The University Gets Religion: Religious Studies in American Higher Education (review)

The University Gets Religion: Religious Studies in American Higher Education, by D. G. Hart. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999. 321pp. $38.00

In The University Gets Religion Hart argues that religion was an extracurricular affair in the university of the late 1800s until those institutions were able to find professors willing to teach what he calls "Enlightened Christianity." He carefully details the development of national organizations that supported both extracurricular religious efforts and the teaching of religion as well as the continuously ambiguous institutional responses to such efforts.

A primary strength of the book is Hart's argument that religion, as any part of the curriculum, develops in part because of external and internal political reasons. As professors at seminaries and at undergraduate programs struggled with how to teach what form of Protestantism to whom, and specifically the problem of whether religion courses were an instrument of faith or investigation, they also struggled with colleagues and presidents in finding places to offer courses. Public as well as private universities addressed the problem, and Hart finds the University of Iowa notable in its attempt to offer religion courses. He also clarifies that it was only in the post-World War II era that religion was clearly placed within the humanities, in a slow reaction to the general education movement and a more rapid reaction to the democratic euphoria after the victory over the Axis powers.

His work is also valuable as a rich source on just how we have come to argue, in academic and even broader intellectual terms, about Protestantism and the history of this nation. Hart provides an extensive discussion of the ways in which historians came to recognize the complex relationship between religions and the development of the United States. His examination of major and popular theologians of the post-World War II period, such as H. Richard Niebuhr, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Paul Tillich, establishes how universities finally accepted religious studies. The theologians' arguments about the need for faith in the face of the challenges in the modern world provided a conviction, albeit temporary, for the inclusion of departments of religion. Their success stands in contrast to the discussions of Protestantism's place in the curriculum from the late 1800s to the 1940s, when theologians argued for various forms of religious studies within their own circles, apparently attracting little attention from other academics.

Finally, The University Gets Religion is a reminder of how tremendously troubled arguments about general education are, as the unifying principle of the curriculum based on Christianity began dissipating in the early 1800s, and despite the fervor of general education proponents since then, the unifying principle remains elusive. Religion has no more provided a suitable answer for most colleges and universities than have other subjects, such as metaphysics. Hart traces the development of religious studies in part through the arguments of seminarians and also in part through leaders of such organizations as the National Association of Biblical Instructors, which in 1964 changed its named to the American Academy of Religion in order to suggest broad scholarly interest in religion. Although he argues that religious studies is especially challenged by its lack of unity, the specialization of disciplines—witness the annual characterizations of the Modern Language Association and its multiple identities in the Chronicle of Higher Education—is a story of the post-World War II curriculum.

Hart bases his final argument, that the university ought to consider excluding the study of religion, on Louis Menand's examination of academic freedom and its need to exclude nonacademic perspectives and on "the logic of multiculturalism," that all voices ought to be heard. Hart suggests that religion cannot meet the criteria of secular research and teaching, and it ought to be excluded because it represents a special interest area. These are odd assumptions given Hart's own adroit presentation of religion and religious studies as...