The decline of the secular university

• Main Author: Sommerville, C. John
• Format: eBook Book
• Language: English
• Published: New York [u.a.] Oxford Univ. Press 2006; Oxford University Press; Oxford University Press, Incorporated
• Edition: 1
• Subjects: Church and college; History of Christianity; Kirchliche Hochschule; Religion and Education; Religious Issues and Debates; Sociology and Anthropology of Religion; United States History; Universities and colleges; USA; education; university; America; science; secularism; academic moralizing; religion
• ISBN: 9780195306958; 0195306953
• DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195306958.001.0001

The American university has embraced a thorough secularism that makes it increasingly marginal in a society that is characterized by high levels of religious belief. The very secularization that was supposed to be a liberating influence has resulted in the university's failure to provide leadership in political, cultural, social, and even scientific arenas. This book explores several different ways in which the secular university fails in its mission through its trivialization of religion. It notes how little attention is being given to defining the human, so crucial in all aspects of professional education. The book alerts us to problems associated with the prevailing secular distinction between “facts” and “values”. It reviews how the elimination of religion hampers the university from understanding our post-Cold War world. The book then shows how a greater awareness of the intellectual resources of religion might stimulate more forthright attention to important matters like our loss of a sense of history, how to problematize secularism, the issue of judging religions, the oddity of academic moralizing, and the strangeness of science at the frontiers. Finally, the book invites the reader to imagine a university where religion is not ruled out but rather welcomed as a legitimate voice among others.