twelve years old. What kind of irresponsible people would we be if we didn’t shelter them?

I want to reiterate this is clearly as I can: In virtually every way, homeschooling is superior to other kinds of education. Schools just cannot compete with it. It’s barely even a close race. I say all this in  advance in bold terms because I don’t want anyone to think that what I say next reflects in any way a lower view of homeschooling. I continue to hold the above view of homeschooling.

Now for the next part: In a couple of days time, our children will start attending a school. It’s not a public school (we’re not crazy), but it’s a school. Five days a week, from 9am until 3pm (I think). It’s not a decision we relish for their sake, but it’s one we’ve had to make. My wife is a wonderful mother and has been doing a really outstanding job with our children. But something had to change. As I’ve been saying from time to time, I have virtually no time to do the things that I really need to do if I am ever going to move into the area of employment that I spent all those years getting degrees for: academia in theology or philosophy (or both).

What’s more, I currently work a pretty low paying job, and our financial situation could be a lot stronger (actually, it needs to be. I don’t think the employer envisages someone on this salary supporting a family). I figured it would only be a temporary measure while also work at home, I get material published and boost my profile to improve my chances in academia, but the trouble is, working full time actually prevents me from doing that to the extent to which I need to do it, so I end up just staying in that low paid role, supporting our family. Financially, something does need to change.

So we need a little more cash, and I need a little more time, even just a free day each week. So the children are going to school – a less than ideal situation education-wise, but the best school that we are able to make use of, a small local Christian school with a very flexible approach to education. Ruth is going to be looking for some work, maybe just a few days a week, and when that happens, I will see if I can work fewer hours.

If that all goes to plan, I will be much better placed to work towards landing an academic job, and if/when that happens, we will be in a position to revisit Ruth’s employment situation and the children’s education options. The long term plan is about what’s best for the whole family. We’d like to be in a position to homeschool again.

Glenn Peoples

So where have I been? The blog has been very quiet lately and the podcast has fallen silent. Where to begin!

First, as suggested by my cave man post, things are a little frustrating on the future employment front. New Zealand is just the wrong place to be a scholar in the humanities. Because there are so few major academic options in the form of universities and similar institutions here (countable on one’s fingers), you simply must either have an illustrious career history already, or you must be friends with the right people. Neither of those things currently apply in my case, so I’ve got a lot of work (no, not professional work) ahead of me before that becomes a live possibility. Getting anyone’s attention is going to involve a considerably above average research/publication output (that is, above the average of somebody already in an academic career), without the benefit of actually having time allocated to my schedule to do that like someone who is already working in the fields I’m aiming for. I could manage it well were it not for that time factor. That means trying (very often unsuccessfully) to squeeze out all the available time from the gaps in my evenings, beween eating, sleeping, and having a relationship with my wife and children. As I mentioned a while ago, I’m taking a couple of classes by distance as well (towards a diploma in business – everybody needs a backup plan). Those classes will be over on the 17th of November when I sit the second of my two final exams, so I will gain a little more time then. Until then, it’s probably best to give up on my empty promises of getting the current podcast episode finished.

As a family we’re also looking at some changes to make even just a small amount more time available, possibly involving changes in schooling and employment, but that’s all still just in the realm of possibilities at the moment and we haven’t decided anything. It’s a terrible thing, but I’ve frequently envied the unemployed for their wealth of time (not that I could afford to be unemployed!).

I’m looking at some research/teaching fellowships outside of New Zealand at the moment. It’s hard to know what Universities expect in a fellow. Their advertisements make encouraging comments about looking for someone who has just obtained their PhD within the last five years, and yet it’s common to see people who are fellows who have a long career with scores of books and other publications behind them already. Over the last couple of weeks I’ve put together a modest research proposal and bibliography for any such applications. It’s a proposal for a project that I’ve been wanting for some time to use as the basis for a book for publication, on a history and defence of the moral argument for theism. It’s a subject that has received surprisingly little academic treatment, and I know of literally no published book at the moment that represents what I intend to produce, a fact that I find incredible when considering the sheer number of works published on the other classic and modern arguments for theism (e.g. cosmological, ontological, fine tuning). After I’ve read through the proposal a few (dozen) more times to make sure it’s as I want it to be I’ll post it here at the blog for your scrutiny.

1. Need to get a job

2. Want job at university

3. Need PhD to get job at University

4. Got PhD

5. Need some experience in order to get job

6. Need to have a job in order to get some experience

hmmmmm…. *lightbulb goes on*

7. Get fellowship to get experience to get a job

8. Yes, got PhD, but need to invest full time activity in publication outputs, raising profile and research proposals to get fellowship, or no get fellowship (Croneyism not work for us foreign devils)

9. Need to live full time (without breaks)

10. Need some sort of job to earn money to live

11. Can live full time and do one other thing full time. Cannot do two other things full time, because time can only be used once

12. Get low paid full time job that not require any degree, to earn money to live on

13. Now it is time to do step 8.

14. Wait, this not work… now time for step 8 is gone. Cannot have two full times lives

15. Need to do step 8 or steps 7 and 1 never happen. Erase step 12

16. Start step 8

17. Starve to death

Life cycle over

Glenn Peoples

People in my position are accustomed to getting rejection letters. Today I received another one. I’m pondering writing the following letter in reply (but am fairly certain that I will not act on it):

Dear [name removed]

I am writing to you in regard to your rejection letter dated _______, telling me that I have not been successful in applying for the position of ________. Every month I receive a large number of excellent rejection letters. I am sorry to advise you that yours has not been accepted on this occasion. I want to thank you for the time that you’ve taken to write this rejection letter and I wish you all the best in rejecting other applicants.

Sincerely
Dr Glenn Peoples

I work full time, and the time I spend at home after work and on weekends is fairly valuable. The upshot of this is that while I remain in these circumstances I simply can’t spend as much time as I’d like to reading, keeping up with subjects I like to follow, and writing pieces for publication. It’s a vicious cycle really – In order to get an academic position it’s important that I keep abreast of my field and continue to have a publication output, but as long as I’m not in an academic role where these things are part of my job expectation (and while I’m also working full time in a different type of role), it’s not always easy to do these things.

That being said, here is what I’m working on at the moment on a very part time basis:

“Chasing the justificatory Goalpost” – This is a piece that’s actually nearly finished, and I really must get around to getting it submitted. I may have mentioned it before, actually. It’s a piece criticising some proponents of political liberalism (especially Gerald Gaus) for employing a sliding goalpost when it comes to the criteria that he uses to exclude policies with a religious basis from legitimacy in a modern democracy.

“Is there an Echo in Here?” This is a comment on the way that critics of divine command theories of ethics are just parroting previous criticisms of those theories, without taking into account the more than adequate responses to those criticisms that have been in print for many years now. I actually submitted this one to a journal but had it turned down (I’m comforted by the fact that my PhD supervisor had the same experience with this particular journal). I must brush this one off and submit it elsewhere.

“Luke 16:19-31 and historical background” – I need a better title for this one. In a departure from philosophy and a return to theology and biblical studies, this is a piece on new Testament Studies. It looks at the well known tale of the Rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16 and offers agreement with the thesis of Joachim Jeremias that it is in fact an example of Jesus’ use of a contemporary and widely known story (i.e. one that he did not invent or necessarily agree with) to make a moral point against those who used it. I look at some dismissals of this thesis and show them to be lacking in merit, and I look at some implications of the thesis.

“Loathsome Spiders and Angry God” – This one is on historical and systematic theology. In the debate over the nature of eternal punishment – in particular in traditionalist critiques of the annihilationist perspective, Jonathan Edwards is exalted as some sort of hero for the traditional cause, and if we poor benighted annihilationists would just look at his powerful reasoning, we would be put in our place. In this piece I look at the reasons that a couple of theologians have given for saying this, and explain how it’s a load of rhetorically loaded claptrap.

“Intuitionism as Reliabilism” – This one is a foray into epistemology, not really my major area of expertise, so I need to prepare carefully. For those who know what these terms mean, “intuitionism” and “reliabilism,” you’ll know that they are typically construed as competing theories. Here I suggest that they need not be construed this way, and that in fact intuitionism is best seen as one species of reliabilism.

“Natural Law and the Divine Will” – it is sometimes thought that Natural Law theories of ethics and Divine Command theories of ethics are always exclusive of one another. Here I explain that while this is sometimes the case for specified types of Natural Law or Divine Command theories, it is certainly not always the case.

“The Liberal Theocracy” – Not so long ago I did a podcast episode by this name. This article is a more detailed version of that presentation. I explain that the supposed contrast between a liberal democracy and a theocratic society is a false one, founded on either ignorance or bias, or both.

“Responding to Wolterstorff on Divine Command Ethics” – I’m currently reading the latest book from Nicholas Wolterstorff entitled Justice. In it, he offers an argument against divine command ethics. For me, that’s like painting a bullseye on his forehead.

And last but definitely not least:

“The Moral Argument” – This is a full length book project, and given my rather vicious time constraints at the moment, it’s a long term project, in which I explore various historical formulations of the moral argument for the existence of God. I then delve into the meta-ethical issues in the context of contemporary analytical philosophy and argue that in fact the existence of moral truths consitutes powerful evidence for the existence of God. I close by responding to objections to the argument.

So that’s what’s keeping me busy right now!