Sacred and Secular Tensions in Higher Education: Connecting Parallel Universities (review)

Recent work on spirituality in higher education, most notably the publication of Cultivating the Spirit: How College Can Enhance Students’ Inner Lives by Alexander Astin, Helen Astin, and Jennifer Lindholm (2010), have contributed significantly to our understanding of the complexities of spirituality among college students. While there is still much to learn about the intersection between faith and life in young adulthood, findings from researchers over the past decade have added to the body of knowledge and have sparked lively discussions among the scholarly community.

Another new resource on this topic is Michael D. Waggoner’s anthology, Sacred and Secular Tensions in Higher Education: Connecting Parallel Universities. This volume further deepens our knowledge of religion and spirituality in higher education, both on the student and institutional levels, by presenting 11 articles from the journal Religion and Education.

Waggoner begins his preface by noting that “spiritual perspectives are forcefully at work in the academy. . . . [H]igher education institutions can cultivate intellectual and cultural environments that enable comity, if not synergy among competing perspectives” (p. xi). Secular and religious perspectives and worldviews are evident on American campuses, regardless of institutional type and control, and this book offers assistance in seizing the opportunity to bring these two parallel universities closer together.

In Chapter 1, Waggoner provides historical context for the separate but concurrent paths in higher education. These university forces have run parallel in a more distinct manner as culture, politics, and law have changed how religion is practiced publicly and privately, especially since the civil rights era. All of these factors lead to “blind spots” with faculty, the curriculum, students, and student affairs.

The next two chapters provide general guidance on how to discuss matters of religion and spirituality on campus. Perry Glanzer (Chapter 2) emphasizes the terminologies of “worldview” and “narrative” in lieu of “religion.” Use of “worldview” provides room for anybody’s perspectives regardless of whether they are religious or secular. Thus, institutions can promote a liberal educational environment in which majority and nonmajority worldviews appear.

Carney Strange and Judy Rogers share insights in Chapter 3 on teaching religion and spirituality at public institutions. In contrast to focusing on legal and ethical constraints, the authors suggest that faculty should teach spirituality through a framework that recognizes their roles of citizen, educator, and searcher. Faculty should view their approach from personal and pedagogical perspectives of intellect, conviction, and experience.

The next three chapters address the faculty viewpoint of spirituality on campus. Chapter 4 presents an empirical analysis of Higher Education Research Institute (HERI) faculty data from Jennifer Lindholm and Helen Astin. They used national data to explore differences in the role of spirituality for faculty based on their personal and professional backgrounds and experiences. Using survey data from about 38,000 faculty at over 370 institutions, the researchers discovered interesting correlates. Gender, race/ethnicity, political views, academic disciplines, and outlooks on life are some factors that relate to faculty spirituality.

In Chapter 5, Robert Nash offers advice to faculty on how to include atheists in discussion. While religious diversity is becoming more acceptable, what about students who claim no religion? Nash proposes that we “invite atheists to join us at the pluralistic table throughout the campus. . . . [I]n a university, all voices, no matter how controversial and against the mainstream they might be, have a right to be heard and responded to”(pp. 74–75).

In contrast, Ralph Lentz describes in Chapter 6 the challenges that evangelical Christian faculty often face on a public campus. Enlightenment-Positivist philosophy has significantly affected Christian scholarship, to the extent that faculty struggle how to balance objectivity and subjectivity in light of their beliefs.

The next two chapters, both written by Alyssa Bryant, deal with the student experience in higher education. Chapter 7 presents her qualitative study of one campus-based evangelical student organization with a membership of more than 70 students, 25 of whom she interviewed. Bryant...