Christian Theology and the Secular University


Book Description

If the secular university by definition is non-sectarian or non-denominational, then how can it accommodate a discipline like Christian theology? Doesn't the traditional goal of theological study, which is to attain knowledge of the divine, fundamentally conflict with the main goal of secular academic study, which is to attain knowledge about ourselves and the world in which we live? So why should theology be admitted, or even care about being admitted, into secular academic life? And even if theology were admitted, what contribution to secular academic life could it make? Working from a Christian philosophical and theological perspective but also engaging a wide range of theologians, philosophers, and religious studies scholars, Christian Theology and the Secular University takes on these questions, arguing that Christian theology does belong in the secular university because it provides distinct resources that the secular university needs if it is going to fulfill what should be its main epistemic and educative ends. This book offers a fresh and unique perspective to scholars working in the disciplines of theology, philosophy, and religious studies, and to those in other academic disciplines who are interested in thinking critically and creatively about the place and nature of theological study within the secular university.




Christian Theology and the Secular University


Book Description

If the secular university by definition is non-sectarian or non-denominational, then how can it accommodate a discipline like Christian theology? Doesn’t the traditional goal of theological study, which is to attain knowledge of the divine, fundamentally conflict with the main goal of secular academic study, which is to attain knowledge about ourselves and the world in which we live? So why should theology be admitted, or even care about being admitted, into secular academic life? And even if theology were admitted, what contribution to secular academic life could it make? Working from a Christian philosophical and theological perspective but also engaging a wide range of theologians, philosophers, and religious studies scholars, Christian Theology and the Secular University takes on these questions, arguing that Christian theology does belong in the secular university because it provides distinct resources that the secular university needs if it is going to fulfill what should be its main epistemic and educative ends. This book offers a fresh and unique perspective to scholars working in the disciplines of theology, philosophy, and religious studies, and to those in other academic disciplines who are interested in thinking critically and creatively about the place and nature of theological study within the secular university.




The Decline of the Secular University


Book Description

Publisher Description




Taking Religion to School


Book Description

In the modern university, religion is often taken to school--primarily in the sense of being critiqued, disciplined, and domesticated. In this provocative book, Stephen Webb steps into the middle of current controversies about the place of religion in secular high schools and colleges. Speaking explicitly as a Christian theologian, but also as one who accepts the reality of religious pluralism, Webb argues that the teaching of religion is itself a religious activity, that teachers of religion should not disguise their own faiths in the classroom, and that high schools and universities should allow more--not less--space for religious voices.




The Soul of the American University


Book Description

Explores the decline in religious influence in American universities, discussing why this transformation has occurred.




The Soul of the American University Revisited


Book Description

The Soul of the American University is a classic and much discussed account of the changing roles of Christianity in shaping American higher education, presented here in a newly revised edition to offer insights for a modern era. As late as the World War II era, it was not unusual even for state schools to offer chapel services or for leading universities to refer to themselves as “Christian” institutions. From the 1630s through the 1950s, when Protestantism provided an informal religious establishment, colleges were expected to offer religious and moral guidance. Following reactions in the 1960s against the WASP establishment and concerns for diversity, this specifically religious heritage quickly disappeared and various secular viewpoints predominated. In this updated edition of a landmark volume, George Marsden explores the history of the changing roles of Protestantism in relation to other cultural and intellectual factors shaping American higher education. Far from a lament for a lost golden age, Marsden offers a penetrating analysis of the changing ways in which Protestantism intersected with collegiate life, intellectual inquiry, and broader cultural developments. He tells the stories of many of the nation's pace-setting universities at defining moments in their histories. By the late nineteenth-century when modern universities emerged, debates over Darwinism and higher criticism of the Bible were reshaping conceptions of Protestantism; in the twentieth century important concerns regarding diversity and inclusion were leading toward ever-broader conceptions of Christianity; then followed attacks on the traditional WASP establishment which brought dramatic disestablishment of earlier religious privilege. By the late twentieth century, exclusive secular viewpoints had become the gold standard in higher education, while our current era is arguably “post-secular”. The Soul of the American University Revisited deftly examines American higher education as it exists in the twenty-first century.




A Theology of Higher Education


Book Description

Provides a constructive critique of Higher Education policy and practice from the standpoint of Christian theology. He focuses on the role universities can and should play in forming students and staff in intellectual virtue, in sustaining vibrant communities of inquiry, and in serving the public good.




God on the Grounds


Book Description

Free-thinking Thomas Jefferson established the University of Virginia as a secular institution and stipulated that the University should not provide any instruction in religion. Yet over the course of the nineteenth century and into the early twentieth, religion came to have a prominent place in the University, which today maintains the largest department of religious studies of any public university in America. Given his intentions, how did Jefferson's university undergo such remarkable transformations? In God on the Grounds, esteemed religious studies scholar Harry Gamble offers the first history of religion’s remarkably large role—both in practice and in study—at UVA. Jefferson’s own reputation as a religious skeptic and infidel was a heavy liability to the University, which was widely regarded as injurious to the faith and morals of its students. Consequently, the faculty and Board of Visitors were eager throughout the nineteenth century to make the University more religious. Gamble narrates the early, rapid, and ongoing introduction of religion into the University’s life through the piety of professors, the creation of the chaplaincy, the growth of the YMCA, the multiplication of religious services and meetings, the building of a chapel, and the establishment of a Bible lectureship and a School of Biblical History and Literature. He then looks at how—only in the mid-twentieth century—the University began to retreat from its religious entanglements and reclaim its secular character as a public institution. A vital contribution to the institutional history of UVA, God on the Grounds sheds light on the history of higher education in the United States, American religious history, and the development of religious studies as an academic discipline.




Theology as the Science of God


Book Description

The revival of Calvinism in the nineteenth-century Netherlands entailed the neo-Calvinist movement. With Abraham Kuyper, Herman Bavinck became a brand name of neo-Calvinism. Nonetheless, not until the first decade of the twenty-first century was scholarly interest in Bavinck's work increasing. The conventional "two Bavincks" model used to read his work for much of the twentieth century argues that some contradictory and irreconcilable themes do exist in Bavinck's system, which makes Bavinck a self-contradictory thinker. This dualistic reading characterised most of Bavinck scholars in the second half of the twentieth century. Since James Eglinton's new reading of Bavinck's organic motif, the conventional model became untenable, and scholars are seeking for a reunited Herman Bavinck. Bavinck as a holistic theologian has become the industry standard of Bavinck studies. Ximian Xu aims on the one hand to maintain "one Bavinck", on the other hand, and more importantly, to fill in a notable gap in Bavinck scholarship – that is, no single work hitherto has focused on Bavinck's idea of theology as the wetenschap (science) of God. This study demonstrates that the idea of scientific (wetenschappelijke) theology furnishes the meta-paradigm and cardinal model that incorporates the fundamental characteristics and themes of Bavinck's dogmatic system. Moreover, it argues that Bavinck's scientific theology makes an attempt to engage with the other sciences. Given this, Bavinck's scientific theology is relevant today. That is, Bavinck's theological insights can be deployed to advance theology's engagement with the other sciences in contemporary secular universities.




Religion in Multidisciplinary Perspective


Book Description

Religion in Multidisciplinary Perspective provides the first comprehensive treatment of the work of Wesley J. Wildman, one of the most inventive thinkers in the field of religious studies. Scholars with expertise in philosophical, theological, and scientific approaches to the study of religion offer critical and constructive engagements with Wildman's astonishingly creative and integrative oeuvre. The essays address themes that will be of interest to those concerned with the current state of scholarship on religion from a variety of disciplines, including philosophy, theology, ethics, psychology, sociology, anthropology, and others. The volume concludes with a response by Wildman.