Hawaii (photo from trekearth.com)
As of today I have received 141 completed questionnaires. My advisor at Wales would like several more finished and so I must continue to look for more assistance. Some points:
1. Although I enjoy meeting and emailing with new people, I do not particularly like requesting through this blog, email, phone, or in person help with my questionnaires from people that attend Christian churches. I am moderately introverted and I do not enjoy taking the risk of bothering or annoying someone, but I must add an empirical aspect to my PhD for the sake of originality. I therefore will ask persons for assistance with the questionnaires. The questionnaires are not an add-on to my dissertation but an essential aspect of the work.
2. I therefore am looking not only for individual Christians to assist me with my work but also congregations and college/University classes. If someone can assist me in sampling a congregation or class, please contact me.
3. I have received a fair amount of positive feedback from questionnaire respondents. There are limitations with empirical theology as there is a lack of context for questions and questions can somewhat be interpreted in a variety of ways, but those issues have been discussed in the articles Questionnaire feedback and Questionnaire feedback two. Please scroll down to view, or look in archives. Within the questionnaire I am required to use closed questions that are provided with a set of fixed alternatives from which to choose. Bryman (2004: 145). Open questions in contrast would allow persons to respond in any way they choose. Bryman (2004: 145).
4. I have been asked how I found a particular website or email address which I sent the questionnaire to. I do a general search for a particular denomination in a certain area and if a church is listed I see if I can find a senior minister’s email address. I am doing nothing wrong by sending a respectful email, anymore than someone is wrong by sending me a respectful email through this blog, or by leaving a respectful comment.
5. I have been asked that since my blog biography lists me as attending a Baptist seminary and being a member of a Presbyterian church, why I am contacting persons of other denominations. I am a conservative Christian that attends a secular University. I am not allowed to attempt to stack my questionnaire sample with persons that would agree with my theological views, and rightly so. I therefore within a Christian tradition, besides contacting churches that appear to be conservative, contact churches that appear to be liberal and that may have doctrinal views that I do not necessarily agree with. This approach is academic as I am providing the opportunity for those within Christian traditions that will perhaps not agree with certain theological concepts in my PhD and on my blogs, to provide me with data within the questionnaire. It should not be necessarily viewed as suspicious when I, as a conservative theologian, ask what may appear to be a liberal minister and his/her congregation for feedback, especially when I attend a secular University. This is an opportunity for many within conservative and liberal Christian churches to evaluate and examine theological thought and bias.
6. A comment I have received is that I seem to be comparing conservative and liberal theology. That is an aspect of my questionnaire and dissertation, but primarily I am comparing free will, sovereignty, and soul-making theodicy approaches. In other words, differing perspectives on the problem of evil. Within the study, differences between conservative and liberal theology will arise and be discussed but I have found so far that these three theodicy approaches cannot always be easily divided along conservative and liberal lines. For example, Augustine and Plantinga have primarily conservative free will concepts that are somewhat in contrast to Hick's liberal soul-making view. However, Hick does subscribe to an aspect of free will theodicy in that he states it was not logically possible for God to create human beings so that they would freely respond to him in love and faith. Hick (1970: 308). Hick postulates that God without contradiction could create human beings that would always freely act justly to each other, but the same cannot be guaranteed for a free and sincere human love for God. Hick (1970: 311). I reason that God could make human beings, or a type of human beings that would always freely and with love respond to God and other persons without committing wrong acts, but God seemingly made persons that would fall and planned to save some through his gospel. God willed the fall in a sense but did not coerce or force his creatures to fall. My questionnaire results will not necessarily show that on every key issue discussed the primary theological divide is between conservative and liberal.
Cheers!
Russ
BRYMAN, ALAN (2004) Social Research Methods, Oxford, University Press.
HICK, JOHN (1970) Evil and The God of Love, London, The Fontana Library.
We are not that familiar with soccer in Canada. Is that a regulation pitch?
