Then one commentator remarked recently in the New York Times Book Review that religion was being “driven from campus,” an executive of the American Academy of Religion (AAR) responded with some vigor. “The academic study of religion” she argued, “. . . has enjoyed something of a renaissance during the last 30 years.” The AAR includes 7,000 members, the executive pointed out, and “a healthy blend of teachers who approach religion from both theological and secular perspectives.” So, she concluded, “religion remains a vital component of the humanities curriculum in colleges and universities across the United States and abroad.”
Whether one calculates the changing state of religion in university classrooms during the past generation as progress or regress depends on what counts. It is true that neither the study of religion nor all religious perspectives have been banished from university classrooms. And voluntary religion on campus is flourishing, which is another and more important issue. With respect to the academic role of religion, however, evangelical and traditionalist Christians are likely to view the expansion of religious studies somewhat differently than will religious liberals or secularists.
The discipline of religious studies developed in the middle of this century under the auspices of liberal Protestantism. Evangelical and traditionalist Christian views were never well represented in mainstream religion programs. Today, although the AAR does include many who teach from theological perspectives, including some conservative ones, such teachers are far more likely to be found at church-related institutions or theological seminaries than in the academic mainstream. The trend in mainstream religious studies has increasingly been toward study exclusively about religion. Academics today typically subordinate religion to a supposedly higher standard of truth, whether cultural criticism or science. “Religion” becomes a category abstracted from particular religions, with the characteristic implication that all religious truth-claims are relativized.
In Religion and American Education: Rethinking a National Dilemma, Warren Nord argues that people of faith should not give up so easily on religious studies. While he concedes that study about religion may undermine particular religious perspectives, he points out that such study is not necessarily incompatible with faith-informed outlooks. Moreover, he argues, it is possible to construct religious studies curricula that are fair to all faiths.
Nord advocates a vast expansion of religious studies that is religion-friendly, not only in higher education but in American public education generally. Especially at the lower levels, religion has been neglected in an astonishing way. To correct that problem, Nord argues, we must create a field of religious studies that is compatible both with the demands of public culture and the interests of religious people themselves. Such a reform may also help address the much-discussed problem of moral edu cation.
Nord presents these proposals with as much nuance as anyone could hope for. A teacher of philosophy as well as the director of the Program in Humanities and Human Values at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, he considers every side of each issue. He provides an insightful history of the secularization of American education and offers balanced analyses of the legal, political, ethical, educational, and religious dimensions of the national dilemma. He is acutely aware that the question of relating religious belief to the public culture of a pluralistic liberal society is a bewildering conundrum. Nonetheless, he sorts out the problems with remarkable clarity and remains hopeful of a solution.
In seeking equitable reforms, Nord points out three alternatives to be avoided. First is the current policy, which is simply to sidestep religion, especially in lower education. The second pitfall is the relativizing of religion, or reducing it to its cultural dimensions-the reigning approach in religious studies. The third unacceptable alternative is proselytizing for one’s religion or for dogmatic religious truth. Christian activists may claim to be promoting “balanced treatment” of secular and religious views, when in fact they are attempting to privilege their own views as the religious alternative. Even when a truer pluralism allows religious perspectives, teachers in state schools must be careful not to impose their views on their students unduly.
What is left for religious studies if we avoid all of these alternatives? Nord affirms that there is still room for particular religious perspectives and even for theologians on the faculties of state universities. The state cannot promote any one religious view, but there is no valid legal reason why it cannot treat them all equally. Just as important, it should treat religious views as equal to nonreligious views. The university, even the state university, has no sufficient grounds for suppressing one side of what is perhaps the most crucial dimension of human inquiry.
So far Nord makes a compelling case, one that deserves wide attention. One must wonder, however, how realistic is his solution. There may be signs of reassessment within the field of religious studies, but the fact remains that younger scholars are the least likely to favor theological perspectives.
Developing religion-friendly options in public education will mean reversing some formidable trends. In the government-run high and lower schools, the obstacles may be insurmountable. There you do not have religion departments made up of experts who can offer choices of perspectives. Rather, you have one teacher and a captive audience. Moreover, the subject will be essentially comparative religions, and it will be difficult to avoid making the central message relativistic. That is, after all, the easiest way to keep the peace short of avoiding the subject altogether.
Nord concludes with a typically balanced treatment of the pros and cons of vouchers as an alternative. He sees the decentralization of the schools via vouchers as solving some problems but creating others. Our public culture must face the fact that “public education is hostile to religion.” Only a vast overhaul will remove that systemic hostility. If that does not happen, then vouchers seem to be the only just option.
Though Nord does not intend it that way, this seems like a powerful argument for vouchers. To believe that the public schools will otherwise resolve the dilemma he poses, one has to believe that vast expansion of the field of “religion” in a public system under the auspices of bureaucrats and politicians will yield the subtle balances that Nord says are needed. Vouchers and the plurality of school systems they would encourage seem the only feasible way to encourage teaching from a variety of religiously informed perspectives below the university level.
If religious-studies programs are our era’s characteristic way of dealing with religion in mainstream higher education, university divinity schools were the flagship institutions of the efforts of the preceding era. At the dawn of this century, where Conrad Cherry begins his excellent Hurrying Toward Zion: Universities, Divinity Schools, and American Protestantism, divinity educators had high hopes of performing multiple roles. Their schools were to be professional schools to raise educational standards for clergy; they were to be at least indirect means for educating the laity; and they were to provide theological faculties that would leaven the universities and thus help Christianize the culture.
Cherry’s theme is how the almost millennial hopes of a century ago collapsed as the interests of Christianizing, educating, and civilizing moved further apart. Protestant theological educators were not hapless victims in this process. Rather, says Cherry, their sensitivities to pluralism and their promotion of specialization were direct contributors to the undoing of their original vision.
The most intractable dilemma was how to reconcile the particularities of Christianity with the inclusiveness demanded by a pluralistic society. Already early in this century the leading northern university divinity schools led the way in stretching the Christian heritage to its limits, emphasizing that inclusiveness was the heart of the gospel. The Christian message was essentially a message of civilizing. Theologians of the neo-orthodox generation pointed out that such a message made the church not much different from a political party or a school. Nevertheless, even in the heyday of neo-orthodoxy in the 1950s, the integrationist mode was still dominant.
In the meantime, a growing emphasis on specialization was necessary to maintain theology’s status in the universities. That emphasis was in tension both with training for the practical demands of parish ministry and the hopes that theology would perform a broader civilizing mission.
The combination of zeal for pluralism and for specialization led to a new era in university theological studies, marked by the organization of the American Academy of Religion in 1964. Emphasis soon changed from “ecumenical” to “global.” The accompanying desire to be nonjudgmental fit nicely with the need to be scientific. Anthropological models became prominent. “Religion” was more often the subject, and “theologies” were politicized, historicized, and oriented toward practice. Nonetheless, various Christian theologies were still dominant at most divinity schools, especially at those which, unlike Harvard and Chicago, retained a major orientation toward training clergy.
The resulting mix is a system that does not very adequately please any of its constituencies. Potential clergy often see the training as too abstract and impractical. University officials see the divinity schools as anomalies left from an earlier epoch and their practically minded students as inferior. Pressures of pluralism and specialization push the schools toward being centers for the study of religion. If they take that route, however, they move further from their church and student constituencies.
University divinity schools, Cherry points out, have never done well in popularizing their messages. Despite a century of efforts of America’s leading denominations and their most prestigious educational centers, pro- gressive theological educators seem to have had remarkably little impact on American opinion. Polling data show that, even in the mainline Protestant denominations, there is, as Cherry puts it, “only a slight departure from the premodern worldview.” Most churchgoers still believe in basically miraculous claims of historic Christianity. It is not that the fundamentalists, as such, have won. Rather, it is that critical modern and scientific perspectives have not been very successfully transferred from the academy to the churches.
Neither will the turn toward postmodernism and politicized theologies change the situation. Cherry is an astute observer of some of the contradictions and the elitism of current academic fashion. For instance, he poi nts out the apparent inconsistency of “anti-foundationalists” who affirm the causes of the dispossessed only by appealing to what amount to foundational ideals such as justice and equality. Such confusion will not play in the pulpits of Peoria.
Cherry, who works under the auspices of the Lilly Endowment studies of mainline Protestantism, ends on a positive note. At least, he says, the divinity founders’ vision of being a force to unite a Christian civilization “cannot be written off as a tradition of unequivocal failure.” The “experiment” in university-based divinity schools “deserves considerable respect.” Divinity schools have helped develop professional standards for ministerial education, promoted social justice, and produced many outstanding scholars. Their sense of crisis in recent decades has forced rethinking, and the times remain propitious to “re-envision the aims and structures.” This is the word from a sympathetic but honest observer who apparently does not think the future of the experiment is bright.
Where does that leave us regarding a place for religion in the academic life of mainstream universities? Currently it is confined almost entirely to two loci, departments of religious studies and (at about a dozen private universities) divinity schools. In each the demands of university culture, especially for pluralism and specialization, conflict with the interests of faith and the churches. Divinity schools still include many outstanding scholars who make important contributions to their universities, to Christian theology and biblical studies, and to their churches. Nevertheless, most divinity schools today seem less than the sum of their parts. They face major-league crises of identity and constituency.
Still, we can play only with the hand we are dealt, and it makes sense to consider how we can make the best of these enterprises. As to religion departments, study about religions is a valuable activity and, as Nord argues cogently, there is no reason why that might not be done from a variety of perspectives, religious as well as nonreligious. Proponents of each view would have to observe certain ground rules of discourse and civility. They should be free frankly to represent a viewpoint and to argue for its merits, but would have to avoid illicit proselytizing. That may be a fine distinction to draw. The general rule, however, should be that religious viewpoints are treated by the same rules as nonreligious ones. Openly identifying various points of view while observing rules of civility may produce a healthier pluralism than does the more conventional academic approach in which the professors pose as the neutral scientific observers, thus hiding their actual viewpoints.
The best prospect for divinity schools, as some of their leaders recognize, is in strengthening their identities as Christian institutions. This would not mean simply a return to the 1950s when the mainline Protestant establishment was the only voice. It would mean involving other Christian perspectives, including Christian evangelicals and traditionalists. The theological education at such schools will still have to be offered in smorgasbord fashion since it is impossible to obtain the coherence of closely related viewpoints found at some conservative seminaries. Nevertheless, it makes sense to include evangelicals and traditionalists at an ecumenical seminary. Also, not so incidentally, this may be a way to connect to some large potential constituencies, including large parts of the constituencies of mainline denominations. Given that most rank and file Christians have not resonated with academic modernism, perhaps they would be better served by sophisticated “premodern” views than by either postmodern or warmed-over modern alternatives.
Attempting changes here and there within the structure that we have, however, should not limit our understanding of a much broader issue. Part of the problem of the twentieth-century university, reflecting the problem of twentieth-century culture, is that religion is safely cordoned off in its own strictly limited territory, where it is to be dealt with by specialists and experts. That leaves everything else free from the taint of religious perspectives, or at least supposedly so. Ideally, various religious perspectives should be identifiable not only in divinity schools and religion departments, but throughout a university’s curriculum. Just as various feminist perspectives are relevant to many disciplines (though to some far more than others), so are various religious perspectives. Feminists should be happy to have specialized women’s studies programs, but if all their efforts were confined to those specialties, then the opponents of feminism would have won the day. Proponents of religious perspectives should consider the parallels.
For evangelical and traditionalist Christians, three things should be kept in mind. First, if they are going to participate in the academic mainstream, they have to do their homework. They must produce first-rate scholarship, and they must learn how to communicate among audiences who differ with them profoundly on some first principles.
Second, they must develop theological perspectives that are equal to their academic sophistication. A Sunday-school understanding of Christianity is not going to cut much ice among Ph.D.s in one’s specialty. Christian scholars need some training in theology or high-level seminars on faith and their discipline.
Third, Christian scholars must recognize how stifling to the particularities of any faith are the pressures of pluralistic academic culture. Despite the appreciation we should have for our pluralistic institutions, we should recognize that they have an inherent interest in suppressing the potentially divisive teachings of any religious faith. So while Christians should support such institutions, they should do so provisionally, recognizing that the valuable ideals of pluralistic culture are less than ultimate. As a society, we need these institutions, and we should work to improve them, but we should not expect too much. Christians will also need to continue to strengthen their churches, Christian support groups, and other explicitly Christian institutions if a distinctive faith is to remain vital within the cultural mainstream.
Copyright (c) 1996 Christianity Today, Inc./Books & Culture Magazine
September/October 1996, Page 28
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