University Gets Religion

This volume explores the rise of religion to its place as one of the largest academic disciplines in contemporary US higher education. Protestant ministers and faculty, D.G. Hart argues, were especially influential in arguing for the importance of religion to a truly "liberal" education, staffing departments and designing curricula to reflect their own Protestant assumptions about the value of religion not just for higher education but for American culture in general. Although many educators originally found religion too sectarian and unscientific for colleges and universities, relgious studies nevertheless emerged after World War II as a crucial element of a liberal education. Hart shows that this success has also become the field's greatest burden. Since the mid-1970s, religion scholars have distanced themselves from traditional Protestant orientations while looking for topics better suited to America's cultural diversity. Religion finds itself in the awkward position of being one of the largest scholarly disciplines while simultaneously lacking a solid academic justification. It may be time, Hart argues, for academics to stop trying to secure a religion-friendly university.