You can be that way, just not here

Brigham Young University has a problem, and I imagine other "religious" liberal arts universities have the same issue to one degree or another. The tenets of religion and the liberal arts are usually diametrically opposed to each other in purpose and both cannot flourish well in the same place. One must dominate the other eventually, though you can try to keep the eternal war between them in some sort of stasis, the game of intellectuals. The "academy" sees this as its parade ground and prides itself on the "virtue" of the struggle, awarding honors and degrees based largely on timed exposure to academic ministrations.

I really have no experience on which to base my attitude. I traditionally attended and matriculated through a secular state-supported teachers college. Much later in life, I worked through an online university, basically doing a string of digital assignments until the next degree appeared. I was already doing the sort of work I was "studying", though not as vaguely formalized enough to call a course of study. I knew there were lectures and tutors there, but I never took advantage of those things. There was no perceived spiritual component or framework that a religious college would claim, but I wasn't engaged enough to notice the lack of spiritual elements.

I have since looked at some interesting confluences of the spiritual and academia, especially from Ubiquity University. I really don't need a job anymore, so a PhD will be largely unnecessary for a career I have no intention of pursuing for money.  My aspirations are to stay busy doing something important (which I never really did in my working life). Also with Ubiquity, there is a left--wing smell to the whole affair with really questionable sexuality tacked on, so I need to avoid it as a person trying to get to heaven.

I can imagine spending time and money pursuing such a doctorate and, right there at the end, having my degree-granting group say that I wasn't just the right sort of person they could bestow their power onto - wrong philosophy!  And they would surely keep all the money.

It is a tricky world these days and I am less willing to take chances that I can fit in with modern groups. There is way too much demand to push against some cultural edge and basically show how intellectually or physically gross behavior you can get away with. I have commitments to God and some advanced degree doesn't persuade me to ignore them.

I'm much more interested in something along these lines: 

https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/hugh-nibley/leaders-managers/