Saturday
September 6, 2008
Advertisement
Advertisement
News, Views and Careers for All of Higher Education
Jan. 27, 2006
Faith on the Quad
“To live in America is to live in a religiously charged atmosphere,” and that includes colleges — whether they like it or not. With those words, William M. Sullivan, a senior scholar at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, summed up why 25 scholars — from a range of disciplines and faiths — have been working on a new statement about the role of religion on campuses.
Related stories
- ‘Theology in Life’, July 22
- Reflections on a Papal Visit, April 21
- Catholic Character, Sept. 25, 2007
- At Variance with the Vatican, Sept. 17, 2007
- Spiritual Accountability, Feb. 1, 2007
The Wingspread Declaration on Religion and Public Life: Engaging Higher Education is still only a draft. But the document, which comes out of discussions that started during the 2004 elections, was presented — and at times the subject of intense discussion — at the annual meeting of the Association of American Colleges and Universities on Thursday. The declaration calls on colleges to:
- Provide students with “religious literacy” in their educations — and make sure that this literacy is not simply the responsibility of religious studies professors. “Students must learn the relevance of religion to all disciplines — sciences, humanities, arts, social sciences — and the professions,” the declaration states.
- Promote civility in discussions about religion and religious issues — even when participants in those discussions hold different views. “Higher education must foster a spirit of tolerance and actively champion an attitude of mutual respect and affirmation of the value of pluralism in a democracy without implicitly or explicitly privileging secular-rational world views or particular religious perspectives in the search for truth.”
- Help students with their concerns about “meaning” and “purpose” in life and with their desires to connect spiritual development with their intellectual growth in college.
While the declaration acknowledges that colleges have different missions and values, it encourages these steps at all institutions: public and private, religious and secular.
The declaration has been developed by the Society for Values in Higher Education. Nancy Thomas, director of the society’s Democracy Project, said that during 2004, many scholars became concerned about a sense of “decreased tolerance” in public life, divisions into “secular and religious camps” in American society, and a sense that as religion was playing a more important role in American life, far too many Americans are ignorant about it. Higher education is experiencing many of the tensions caused by these trends, she said, but can also be “a catalyst” for change.
The tensions on campus were evident in the discussions among the provosts, deans and professors at the meeting, as they waited for the declaration’s release. Two public university professors were trading stories about demands they face from evangelical students. Two professors at Roman Catholic colleges were discussing a controversial speech this week in which the new president of the University of Notre Dame questioned the appropriateness of certain arts events on his campus.
Thomas said that her group invited 25 scholars to convene last summer at the Wingspread conference center to draft the declaration. After additional reviews and adjustments, it will be released as a final document.
In the declaration’s introduction, the authors stress that what they are seeking is not just a new course or lecture series, but something much broader. “Changes in the landscape of religion in American public life provide the academy with myriad opportunities for study, dialogue, critique, and action,” the draft says. “Yet religion is all too often marginalized to religious studies programs and campus ministries. This statement advocates for the study about religion in all its dimensions, disciplines, and complexities and every level of education. We challenge colleges and universities to teach about religion across the curriculum and as part of their efforts to educate citizens for a diverse, complex, and religion-infused local and global society.”
At the meeting Thursday, an overview about the declaration was followed by breaking those in attendance up into small groups so that the academic leaders could discuss the ideas before returning to a large, group discussion. In the small discussions, there appeared to be unanimity about the importance of discussing these issues and of colleges doing more to teach religion. But some of the specifics of the document resonated more with some than others.
Sue A. Alexander, dean of students at Wheaton College in Massachusetts, said that the declaration reflected a revival of interest in discussing such issues with students. Alexander said that many educators on the campus were influenced by a report issued in April that found that students nationally care a great deal about issues of spirituality and want their colleges to provide more of an environment in which to explore such issues.
Wheaton just created a new program — the Office of Service, Spirituality and Social Responsibility — to provide students with more of the kinds of opportunities discussed in the April report, which came from the Higher Education Research Institute of the University of California at Los Angeles. Alexander stressed that the new office would not try to impose any one way of thinking on students, but would rather “let students arrive at answers to these questions from a variety of faiths.” Alexander said that faculty members have come forward since the office was created to say that they had long wanted to connect their interests and beliefs with their student work, but had feared that such topics were “off limits.”
In the same group with Alexander was Kathleen M. Murray, provost of Birmingham Southern University. Murray said that she thought her colleagues would find the declaration helpful. A major goal at the university, she said, is to find ways to link its Methodist ties, a campus ministry that serves students of many religions, a connection to the city of Birmingham, and the idea of “global human dignity.”
“We’re trying to develop an umbrella to consider these things,” she said.
Thinking big was indeed a theme of those involved in drafting the declaration. “This is about educating the whole student, the whole person,” said Tony C. Chambers, associate vice provost of the University of Toronto.
In some of the other small groups, there were skeptics on parts of the declaration. In one group, two professors — one from a secular, private institution and one from a faith-based university — said that they agreed that many students were ignorant of religion and needed more education on the topic. But both professors said that they feared higher education was being asked to restore civility to American life — a task that however important may be beyond the ability of academe.
When the groups all united for a larger discussion, other issues were raised. One professor, while praising the document, said that she thought that many of her faculty colleagues would “feel ill-equipped to do what this document calls for.”
Another professor said that he was concerned about the document’s call not to favor either a secular or religious view. He wanted to know if the principles being put forth would discourage a university from defending evolution from attacks by those who claim that “intelligent design” has scholarly validity.
But many others spoke with passion about how it was time for higher education to respond more fully to student demands for study of religion at many levels. One provost described how two students of different faiths — randomly assigned to share a dormitory room — came to her and told her that they had both learned to reject stereotypes they previously held about the other’s faith. But the students weren’t willing to rest on their laurels. They told their provost that they wanted her to set up more courses on comparative religion.
Want it on paper? Print this page.
Know someone who’d be interested? Forward this story.
Want to stay informed? Sign up for free daily news e-mail.
Advertisement
Comments
Whole person developement
The book by Naomi Schaefer Riley sheds light on this subject, i.e., God on the Quad : How Religious Colleges and the Missionary Generation Are Changing America. Religion and metaphysical considerations have long been a curious disconnect in our institutions, especially when you think of the founding of the liberal arts and the Queen of the Sciences. Thanks for the summary of this important document.
Jerry Pattengale, AVP for Scholarship and Grants at IWU, at 7:35 am EST on January 27, 2006
More Faith
A call for more faith in learning is a call for more faith. That such a call would come from the faithful is no surprise, but there is no reason for those not of the faith to take it seriously.
If a person feels a need to learn about religion, there is no shortage of options, either on or off campus; indeed, I took more than a few courses in religion while a student.
But to subject a person to a religious education they do not choose is something else entirely, and should be resisted, if only on the grounds that a person who wishes to study, say, science, should be educated in science, and not something else.
Stephen Downes, at 7:35 am EST on January 27, 2006
Civility
Civil conduct is the business both of colleges and churches. However, far as I can tell, there is no basis for civility as we know it outside faith.
If this is true we in academe (at least the publicly funded part) have been leaving out the basis for civility and then encouraging students to explore their bases — thus implying that civility is baseless.
This activity looks to me like a step in the right direction.
On the other hand there are approaches to religion that foreclose civility. Ask any Jew how civil other ‘faiths’ have been to his through the ages. Our understanding of civil is that it is everyone’s obligation. The less civil approach to religion brands unbelievers as less worthy of some privilege than believers; and for some religious that ‘privilege’ includes life on Earth.
So, applying the idea of faith-based civility may be a problem. Blessings on the effort!
Rich Godfrey, Adjunct at LeTourneau U, Longview, at 7:41 am EST on January 27, 2006
Can someone involved in this Declaration explain the thinking behind the idea that religion is relevant to the teaching of science? Humanities, arts, social sciences I understand. But science? Of some relevance, didn’t the recent Dover (Pennsylvania) School District decision argue that intelligent design was, essentially, a religious concept inappropriate for a biology curriculum?
Mommy, at 8:01 am EST on January 27, 2006
Mommy
“Can someone involved in this Declaration explain the thinking behind the idea that religion is relevant to the teaching of science?”
I have nothing to do with the declaration, but I will say this: Many of the most prominent names in the history and philosophy of science (Kuhn, Lakatos, and Polanyi immediately spring to my mind) include in their examinations of the nature of science the idea that faith-based presuppositions and deeply personal commitments are at the very core of any scientific endeavor. The idea of a positivist science dispassionately examining objective facts is deader than disco.
Charles Hackney, psychology professor at Redeemer University College, at 8:55 am EST on January 27, 2006
General Education
To answer Stephen’s question, the whole point of this effort is to broaden the understanding of our world. This is the role of general education on any campus. They are calling us to consider this very important variable—religion—among many others. It is pertinent to understanding terrorism and many other current social problems, as well as placing all our knowledge—including science—in proper perspective. I trust the AAC&U (they do not have any “agenda” and applaud this effort.Have a happy day!
Cal, at 9:11 am EST on January 27, 2006
The Spirit of Education
As a confirmed liberal, I’ve argued at length about the necessity of including conversations about politics, race, gender, class, sexuality, and other social issues in every classroom, including the sciences. But as a former religion major and divinity school student, I’d want to make the same claim for religion—it demands a place in any coherent study of the world. One cannot discuss the history of American literature, for example, without an understanding of the influence of Puritanism, Quakerism, evangelical Christianity, Transcendentalism, slave religions, or Native American spirituality. Similarly, one cannot understand the history of ideas, including scientific ideas, without some knowledge of how those ideas grew out of, responded to, or resisted religious understandings of the world. Scholars who know their subjects already do this, in their research and their teaching. But I’ve met and studied with a number of professors who are either lacking in their own knowledge of religious influences on their field, or are hesitant to address those topics in class for fear of “offending” someone.
The other danger, of course, is that a professor will seek to use the classroom to “impose” religious ideology, rather than examine and critique it. I suspect that those who oppose this declaration are making the same assumption that conservatives have been making about the discussion of politics and social issues in the classroom: that acknowledgment, discussion, and critique is the same thing as advocacy. In the hands of an incompetent teacher, it can be—but there’s no reason to suspect that the vast majority of our teaching faculty in America are incompetent to handle these discussions with tact and fairness. But they do need an environment and a culture of openness at their schools that promotes such discussions and establishes a civil format for engaging in them.
John Martin, at 9:11 am EST on January 27, 2006
A complete understanding...
We have several options when making decisions in life: We can react emotionally and hope we have made the rights ones; We can react with extreme emotion and live with the results; or we can THINK with a full knowledge of having the best informaiton possible and increase our odds of making the appropriate decision.
How in the world can one make a proper decision without a full understanding, especially without the historical context of humanities’ search for meaning through their faith. One can’t. Taught in the proper context, without proselyization, a learner will gain an ability to understand and as a result make a better decision.
Edward, A Retired Professor, at 11:20 am EST on January 27, 2006
I once attended a religion seminar in which a professor asked each student to write, “What do you think about some idea within a religion?” I wrote my response and received it back with a low grade and a comment that said, “How could you think that?” It was clear that the professor wanted me to write what he thought about religion as a way to parrot the “appropriate” response.
While I liked the article and feel that there is great merit in broad discussions on faith, I still remember those years in college when I refused to take religion because I would not allow a professor to tell me that his thoughts were right and mine were not. Nearly thirty years later I can better articulate what I believe, but there was a time when I was an idealist and refused to choose between a low grade and repeating what I was told to think. Religion was required at my university.
Candice, Just A Thought, at 11:25 am EST on January 27, 2006
Toward a less civil discussion of religion
I applaud the idea that students in all fields should learn more about the way religious belief affects the world now and in the past. However, I detect in the proposal the idea that this discussion should be noncritical. Any teaching about religion (as distinguished from the inculcation of religion) in a nonsectarian university should allow for arguments to the effect that religious belief is bad and dangerous as well as arguments that it is good and helpful. The work of Sam Harris needs to be present as well as the work of Page Smith, to name just two examples.
The difficulty is that when we limit discourse to the polite and civil, we screen out voices who consider religious belief to be negative, dangerous and inherently bad for the nation and the world. By all means let religion be discussed more widely in colleges, but let us not promote a structure of discussion that prejudges the very subject being discussed.
Alan Contreras, Oregon Office of Degree Authorization, at 11:40 am EST on January 27, 2006
I still wonder where these places that indoctrinate students and suppress critical discussion of religion are. I suppose you can point to a few denominational colleges that impose loyalty oaths on faculty but that isn’t the norm.
When I was an undergraduate, at a private liberal arts college with a nominal religious affiliation the clear message was that Christianity was only of historical interest, like Ptolemaic astronomy or the Divine Right of Kings doctrine. There were naturally some people out there who were religious but, of course, not people like us.
We were very civil and polite about religion because making fun if it was a cheap shot—like going to a side show to laugh at the freaks. Only the theology faculty were overtly anti-religious. There were some intellectuals we learnt who got religion, like T. S. Eliot, but that was outre and perverse. At best, taking up religion was a sort of inverse snobbery—like going bowling to show that you were so secure in your superior status that you could safely enjoy proletarian pursuits in the spirit of ironic detachment.
In Academia, apart from those few denominational colleges with loyalty oaths, that is the norm. Christians—and I don’t mean conservative evangelicals but anyone who professes Christianity however liberal—have their backs to the wall. Wade Clark Roof in _A Generation of Seekers_ notes that the baby boomers who were most likely to drop out of organized religion and stay out were the college educated. And, as an academic, I can guarantee that that is not because they developed more serious intellectual doubts than less educated peers but because the culture of Academia is contemptuous of Christianity and part of the enculturation of members of the elite is the message that people like us of course aren’t Christians.
LogicGuru, at 1:01 pm EST on January 27, 2006
“Civil” does not equal “uncritical.”
“The difficulty is that when we limit discourse to the polite and civil, we screen out voices who consider religious belief to be negative, dangerous and inherently bad for the nation and the world.”
Do you really believe that it is impossible to hold the idea that religion is a negative phenomenon without being rude and disrespectful?
Disagreement and mutual respect are not only compatible, productive debate demands that they both be present. Mockery and vitriol may stroke one’s ego, but they do nothing to advance our understanding of the world and of important issues.
Charles Hackney, psychology professor at Redeemer University College, at 1:50 pm EST on January 27, 2006
And this will work how?
I certainly agree that access to informed discussions of faith and religion require a place on American campuses. And the classroom offers a controlled environment for doing so. But I have two concerns:
1. How many faculty actually know enough about their own religions to claim that discussing religion in the classroom does not fall outside their areas of expertise?2. Unless students perceive faculty as experts on issues of faith and religion, in the current environment some will claim faculty are unfairly foisting personal views on them.
Correct conversation. Wrong decade.
Gadfly, at 2:20 pm EST on January 27, 2006
What Does it mean to be an Educated Person?
We live in a secular society in which the intellectual elite, which includes academia, the media, and the college educated in every profession, has become predominantly hostile to religion. The courts have interpreted the first amendment forbidding Congress to establish religion as meaning that religion must be excluded from the public forum. That was not the issue in 1789. The issue was the elimination of an established religion in the form that existed in under British rule which could not work in the de facto pluralistic, religious society of the colonies. It was not meant to create “a wall of separation” between church and state as, I believe, Thomas Jefferson, a secularist thinker and child of the European Enlightenment, called it in a letter. Most if not all of the first colleges and universities in the US were founded on religious principles.
The great religions of history have not been against learning and dare I say “Enlightenment.” We can cite theologians from the Jewish, Christian, Islamic, Hindu, Taoist, Confusianist, and Buddhist traditions to support this claim. The questions that the great religious traditions raise are legitiate questions that are worthy of being pursued in any academic forum or in the public forum for that matter. So I do not think it is a matter of debate whether religious questions arise across the college curriculum. The problem is one of methodic differentiation. That means it is not methodically appropriate to try to answer a religious question or a philosophical question in a course that is following the method of a particular science.
Take the issue of “intelligent design” versus the scientific biological theory of evolution. Whether there is an Intelligence behind the development of the species of living things on the earth is not a scientific question nor can it be a scientific hypothesis. Asserting or denying it has no consequences for a strictly scientific explanation. The question about whether the intelligibility of the developing universe including the evolution of living things requires the hypothesis of an ultimate grounding Intelligence is a PHILOSOPHICAL question that is a “second order question,” a question about the foundation of scientific explanations and that is not a scientific question. The explanation of explanation is not a scientific question. It is a philosophical explanation.
This example brings me to the issue I believe is as important as, if not more important than, the issue of including in a liberal education of our people the consideration of religious issues and their historical and cultural influences: The neglect of philosophical education as witnessed by the disappearance of philosophy from the core curricula of most of our colleges and universities. This is no doubt due to many and various causes: the requirements of the field specialties, the encroachment of the demands of the ideology of the market place on academic curricula, the requirements of governments for college and university funding, the different social roles academia has been expected to play that have little to do with their mission to educate etc. More tragically it has been the philosophical profession itself that has brought upon itself a judgment of its educational irrelevance given the rampant relativism that is more often than not either presented directly or implied by the smorgasbord approach to philosophical questions by “philosophy” professors as the only legitimate method of dealing with such questions.
So Alan Bloom hit a nerve when he alerted the academic community in his -Closing of the American Mind- to the academic deformation of the notion of “openness” as meaning “accepting or respecting even the most absurd intellectual positions. Or Eric Voegelin who taught philosophy at Louisiana University for many years before his death characterized our universities as “Whore Houses of Opinion.” He meant mere opinion as opposed to knowledge or reasoned opinion. The point is that a central philosophical question is the question of the method of philosophy and that question has been systematically suppressed or dogmatically proclaimed as irrelevant by folks who are supposed to be the teachers of philosophy.
How many students can graduate from even our most prestigious colleges and universities without being required to take even one course in philosophy. Can we call these students educated? Or are they merely trained to get a higher paying job. I am not demeaning high paying jobs, but have not we in the academy itself confused education with economic success?
Beginning with our founding fathers we Americans used to believe that we had to have an educated citizenry if we were going to be a free and self-governing people. We also believed that philosophy was at the core of our virtues as a free people and that those virtues were expressed in our civility. Civility meant respecting the rights and obligations of our fellow human beings, not just our fellow citizens; but also demanding from them a mutual respect based on intelligent and reasonable, even if sometimes committed and passionate, argument. Sadly in our public discourse and behaviour we have come a long way away from these praiseworthy ideals.
Emile Piscitelli, Professor at NVCC, at 3:01 pm EST on January 27, 2006
Curious....
I went looking for more information on the Democracy Project at the Society for Values in Higher Education, and most of the pages returned “access denied” which didn’t seem very democratic to me. The SVHE itself looks on the surface like a multi-culturalist, non-denominational project, but there really wasn’t much actual information there.
If I spend more time discussing religion and values in my classes (I already spend plenty, thank you very much), when are they going to learn about economic, political and cultural history?
Sure, I’d love to spend more time in my classes having open discussions of current events, principles, and values. But I’ve got World History to cover, Asian history too. I’d like my students to be able to read effectively and write clearly: that’s how our programs get evaluated. Maybe I’m too narrow-minded about this, but I don’t see how this helps.
Jonathan Dresner, at 3:01 pm EST on January 27, 2006
Try to find one field of study withour religious over tones
There are several questions and concerns that have been expressed by some in regards to the discussion of religion in the college classroom. While I am vehemently opposed to professors preaching or discussing about a particular topic in their classroom which does not pertain to the specific subject matter, (i.e. a math professor discussing the War on Terror or Iraq), I do support the limited discussion of the role of religion in the classroom in relation to the subject matter. However, I do not support the discussion of religion because I have a right wing agenda. In fact, I have been extremely cautious of the rights attempts to introduce an academic bill or rights. I do support the discussion of religion and faith because it is extremely instrumental in much of our conscious and unconscious lives.
I for one cannot think of a particular subject that has not been influenced by religion in some way or another. This is especially true in the case of the so-called “hard sciences,” such as physics, and biology. Many who work in the hard sciences need to take into consideration their own views of the role faith plays in their scientific exploits. Typically, this is taken care of through the role of their particular fields ethical rules of conduct, which by the way can be argued has very religious over tones. However, scientists do at some point question the role of their research from a religious or spiritual position.
For those of you who suggest that religion plays no role in the development of a particular field, I challenge you to think of three fields of study where religion has not had even a passing influence. I think you might be hard pressed to do so.
VG, Ph.D Learner at Adjunct-SPC/APU, at 4:30 pm EST on January 27, 2006
Wingspread declaration
William M. Sullivan has done a great disservice to academia. Religion is a private matter. For those who desire to do further investigation into religion and religious beliefs and practices, there are courses and schools in theology to attend. To mandate that religion and its tenets are to be taught in all courses from the sciences to the arts is an absurdity. It directly confronts and declares war on academic independence and hastens the rise of evangelical extremism.
The Wingspread Declaration is as vile as the Bruin juxtaposition mandating taping of professorial discourse. It is tantamount to a return to Stalanist purism in academe. It is nonsense and should be scrapped.
The Carnegie Institute should take a strong look at William M. Sullivan and his gaggle of cronies and their attack on academic freedom and the conduct of inquiry.
Arthur Ide, PhD, at 6:20 pm EST on January 27, 2006
Subtlety
This has been a far more subtle and nuanced discussion than is the norm (I must confess to participating in many of the less subtle discussions of late), and that is wonderful.
Does religion inflect the study of every field? I would be hard pressed to say it does not. I am not sure that this is something that can be taught effectively, however.
Do we set aside more time in our classes expressly for the purpose of studying the role religion has played in the development of the material being studied? We have a limited amount of time in which to cover the material, so we must pick and choose where to spend class time. English courses—those that include literature, anyway—cannot avoid religion (was this written by a lapsed Catholic critical of the church? by a woman who grew up resisting the area’s dominant Calvinist views? by a North Korean jailed for religious expression?), but this is certainly not true in every department.
Worse, if we were to take on such a change in our approach to education, what additional training does the economist or the physicist less familiar with religions influence on the material than with the material itself have to undergo?
There is a place for this kind of discussion, even in publicly-funded classrooms, but I fear we won’t find that proper place until we have spent years actively considering the situation. This is not advocacy for a potentially permanent delay. This is an appeal for deliberate consideration rather than a rush to action. The former all but promises success; the latter all too often leads to poor decisions.
Andrew Purvis, at 7:20 pm EST on January 27, 2006
Two Points
First: Some correspondents act as if there are no religious believers at liberal arts institutions. What total nonsense! I served for four decades with colleagues who ranged from orthodox Jews to devout Catholics and with colleagues who didn’t broadcast what (if anything) they believed in. The candidate recommended number one by the last search committee I chaired was a young woman who belonged to a society of Catholic scholars. Her religion neither helped nor hindered her selection by the committee. I suggest that such faculty tolerance (or indifference) toward the religious beliefs (or non-beliefs) of others is the rule.
Second: Is it to be believed that teachers of literature courses do not discuss religion when dealing with Oedipus Rex, The Divine Comedy, Candide, the American Puritan writers, etc.?
normalvision, Prof. of English (ret.), at 9:30 pm EST on January 27, 2006
First, I will point out that history of science and philosophy of science differ from science. That’s why the extra modifying words are necessary. While certainly it is true that Pythagoras was mystically inclined, it in no way follows that this means that anyone needs to be taught about religion in a partial differential equations course. “Religion should be in every course because it touches on all subjects” strikes me as incredibly sloppy and uncritical thinking; ideally we have taught people to think more critically than this by the end of the freshman year.
This said, I presume that David Horowitz and his minions will be collecting examples of proselytizing and inappropriate introduction of religion for political or ideological purposes into courses where it has no meaningful place. Actually, no, I rather suspect Horowitz et. al. would be untroubled by a lengthy disquisition on whom Jesus would bomb in a course on infrared astronomy.["Why did God make infrared light invisible to the eye, but visible with machinery? Indubitably, this was because He wanted us to use infrared sighting to drop bombs on heathens, as well, of course, as to allow us to admire some of the objects He placed in the heavens in other ways. Proper use of our knowledge of infrared light, of course, must lead us to the following question—whom would...?"]
At the same time, I also trust that those who insist that questioning everything is the essence of learning, especially when “everything” is evolution, carbon dating, decay rates of radionuclides, etc., will hold to the same standards whenever religion is brought into the classroom, for whatever purposes it makes its appearance. “If _____ is universal truth, why do the majority of people believe differently?” is a good question to begin lots of these discussions with. One hopes those discussions might go a little further than just “Because they’re all wrong!”
Thane Doss, at 11:45 pm EST on January 27, 2006
First: Some correspondents act as if there are no religious believers at liberal arts institutions. What total nonsense!
Maybe some—not me. I just said that there weren’t very many.
Her religion neither helped nor hindered her selection by the committee.
And I didn’t claim that religious people faced discrimination in hiring, promotion or tenure. We don’t.
Second: Is it to be believed that teachers of literature courses do not discuss religion when dealing with Oedipus Rex, The Divine Comedy, Candide, the American Puritan writers, etc.?
Of course they do, as I said. But it is treated like the doctrine of the Four Humors, the Great Chain of Being and all the other ideas that were historically influential and constitute a “background” that educated people are supposed to know about but which, of course, no educated people take seriously anymore. Dante’s Catholicism is treated as on a par with his Ptolemaic astronomy.
Few if any academics are intolerant. Most simply regard religious belief as outre and declasse.
LogicGuru, at 11:45 am EST on January 28, 2006
Presumed wrong?
” .. I presume that David Horowitz and his minions will be collecting examples of proselytizing ..”
IMHO, what he (and others) would like is —
(a) an explanation of why many academic departments are tilted 97%-3% to one of two major political parties (as opposed to 50%-50% in MBA faculties) and
(b) solutions that would bring about some minimal level of diversity, in this area.
B.J., at 12:45 pm EST on January 28, 2006
god and man and Darwin at Yale and wherever
Ok. then why not teach evolution in all classes since it is easier to show where evolution can be shown to reveal truths about the human being and our earth in a way that can be objecte and tested and relgion,god,spirit can not be...Students know precious little about evolution as it is. I have taught the bible as literature and I love it as such. But I no more would teach that stuff in a lit course as Truth than I would chatter on about the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus as revealing a higher meaning to life.
fred lapides, at 6:10 pm EST on January 28, 2006
The problem here is not including religion per se, but what happens when you give evangelicals an inch—they’ll take a mile. The furor at the Airforce Academy last year is a good example: rampant proselytizing, anti-semitic abuse, attacks on other Christians of different traditions. You can have a reasoned dialogue with Catholics, Lutherans, the Orthodox, Jews, and so on. Southern Baptists and their relatives are only interested in saving you, by any means necessary.
Jim, Professor at University of Jesusland, at 3:15 pm EST on January 29, 2006
Offensive Comments
Jim,
I find your sweeping generalizations about “Southern Baptists and their relatives” to be both unfounded and bigoted. Would you feel so comfortable making such generalizations about any other group of people?
Despite the absurd paranoid fears of many posters here, “evangelicals” are just normal people. Yes, they are people who have a different vision of reality than you do, but if education doesn’t equip us to live in a world of diverse opinions, then what is it good for? Tolerance is a two-way street, my friend.
And, as regards Prof. Ide’s comments, I don’t see where he gets the idea from this article that anyone is “mandating” anything. This is not an amendment to the constitution. It is just a group of people making the very simple point that religion is a crucial part of the human experience and thus a humanist education must necessairly be engaged with religious issues. What’s the difference between that and similar calls for education engaged with issues of class, gender, etc.?
As for Mr. Lapides, surely you aren’t equating belief in the veracity of the Bible (a belief held by many of the finest minds in history) with belief in the tooth-fairy. If that is how you look at it, you certainly have no business teaching it (or the Iliad, or Oediups, or the Koran. . .). I’m not suggesting that you have to believe a text to teach it, but you have to be able to understand the believing mind. That’s not a religious proposition; that’s just good literary criticism. That’s why this declaration is necessary.
Ben Myers, Assistant Professor of English at Oklahoma Baptist University, at 6:25 pm EST on January 29, 2006
Faith on the Quad
Frankly, it is disquieting to see the totally condescending put-downs of religious believers on this thread. I teach at a prestigious Northeastern schoo, have all my degrees from secular schools, and am not a fundamentalist of any stripe. Nonetheless, I am really dismayed to see the bigotry the posts evince towards Southern Baptists, etc...
As a philosopher, let me point to the number of prominent philosophers who are by their own admission believing Christians and Jews. These include Hilary Putnam and Saul Kripke (Harvard), William Alston (Syracuse), Charles Taylor (McGill and Oxford), Alasdair MacIntyre (Notre Dame), Michael Dummett and Richard Swinburne (Oxford), Nicholas Rescher (Pittsburgh), Al Plantinga and Peter Van Inwagen (Notre Dame), Elizabeth Anscome (recently deceased — Cambridge). I could go on, but I think you’ll get the point,unless, like my old Magdalen tutor used to say “You’re an ass....".
Jo Jimmieja, at 12:45 pm EST on January 30, 2006
Rhetoric/Philosophy
Much of this discussion focuses appropriately on the question of civic and civil discourse and how conversation and dialogue can be constructively practiced on college campuses and in the broader society. Many of us understand that models of such dialogue are sadly lacking. We neither see nor hear civil exchange very often in print or visual media. We are, along with our students, urged to assume or take a position rather than test or develop one. We are talked at or entertained by hectoring and speechifying. When was the last time you heard one pundit say to another: “Well, maybe you’re right about that; I hadn’t thought of it that way. Give me some time to think about it.” ? It won’t happen because the media do not favor such humble displays of uncertainty. As Adorno once noted, our speech has become “sportified” and contentious, merely. And the “oprahfication,” of speech means chatter has replaced dialogue as an image of how we engage with one another. Everyone “has their say” and no one cares, really, about what the other has to say.
How can we change this situation and fight against the cynicism dripping from what I’ve just written ? As a student of rhetoric and the arts of public discourse generally, and as someone who’s devoted lots of time and energy to classes in writing and persuasion, I lament the fact that the folks on college campuses charged with developing such arts are on the low rung of academic respectability: their jobs and tenure are uncertain, their classrooms overburdened, and their teaching conditions generally scandalous. If higher education were truly interested in having a higher grade of public discourse concerning the place of religious ways of knowing, or religious tradition, if it were seriously interested in elevating what Mill called the “morality of public discourse,” it would honor these teachers of writing and rhetoric more adequately than is the case. Such honoring includes the requirement that as many classes as possible create dialogical conditions that combat the corrosive models that tempt all of us to believe we are engaging in civic discourse when we may too often be merely aping the sound and fury those models yield. (Naturally, as I’m sure many of these contributors will agree, cultivating a deeper respect for history as something more than a junkyard for outdated ideas like alchemy, is also very much needed.)
At the risk of sounding fatuous and simple minded, I believe we need to learn and relearn those dialogical habits that help us talk with rather that at each other. Those habits, as William James noted so well, if not cultivated continually in each generation, will be trumped by demagoguery and the genius of public relations and salesmanship which currently dominates and manipulates our political landscape. One must, as Aristotle and Hannah Arendt would have put it, not merely study and practice the arts of persuasion. One must also learn how, given a purportedly democratic society, HOW to be appropriately persuaded. It is the word and words in their fullness, rather than the gun or the gruel of propagandistic advertising, that should move us as citizens. Without the capacity for using and receiving words critically, we yield to others and become mere onlookers in a political spectacle whose babble merely distracts rather than engages our attention.
George T. Karnezis, at 2:25 pm EST on February 14, 2006
Advertisement
Jobs Related to Faith on the Quad
or search for jobs directly.
Assistant or Associate Professor IRC23636
Rochester Institute of Technology
The E. Philip Saunders College of Business invites applications for two tenure-track faculty positions at the Assistant or ... see job
Reading Lab Director
Darton College
Darton College is accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools to award ... see job
Programmers
Towson University
Programmers Center for Geographic Information Sciences The Towson University Center for Geographic Information Sciences ... see job
Director, Educational Technology Resource Center
Roosevelt University
Job Summary The Director of ETRC is responsible for the management and operation of the Educational ... see job
Postdoctoral Scholars, Department of Earth System Science
University of California, Irvine
The Department of Earth System Science at the University of California, Irvine (UCI) seeks 2 postdoctoral research associates ... see job
Dental Assisting Instructor
Corinthian Colleges
Everest College, a respected member of the Corinthian Colleges’ network of schools, is dedicated to helping students ... see job
FT 12 Mo Faculty — 2020A
Saint Louis University
Saint Louis University is a Jesuit Catholic University. Through teaching, research, health care and community service, Saint ... see job
Senior Human Resources Generalist
New York University
NYU’s prestigious Leonard N. Stern School of Business has a challenging opportunity for a Senior Human Resources ... see job
PROGRAMMER/ANALYST — Foster Hospital for Small Animals (30352)
Tufts University
The hospital software group provides custom software solutions for the TCVSM hospitals. We collect and manage data for ... see job
Coordinator Undergraduate Programs
Temple University
In collaboration with the Assistant Vice Provost for Undergraduate Studies, the Coordinator for Transfer Student Programs ... see job
Home
| Sign up | Log in
| About us
| Work for Us
| Press Releases
| Rights and permissions
| Contact us
| Advertise
| Partners
| RSS 
| Podcasts
| Links
| Privacy
| My Account
© Copyright 2008 Inside Higher Ed
Faith and Education
It is entirely appropriate that students are confronted with the historical origins and the claims of their religions and those of others. At the same time, the metaphysical assertions of faith, like all metaphysical assertions, should be confronted with their origins in human behavior. We choose a metaphysical basis for our ideas and that choice is personal and should not be subject to ridicule from others. However, if consistency is more than the hobgoblin of little minds, the relationship between faith and fact must also be confronted.
Who can be trusted to lead these investigations, those with professional commitments to any metaphysical position or those who are humble enough to admit their ignorance of final answers?
Richard Beldin, at 6:55 am EST on January 27, 2006