Why Sociology?

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” This is a fairly standard question that most children will hear at some point of their development. Responses can range from musician, firefighter, surgeon, president, to fairy princess or teenage mutant ninja turtle (Michaelangelo for me).

However, in some sense, I feel this is the wrong question. It is a self-limiting and socially confining question, as if what we do for a career will be definitive of our personhood.

Much of my coaching practice is built up around journeying alongside people as they ask themselves a different question, “what kind of person do you want to become?”

I have had many careers, from illegal entrepreneurship, to block mason, to business owner, to pastor, to professor, to coach, consultant, planter, organizational director, and so on. But “who I want to be when I grow up” is a person who experiences deeper union with Christ, and thinks, loves, and lives like Jesus.

So, I reject the premise that a person must choose one thing “to be when they grow up.” In fact, I’ve been trying a design thinking approach with my life for the last decade. I’m iterating forward, prototyping multiple lives. Perhaps, one day, I will choose to continue with the ones I experience the deepest sense of fulfilment and kingdom impact.

Vocationally, I am a spiritual guide who helps people heal, love and unleash imagination to create better lives, organizations and communities. My guiding values are imagination, compassion, and adventure. And I’m still growing up.

A New Adventure

Recently I announced that I am entering into a new adventure as a Sociology PhD student and teaching assistant at the University of Florida. One of my parishioners asked, “so why sociology, what will you do with that when you graduate?” To the latter half of the question I responded, “probably not much different than what I’m doing right now.”

I’ve already attained a doctoral degree in theological education. And it was not a lightweight academic maneuver. My mentor is Dr Leonard Sweet, one of the foremost Methodist scholars in the world. My dissertation “Contextual Intelligence: One Intelligence to Serve them All” has been downloaded almost 1300 times and became the basis for a book coauthored with Len. The CQ framework we created has been used widely by churches and leaders.

It was a deeply formative experience. It wasn’t just about learning, through it I’ve grown as a person who thinks, loves, and lives like Jesus. Now, I feel that to truly be a person who can “read the signs of the times and know what to do” (1 Chronicles 12:32) I need to dedicate myself more intentionally to the study of twenty-first century society.

I’m passionate about the intersection of sociology and theology. And compassion is the place where thinking about Jesus and living like him come together.

Every Person Does Theology

While it is true that some have dedicated their life to the study of theology as an academic discipline, it is likewise true that every person is a theologian. I’ve never been convinced that clustering away in an ivory tower to dedicate oneself to the study of theology, writing books, and teaching students is exactly what Jesus had in mind when he sent the disciples out into the world.

They were grappling with what they believed about Jesus in the process of following him. Jesus sent them out in teams, instructing them to travel light, to locate “persons of peace,” and do life at the tables of their hosts. As they lived with the people incarnationally, learning them, loving them, they were doing theology. They had simple instructions: go, connect, eat, heal, and proclaim. When they did this, the medium became the message, and the “kingdom of God” drew near (Luke 10:1-9).

If you have ever wondered, “what is God really like?” or “what does it really mean that God is love?” or “if there is a good God, why does the world seem so filled with suffering?” Congratulations, you are doing theology!  Theology is simply the study of the nature of God and religious belief, and every human being has the capacity to be a theologian.

I am deeply grateful for the Wesleyan theological tradition in which we emphasize a “practical divinity” working itself out in love. We see the goal of Christian life as “love of God and neighbor.” We engage Scripture by utilizing resources like tradition, reason, and experience.  

 Every Person Does Sociology

It is also true that while some have dedicated themselves to the academic discipline of sociology, every person is also in some sense a sociologist. Sociology as a discipline is a systematic approach to thinking about, studying, and understanding society, human social behavior, and social groups.

If you have ever found yourself asking questions like, “why do people experiencing poverty seemingly commit more crimes?” or “or does peer pressure influence people to violate their moral codes?” or “why are less people attending church than ever before?” or “does long term regular church attendance lead to people becoming more compassionate?” Congratulations… you are doing sociology!    

Sociologists engage in the systematic observation of how social groups and the larger society influence behavior. By employing various research methods, sociologists can actually find answers to questions like these.   

The integration of sociology and theology is nothing new. Consider classic works like Plato's Republic, Augustine's City of God and the writings of Montesquieu and Alexis de Tocqueville, who predate the differentiation of academic disciplines. Notable scholars considered the founders of the academic discipline of sociology made religion a focus of their study. Consider that Max Weber argued that the Protestant work ethic influenced the creation of capitalism and studied the processes of rationalization, secularization, and disenchantment. Émile Durkheim’s work included an analysis of suicide rates between Catholic and Protestant groups, and he suggested religion plays an essential function in the formation and reinforcement of the collective conscience of society’s shared values and beliefs. W.E.B. Du Bois studied African spirituality, employing sociological research to fight racism and segregation.

Pioneering theologians like Ernst Troeltsch sought to explain how Christian ideas became word-historical, shaping forces on societal structures, groups, and culture, seeking to integrate theological and sociological study. Many academic theologians today include social analysis as a necessary component in theological reflection. Everyday clergy across the world utilize sociological research to inform their praxis. We cite studies from Barna, Gallup, Pew Research, and Springtide, to understand the societal shifts taking place.

The Research Journey

I want to invite you to follow along with me on my research journey. The theological, psychological, and sociological construct of compassion is my focus. I’ll be exploring studies reaching back decades like Jame’s A. Christenson’s “Religious Involvement, Values, and Social Compassion” who concluded that “people who regularly attend church exhibit no greater social compassion than those who do not” (1976: 37, p. 218), up until present research today.

I’ll translate into lay terminology sociological concepts like intrinsic religiosity and extrinsic religiosity (Allport and Ross, 1967), to help interpret how the above study could be true. I’ll be building upon the significant work of my primary PhD mentor, Dr. Monika Ardelt, a world-renowned researcher in the areas of spirituality, ageing, well-being, organizational wisdom, and compassion, utilizing her Three-Dimensional Wisdom Scale (3D-WS; Ardelt, 2003). And I’ll give sneak peaks into my original qualitative research utilizing the “compassionate dimension” of the scale.

One aspect of my study will be the “rise of the nones and dones,” “spiritual but not religious” movements, and “organizational wisdom” in mainline religious institutions. I’m grateful to share key findings and new insights as they emerge in real time. My goal is applied sociology, to suggest frameworks for a trauma-informed, wise, and compassionate way of being church. I dream of new generations of Christians who recenter the twenty-first century church in the compassion of Jesus. So, if this sounds intriguing, subscribe, and please share with others who might be interested!