Theology Today - Vol 52, No. 3 - October 1995 - BOOK REVIEW - The Soul of the American University: From Protestant Establishment to Established Nonbelief

430 - The Soul of the American University: From Protestant Establishment to Established Nonbelief

The Soul of the American University: From Protestant Establishment to Established Nonbelief
By George M. Marsden
New York, Oxford University Press, 1994. 462 pp. $35.00.

We have been hearing about the secularization of the academy for some time now, from the jeremiads of William Buckley's God and Man at Yale to the theological pronouncements of Friedrich Gogarten and Harvey Cox. No one, however, has provided us with a more careful historical review of the process by which the major American universities distanced themselves from their founding heritage and conceded the ground to scientific naturalism than George Marsden (of Notre Dame) presents in this book. Marsden provides both an overview of the relation of mainstream Christian thought to American culture and a case-by-case study of such citadel institutions as Harvard, Yale, Michigan, Cornell, Johns Hopkins, California, Princeton, and Duke (where Marsden taught while writing this volume).

This reviewer finds Marsden's research compelling and his conclusions sobering: "Liberal Protestantism allowed scientific naturalism free rein in much of the intellectual life of American universities on the grounds that scientific truth would not contradict philosophical and religious truth but could be complemented by it." In Marsden's history, the mainline Protestant establishment achieved a place in the culture only by surrendering theological integrity. Their religion finally came down to social service and individualistic character building.

While Marsden writes out of an evangelical Protestant background, others, such as Douglas Sloan in his Faith and Knowledge: Mainline Protestantism and American Higher Education, draw similar conclusions. A review of these two books in First Things relished the failure of neoorthodox theologians (especially the two Niebuhrs and Paul Tillich) to challenge scientific naturalism. Those of us who owe so much to the giants of neoorthodoxy may find some reason for contrition, but we are also

432 - The Soul of the American University: From Protestant Establishment to Established Nonbelief

amazed that, after the battle is over, second-guessers fault them for accepting naturalistic metaphysics. Some of the most powerful critiques of the secular, naturalistic academy were produced by neoorthodox theologians, and Christian reformers of the modern university, such as Arnold Nash, John Coleman, and Sir Walter Moberly, were of neoorthodox stripe. Where were the evangelical Christians at that juncture? Were they engaged in the debates within the pace-setting schools or were they lobbing their protests from evangelical enclaves?

Moreover, did liberal Protestantism ever have effective control of these institutions? I know that at Cornell, founded by a Quaker who attended the Ithaca Unitarian Church, there were compelling reasons why the institution promoted the practice of religion but avoided the study of religion. In the decade immediately after the publication of Darwin's Origin of the Species, with sectarian struggles over the curriculum, one can understand the fear that theological imperialism would impede scientific inquiry. Even so, in those early years, when the modern American university was shaped at Cornell and Johns Hopkins (not in New Haven and Cambridge as Frederick Rudolph reminds us!), the Cornell environment attracted and nurtured the evangelical ecumenist John R. Mott, who had profound impact on university students.

But Marsden's landmark study does not indulge in simple blame laying, nor does he fall into nostalgic dreams of recovering a past long gone. He does, in a "Concluding Unscientific Postscript," unburden himself of reflections on the religious possibilities within the American university with wise and realistic observations.

He argues the obsolescence of the case against religion on intellectual grounds: There are few academicians who believe any more in a neutral objective science. He sees that bo 4.0pt'>th "pluralism" and "academic freedom" have been code words for intolerance of religious expression and asks why both of these principles might not be revisited as openings to a fresh treatment of religious traditions. Why should the academy not encounter the "elegant and fruitful" traditions that nurtured Augustine, Maimonides, Averroes, Aquinas, Dante, Luther, Calvin, Milton, Pascal, Edwards, and Newman? He also points to very real instances of religious prejudice in accrediting bodies and Phi Beta Kappa and asks why the university world would not be richer for genuine institutional pluralism.

The next decade will see further major transformations of the research universities in America. Information technology on a global basis, limited funding resources, and even greater pluralistic pressures will inevitably shape the university's core identity. George Marsden's history of where we have been and what we have lost will be an invaluable resource for Christians finding their way in the groves of academe.

Robert L. Johnson
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY