What is a 24-year-old Hoosier girl aspiring to a Ph.D. in cognitive science doing at a seminary in Pittsburgh?

Call it providence.

In September 2005, Teresa Pegors met Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary President Jerry O’Neill after a morning worship service at Bloomington, Ind., RPC. Dr. O’Neill was finishing a trip through the Midwest.

“I happened to glance at a Seminary brochure and realized that I had just seen the man on the front of it worshiping with us,” Pegors said. “I thought I’d be silly and get him to sign one for me. I still have it!”

She shared with Dr. O’Neill that she had just graduated from Indiana University (IU) with a degree in cognitive science and a minor in psychology, and that she planned to pursue similar doctoral work to become a university professor. Due to the environment of such a field, he encouraged her to first be grounded in theology and biblical thinking through seminary training.

“I knew he was right,” she said. “I immediately began asking Lindsey Gamble (daughter of systematic theology professor, Dr. Richard Gamble) about hooking up with her parents in Pittsburgh for housing and getting started in winter quarter three weeks later.”

While she is now in her third quarter of RPTS classes in the master of theological studies program (an academic degree designed for non-pastoral students), seminary didn’t begin as quickly as she planned.

“The RPs taught me well—I sought out my elders’ advice first.”

The consensus was that seminary training was a good idea, but that it would be best for her to enroll for the fall 2006 quarter. She conceded that it was wise counsel, and waiting better rooted her in Bloomington relationships and discipleship. It also helped her earn enough money to cover her first year of classes. This advice was one of various RP influences that the Lord used to steer her in faith and life.

First Encounters of the RP Kind

Pegors attended Heritage Christian School in Indianapolis, Ind., during her high school years. Growing up in another Presbyterian denomination, she first encountered a witness of the Reformed Presbyterian Church during her junior and senior year in the classroom of Bible teacher Rut Etheridge (now pastor of Providence [Pittsburgh, Pa.] RPC).

“He was one of the deepest persons I had ever met.” Etheridge’s influence got her interested in philosophy.

Her fascination with the study of human nature and the brain drew her to IU to enroll in its unique cognitive science major, which involves philosophy, computer science, psychology, linguistics, and neuroscience. This broad range of sciences, she hoped, would “help me figure out what I wanted to do.”

The first few years of college were difficult as she wrestled with trying to reconcile Christianity with a worldly lifestyle. Her pastor and fellow students at the church she was attending didn’t seem to share in her struggle to understand the Scriptures in a manner consistent with life. She turned in frustration to campus ministries.

“I began to meet people who talked about their faith,” she said.

Pegors also began attending Bloomington RPC’s evening Fireside Chats under the leadership of then-associate pastor David Hanson (now at Grace RPC in State College, Pa.). This biweekly ministry to college students was studying the Westminster Confession of Faith. “It was the best part of my week,” she said. “I was learning so much.”

Later in the Fireside Chats, Rich Holdeman, who joined and later replaced Hanson (and has since become president of the Seminary’s board of trustees), offered a stimulating question and answer session that engaged her.

“I was asking hard questions, and they were giving really good answers. Especially on sin, because I had previously come to the conclusion that I didn’t understand what it was.”

She began attending Bloomington RPC during her junior year, where she further was convicted of sin in her life.

“Bill Roberts’ preaching would hurt me,” she said. It convicted her. Over time, it brought repentance, as she finally abandoned a sinful lifestyle and found resolution on issues that had haunted her for years.

“[These leaders] were so biblically based, and they helped me understand how the Bible fits together as one whole unit,” she said. “No one I knew was able to clearly explain this before. Even being part of some campus ministries, I didn’t understand that Christ was the center of the whole Bible and the center of one’s whole life. I didn’t understand that Christianity was the foundation for everything—including science.”

Commenting also on the later preaching of Rich Holdeman, Pegors remembers, “It came to a point where I realized how completely helpless I was. He kept saying, ‘You can’t do it! You need Christ!’’’

A Humble Beginning

“My first week was devastating,” says Pegors of her new experience at RPTS. “I was overwhelmed with how little I knew about the Bible and how much everyone else knew—so many issues I never thought about before.”

“But it was also wonderful.”

Commenting on the benefit of her professors having pastoral experience, she says she was surprisingly challenged spiritually. “People always told me that seminary is where you lose your faith because everything is intellectual.”

It was not so ivory tower-like; however, in the first day of Dr. Gamble’s doctrine of God course, “I had tears in my eyes. His comments on God were beautiful. It was just like a sermon.” And such a pastoral approach to this and other courses has challenged her in her devotional life to “really study” the Bible and pray with joy.

Pegors, who now attends Covenant Fellowship (Wilkinsburg, Pa.) RPC, is already applying what she is learning while working on the campus of Carnegie Mellon University (see sidebar). With a heart to reach university and international students, she has reunited with Pastor Rut Etheridge to coordinate a Bible study on campus that already draws about seven students from three different universities and RPTS.

Fiery Resolution

Studying under pastors at RPTS seems to be strengthening the foundation for Teresa’s faith—especially the course on apologetics.

“Before I took the class, if anyone asked me if I was one hundred percent sure that what I believed about the Bible was true, I could never say yes. But the apologetics course showed me I could know for sure. The world does not make sense without the God of the Bible. You can’t explain anything—thoughts, why we’re doing what we’re doing—without the Bible. The only philosophy that can describe this world and all that is in it completely is Christianity; and without it, there’s always something that doesn’t make sense.”

She says her newfound biblical resolve is getting her ready for Ph.D. studies and her goal to be a university professor where she can, among other things, bring a biblical perspective to the layman about brain science and have the opportunity to reach out with the gospel to international students. She now bows to the authority of God’s revelation in ruling over her understanding of nature and humanity.

“You must have the Bible as your foundation,” she said. “You can’t make good decisions in anything, including scientific studies, unless you clearly understand what the Bible says about the world.”

Sidebar: Studying How Children Learn Language

While Teresa Pegors studies theology at RPTS, she pays the bills and furthers her training in cognitive science as a research assistant on the campus of Carnegie Mellon University in the Oakland section of Pittsburgh, not far from the Seminary. As lab manager, she oversees 10 undergraduate students in the psychology department in doing research with children ages 5 to 25 months old. The data are analyzed and evaluated by a professor who studies brain behavior related to language acquisition.

“We are seeking to understand the ways in which an infant learns language and the underlying brain mechanisms that make it possible,” she said. “We watch how aspects of language are acquired and in what order.”

Pegors and the undergraduate students do various research trials that involve the child sitting with a parent in a lab room equipped with a large computer screen and speakers. One example of an “experiment” is when the child listens to a stream of monotone, made-up words that serve as arbitrary “labels” for various shapes and images viewed simultaneously on the screen. Through the process of “habituation,” they aim to get the child bored, which is discernible when the time that the infant pays attention is half of what it was at the start. Upon recognizing a new word that labels the same object, a child will look longer because it is unfamiliar and does not match with what was previously seen. A video camera in the room focused on the child’s facial expressions is fed to a monitor in another room for viewing and documenting data.

Many language researchers think there is a special language-learning device in the brain, noting the ability of young infants to learn patterns of speech, but not the same patterns in the form of shapes or tones. For example, an infant can recognize an A-B-A pattern with made up words like “gah-tee-gah.” Once familiar with such a pattern, a child looks away in disinterest even when the pattern is expressed in other words such as “toe-bee-toe.” However, when a new pattern of words like A-B-B is introduced (“gah-tee-tee”), an infant will look longer to learn this new ordering.

This is not true of shapes. Infants do not discern the same A-B-A pattern, for instance, when represented by a series of images like triangle–circle–triangle.

“We think that this phenomenon can be interpreted differently. We are beginning to show that it is simply a matter of the infant receiving less information from the shape and tone patterns. Language is so much richer in content than simple shapes or tones. When we add multiple layers of information to a shape or tone pattern, such as by combining them, we see that the infant can now learn the pattern. Our research suggests that infants use more general, all-purpose learning mechanisms in their acquisition of language. And this gives us insight into how the brain develops and operates.”