A CV is to a life what a map is to the territory.

Posted on By pukeko

One of the things that people often look at, in the academic game, is your qualifications, when they should be looking elsewhere. They look to see if you have a doctorate, from what university, and who you studied under. At the beginning of your career this is wise, but after about five years of work as a professional, this is a flaw. What matters is what you have done.

I’m still asked by many what my PhD thesis is in: I don’t have a doctorate. They then freak. I have to explain that in the commonwealth a medical degree is a baccalaureate (MB, or MB, ChB) and your specialist qualification a fellowship. I do have an advanced degree — a MPH, which I got in my forties. And when I explain I’m supervising PhD students their brains start to hurt.

At work we get CVs all the time, and we scan for recent work, recent publications, recent activity. What happened ten years ago is less important than what you can do now. We look at metrics: your Hisrch index (number of publications you have cited over that number of times). And then we interview, trying to work out if we can work with you.

And we keep HR well away from the process: their job is to fill in forms.

Now, when Jesus stands up in the temple: the high centre of Judaism, and teaches, people wanted to know who taught him. They wanted his CV. They expected him to be rabbinical: to have the polish and training that we find in the writings of St Paul (who did have a Rabbinical training).

Christ did not. His CV was his actions.

About the middle of the feast Jesus went up into the temple and began teaching. The Jews therefore marveled, saying, “How is it that this man has learning, when he has never studied?” So Jesus answered them, “My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me. If anyone’s will is to do God’s will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority. The one who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory; but the one who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and in him there is no falsehood. Has not Moses given you the law? Yet none of you keeps the law. Why do you seek to kill me?” The crowd answered, “You have a demon! Who is seeking to kill you?” Jesus answered them, “I did one work, and you all marvel at it. Moses gave you circumcision (not that it is from Moses, but from the fathers), and you circumcise a man on the Sabbath. If on the Sabbath a man receives circumcision, so that the law of Moses may not be broken, are you angry with me because on the Sabbath I made a man’s whole body well? Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.”

(John 7:14-24 ESV)

Jesus is referring to the time before he was in Jerusalem when he healed a cripple on the sabbath. And he is referring to people who are trying to shut him up, to destroy him, because he is unqualified, untamed, and subverting rabbinical teaching. I do think that the saying “You have a demon” would today be much more “You are crazy, you are nuts”.

But what would have enraged the academic rabbinical colleges is that he was claiming that his teaching was more valid than theirs. They would rather have been ignored, than be condemned, which is what happened next.

It’s not your qualifications that matter, but your CV. Taking it a step further, it’s not your CV that matters, but your actions. The CV is supposed to be a map, a record of what you have done, and the qualification a notation that you have been trained to a sufficient standard.

Which brings me to two sort of applications.

The first is that we should be gentle on our theologians and theology. We are human. Christ was not: he was more than human, and he taught truly. We teach within what we can do, and we disagree. But there are flaws within all the systems of theology: within the theology of Aquinas, of Calvin, of Xavier, and of the scholars that followed. I expect that we will all be corrected by Jesus, and those things that vex us will be made plain. But in this life we need to accept that others will disagree, and concentrate on the works of Christ.

I am biased here: we all are, and I tend to stick fairly closely to the text more often than going elsewhere. This was the practice of the Reformed: we leave the speculative and brilliant analogies to the Catholic scholastics and the Anglican mystics.

The second is that the very miracles and signs of power that Jesus did, Paul did, and still occur today are probably there to validate, in front of the populace, that there is indeed a God in Israel. These miracles were the equivalent of Christ’s CV. But the Jews were more wise than us: they knew false teachers could fake such things, and so wanted to know who taught him, how and why. They wanted to know the content of his teaching.

I do not deny that miracles happen. I am also aware that there are preachers out there wbo turn quasi-acts-of-power into an industry, at times fraudulently, and at times driven by malevolence. We need to look beyond the surface to what are the consequences of this person’s teaching. There have been too many faith healers set up false churches, that last but a generation.

In all of this, a key may be humility. Knowing your own limitations and frailties is a correction to arrogance, and that over confidence that you have “got it right” is, in my experience, a sign you are about to fall.

So look not to self-esteem and happiness, but to the results of your life on others as a measure. Your CV is a map: your life is the territory.