In Defence of Religious Schools and Colleges by Elmer John Thiessen (review)

humanities 317 university of toronto quarterly, volume 72, number 1, winter 2002/3 contested field with many subjects, methods, assumptions, philosophies and theologies.= He also claims, however, that one must recognize that the non-religious founding of a university >does not necessarily mean an open mind about the study of religions in the university curriculum.= The conclusions drawn in chapter 4 regarding >the curriculum in religious studies= echo those of chapter 3. Most of the institutions included in the study have evolved from departments of theology and, therefore, have followed a conventional pattern of curriculum development, maintaining a focus on biblical and Christian studies. Nevertheless, Bowlby insists that there have also been significant developments such as the introduction of comparative, social-scientific, and gender-critical approaches to the study of religion that have moved the discipline beyond the conventional Christian focus. Chapter 5, on >Faculty in Religious Studies,= reviews disparate matters, including faculty qualifications, areas of specialization, teaching skills, research undertaken, and so on. Bowlby argues that, given the small size of the departments in the region=s universities (and their commitment by and large to undergraduate programs), hiring must be sensitive to the breadth of training of its faculty, not only with respect to religious traditions but also in the diversity of approaches to understanding them. The general conclusions Bowlby draws from his analysis (chapter 6) relate both to the >local conditions= for the study of religion and to its standing relative to the national and international state of the field. Regarding the former, he notes that the programs in this region of the country are small and scattered, and the resources limited, and he argues that more co-operation among the various institutions will be essential to the welfare of the discipline in the future. And regarding the latter, he acknowledges and regrets the fact that the protracted effort in Canada and elsewhere to make this discipline fully secular has not been successful; the influence of Christianity on the field, he argues, is still strong, and he maintains that there must be a greater effort to incorporate social scientific methods into the study of religion in the universities of the region. (DONALD WIEBE) Elmer John Thiessen. In Defence of Religious Schools and Colleges McGill-Queen=s University Press. viii, 368. $75.00 Elmer John Thiessen has written a curious book. In Defence of Religious Schools and Colleges is full of endnotes, an extended bibliography, attempts at cognitive rigour B the trappings of a serious book even; it is published by a university press. Thiessen makes the strident claim that his argument is philosophically inspired, and indeed it has some trappings of logical inference. Yet, the book is turgid, disjointed, only occasionally rising to 318 letters in canada 2001 university of toronto quarterly, volume 72, number 1, winter 2002/3 Philosophy Lite, and rarely shows promise of mustering an adequate persona for the rich history and genuine potential of religiously-based education. Because his approach only argues from and reacts to a broad but incomplete range of criticisms of religious schools, he remains demonstrably defensive. And thereby woefully incomplete. Key background issues run throughout, as Mr. Thiessen does recognize many of the enduring criticisms brought against religious schools. His list includes the place of religious education within the larger scheme of >social harmony,= rights and freedoms, and the politics and economics of educational funding, and some largely self-serving statements on indoctrination and censorship. Thiessen=s final sections on theology and education and liberal values and educational pluralism suggest that he is aware of these, too. Yet, the reader must struggle, usually without much payback, to find positive thrusts in Thiessen=s polemics that look to actual designs he may have for his kind of religious school. Maddeningly, religious schools are never defined in these pages; instead, Thiessen makes idiosyncratic assumptions about the religious school. In the end he seems to make religious schools, especially in a Canadian context, the not-yet-established religious schools he seems to want to discuss; consequently separate schools in Ontario, Alberta, and Saskatchewan are not what he means by religious schools; nor are the Protestant schools of Quebec; nor does he allude to...