Download or read book The American University in a Postsecular Age written by Douglas Jacobsen and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2008-02-27 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For much of the twentieth century, it was assumed that higher education was and ought to be a secular enterprise, but that approach no longer suffices. The culture has shifted, and contemporary college and university students are increasingly bringing religious and spiritual questions to campus. In response, college and university leaders are exploring anew the relationship between religion and higher education. The American University in a Postsecular Age grapples with key questions: --How religious or irreligious are faculty and students today? What level of religious literacy should be expected from students? --Can religion be allowed into the classroom without being disruptive? --Should colleges and universities help students reflect on their own faith? --Is religion antithetical to critical inquiry? --Can religion have a positive role to play in higher education? This is a state-of-the-art introduction to the national discussion about religion and higher education. Leading scholars and top educators express a wide spectrum of opinions that reflect the best current thinking. Introductory and concluding essays by the editors describe the postsecular character of our age and propose a comprehensive framework intended to facilitate ongoing conversation.

Download or read book The Soul of the American University Revisited written by George M. Marsden and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021 with total page 489 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This volume ... is a revision and updating of The Soul of the American University: From Protestant Establishment to Established Nonbelief (1994)"--Acknowledgments

Download or read book The Soul of the American University Revisited written by George M. Marsden and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021-04-28 with total page 489 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Soul of the American University is a classic and much discussed account of the changing roles of Christianity in shaping American higher education, presented here in a newly revised edition to offer insights for a modern era. As late as the World War II era, it was not unusual even for state schools to offer chapel services or for leading universities to refer to themselves as “Christian” institutions. From the 1630s through the 1950s, when Protestantism provided an informal religious establishment, colleges were expected to offer religious and moral guidance. Following reactions in the 1960s against the WASP establishment and concerns for diversity, this specifically religious heritage quickly disappeared and various secular viewpoints predominated. In this updated edition of a landmark volume, George Marsden explores the history of the changing roles of Protestantism in relation to other cultural and intellectual factors shaping American higher education. Far from a lament for a lost golden age, Marsden offers a penetrating analysis of the changing ways in which Protestantism intersected with collegiate life, intellectual inquiry, and broader cultural developments. He tells the stories of many of the nation's pace-setting universities at defining moments in their histories. By the late nineteenth-century when modern universities emerged, debates over Darwinism and higher criticism of the Bible were reshaping conceptions of Protestantism; in the twentieth century important concerns regarding diversity and inclusion were leading toward ever-broader conceptions of Christianity; then followed attacks on the traditional WASP establishment which brought dramatic disestablishment of earlier religious privilege. By the late twentieth century, exclusive secular viewpoints had become the gold standard in higher education, while our current era is arguably “post-secular”. The Soul of the American University Revisited deftly examines American higher education as it exists in the twenty-first century.

Download or read book The Soul of the American University written by George M. Marsden and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1994 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores the decline in religious influence in American universities, discussing why this transformation has occurred.

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Religion and American Education written by Michael D. Waggoner and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-08-01 with total page 521 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the founding of Harvard College in 1636 as a mission for training young clergy to the landmark 1968 Supreme Court decision in Epperson v. Arkansas, which struck down the state's ban on teaching evolution in schools, religion and education in the United States have been inextricably linked. Still today new fights emerge over the rights and limitations of religion in the classroom. The Oxford Handbook of Religion and American Education brings together preeminent scholars from the fields of religion, education, law, and political science to craft a comprehensive survey and assessment of the study of religion and education in the United States. The essays in the first part develop six distinct conceptual lenses through which to view American education, including Privatism, Secularism, Pluralism, Religious Literacy, Religious Liberty, and Democracy. The following four parts expand on these concepts in a diverse range of educational frames: public schools, faith-based K-12 education, higher education, and lifespan faith development. Designed for a diverse and interdisciplinary audience, this addition to the Oxford Handbook series sets for itself a broad goal of understanding the place of religion and education in a modern democracy.

Download or read book Christian Theology and the Secular University written by Paul A. Macdonald, Jr. and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2017-02-24 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If the secular university by definition is non-sectarian or non-denominational, then how can it accommodate a discipline like Christian theology? Doesn’t the traditional goal of theological study, which is to attain knowledge of the divine, fundamentally conflict with the main goal of secular academic study, which is to attain knowledge about ourselves and the world in which we live? So why should theology be admitted, or even care about being admitted, into secular academic life? And even if theology were admitted, what contribution to secular academic life could it make? Working from a Christian philosophical and theological perspective but also engaging a wide range of theologians, philosophers, and religious studies scholars, Christian Theology and the Secular University takes on these questions, arguing that Christian theology does belong in the secular university because it provides distinct resources that the secular university needs if it is going to fulfill what should be its main epistemic and educative ends. This book offers a fresh and unique perspective to scholars working in the disciplines of theology, philosophy, and religious studies, and to those in other academic disciplines who are interested in thinking critically and creatively about the place and nature of theological study within the secular university.

Download or read book No Longer Invisible written by Rhonda Hustedt Jacobsen and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-08-03 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of a 2013 American Educational Studies Association Critics' Choice Award Drawing on conversations with hundreds of professors, co-curricular educators, administrators, and students from institutions spanning the entire spectrum of American colleges and universities, the Jacobsens illustrate how religion is constructively intertwined with the work of higher education in the twenty-first century. No Longer Invisible documents how, after decades when religion was marginalized, colleges and universities are re-engaging matters of faith-an educational development that is both positive and necessary. Religion in contemporary American life is now incredibly complex, with religious pluralism on the rise and the categories of "religious" and "secular" often blending together in a dizzying array of lifestyles and beliefs. Using the categories of historic religion, public religion, and personal religion, No Longer Invisible offers a new framework for understanding this emerging religious terrain, a framework that can help colleges and universities-and the students who attend them-interact with religion more effectively. The stakes are high: Faced with escalating pressures to focus solely on job training, American higher education may find that paying more careful and nuanced attention to religion is a prerequisite for preserving American higher education's longstanding commitment to personal, social, and civic learning.

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Presbyterianism written by Gary Scott Smith and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-07-01 with total page 688 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presbyterianism emerged during the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation. It spread from the British Isles to North America in the early eighteenth century. During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Presbyterian denominations grew throughout the world. Today, there are an estimated 35 million Presbyterians in dozens of countries. The Oxford Handbook of Presbyterianism provides a state of the art reference tool written by leading scholars in the fields of religious studies and history. These thirty five articles cover major facets of Presbyterian history, theological beliefs, worship practices, ecclesiastical forms and structures, as well as important ethical, political, and educational issues. Eschewing parochial and sectarian triumphalism, prominent scholars address their particular topics objectively and judiciously.

Download or read book Religion and Higher Education in Europe and North America written by Kristin Aune and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-12-01 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Religion and Higher Education in Europe and North America illuminates the experiences of staff and students in higher education as they negotiate the university environment. Religious extremism has been rising across Europe, whilst recent attacks have thrown public debate around the place of religion on campus, the role of universities in recognising and managing religious fundamentalism and freedom of speech on campus into sharper focus. Despite these debates, research exploring religion on campus has been largely absent from discourse on higher education outside of America, with policy and practices designed to deal with religion on campus largely founded on supposition rather than evidence. This book speaks into that void, including results from recent studies in the field which form an empirically grounded base from a broad variety of perspectives on religion at universities. Aiming to offer a deeper perspective, more dialogue, and engagement on the experiences of students, Religion and Higher Education in Europe and North America presents us not only with an opportunity to counter growing trends of intolerance, but for people to connect with the humanity of others. Focusing on what research reveals about staff and students’ experiences, it incorporates research from different academic disciplines including sociology, education, social policy, theology and religious studies, and across different faith and belief groups. This thought-provoking and challenging volume features chapters written by researchers involved in informing policy and practice relating to religion and belief in higher education in the UK, US, Canada, France and the Netherlands . Spanning the academic-practitioner divide, students and academics interested in the sociology of religion and of higher education, as well as those responsible for the practical management of campus life, will find this text of particular importance.

Download or read book Locating US Theological Education In a Global Context written by Hendrik R. Pieterse and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2019-06-21 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: CONTRIBUTORS: E. Byron Anderson, K. K. Yeo, Margaret Eletta Guider, OSF, Lester Edwin J. Ruiz, Brent Waters, Namsoon Kang, Luis R. Rivera, and David Esterline. Theological education in the United States finds itself in untested circumstances today. Rapid social change is creating an increasing multicultural, multiracial, and multireligious context for leadership formation. At the same time, international enrollment, cross-border educational initiatives, student and faculty exchanges, and more are connecting US theological schools with a global community of Christian teaching and learning. How do US theological institutions "locate" themselves within this global ecology of theological formation so as to be both responsible participants and creative shapers within it? That is, how do they discern their proper place and role? It is questions like these that the contributors to this volume explore. Building on the decades-long discussion about the globalization of US theological education, this book argues that, in engaging such questions, US theological institutions have much to gain from a sustained conversation with the burgeoning literature on the internationalization of American higher education. This research offers theological institutions a trove of insights and cautionary tales as they seek to discern their rightful place and role in educating leaders in and for a global Christian church. CONTRIBUTORS: E. Byron Anderson, K. K. Yeo, Margaret Eletta Guider, OSF, Lester Edwin J. Ruiz, Brent Waters, Namsoon Kang, Luis R. Rivera, and David Esterline

Download or read book The Twilight of the American Enlightenment written by George Marsden and published by Basic Books (AZ). This book was released on 2014-02-11 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the aftermath of World War II, the United States stood at a precipice. The forces of modernity unleashed by the war had led to astonishing advances in daily life, but technology and mass culture also threatened to erode the country’s traditional moral character. As award-winning historian George M. Marsden explains in The Twilight of the American Enlightenment, postwar Americans looked to the country’s secular, liberal elites for guidance in this precarious time, but these intellectuals proved unable to articulate a coherent common cause by which America could chart its course. Their failure lost them the faith of their constituents, paving the way for a Christian revival that offered America a firm new moral vision—one rooted in the Protestant values of the founders. A groundbreaking reappraisal of the country’s spiritual reawakening, The Twilight of the American Enlightenment shows how America found new purpose at the dawn of the Cold War.

Download or read book Does Religious Education Matter written by Mary Shanahan and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-07-28 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the current climate, and in an age of increasing hostility towards religion and the study of religion, religious education is a much-debated area. Bringing together an interdisciplinary team of contributors from the USA, Britain and Ireland, and Australia, representing a variety of religious perspectives, Does Religious Education Matter? provocatively demonstrates that it is vital that religious education is presented as it ’really’ is: a valuable and rich resource that, when taught and engaged with appropriately, stimulates essential qualities for global and responsible citizenship: critical thinking, tolerance, respect, and mutual understanding.

Download or read book Keywords in Radical Philosophy and Education written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2019-05-15 with total page 522 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this field-defining work edited by educational theorist and political organizer Derek R. Ford, emerging and leading activists, organizers, and scholars assemble a collective body of concepts to interrogate, provoke, and mobilize contemporary political, economic, and social struggles.

Download or read book Faith Freedom and Higher Education written by P. C. Kemeny and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2013-03-11 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While debates abound today over the cost, purpose, and effectiveness of higher education, often lost in this conversation is a critical question: Should higher education attempt to shape students' moral and spiritual character in any systematic manner as in the past, or focus upon equipping students with mere technical knowledge? Faith, Freedom, and Higher Education argues that Christianity can still play an important role in contemporary American higher education. George M. Marsden, D. G. Hart, and George H. Nash, among its authors, analyze the debate over the secularization of the university and the impact of liberal Protestantism and fundamentalism on the American academy during the twentieth century. Contributors also assess how the ideas of Dorothy Sayers, C. S. Lewis, Wendell Berry, and Allan Bloom can be used to improve Christian higher education. Finally, the volume examines the contributions Christian faith can make to collegiate education and outlines how Christian institutions can preserve their religious mission while striving for academic excellence.

Download or read book The Outrageous Idea of Christian Teaching written by Perry Glanzer and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-07-29 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hundreds of thousands of professors claim Christian as their primary identity, and teaching as their primary vocational responsibility. Yet, in the contemporary university the intersection of these two identities often is a source of fear, misunderstanding, and moral confusion. How does being a Christian change one's teaching? Indeed, should it? Inspired by George Marsden's 1997 book The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship, this book draws on a survey of more than 2,300 Christian professors from 48 different institutions in North America, to reveal a wide range of thinking about faith-informed teaching. Placing these empirical findings alongside the wider scholarly conversation about the role of identity-informed teaching, Perry L. Glanzer and Nathan F. Alleman argue that their Christian identity can and should inform professors' teaching in the contemporary pluralistic university. The authors provide a nuanced alternative to those who advocate for restraining the influence of one's extra-professional identity and those who, in the name of authenticity, promote the full integration of one's primary identity into the classroom. The book charts new ground regarding how professors think about Christian teaching specifically, as well as how they should approach identity-informed teaching more generally.

Download or read book American Evangelicalism written by Darren Dochuk and published by University of Notre Dame Pess. This book was released on 2014-10-15 with total page 536 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: No living scholar has shaped the study of American religious history more profoundly than George M. Marsden. His work spans U.S. intellectual, cultural, and religious history from the seventeenth through the twenty-first centuries. This collection of essays uses the career of George M. Marsden and the remarkable breadth of his scholarship to measure current trends in the historical study of American evangelical Protestantism and to encourage fresh scholarly investigation of this faith tradition as it has developed between the eighteenth century and the present. Moving through five sections, each centered around one of Marsden’s major books and the time period it represents, the volume explores different methodologies and approaches to the history of evangelicalism and American religion. Besides assessing Marsden’s illustrious works on their own terms, this collection’s contributors isolate several key themes as deserving of fresh, rigorous, and extensive examination. Through their close investigation of these particular themes, they expand the range of characters and communities, issues and ideas, and contingencies that can and should be accounted for in our historical texts. Marsden’s timeless scholarship thus serves as a launchpad for new directions in our rendering of the American religious past.

Download or read book Religious Literacy Law and History written by Alberto Melloni and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-12-07 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book profiles some of the macro and micro factors that have impact on European religious literacy. It seeks to understand religious illiteracy and its effects on the social and political milieu through the framing of the historical, institutional, religious, social, juridical and educational conditions within which it arises. Divided into four parts, in the first one, One literacy, more literacies?, the book defines the basic concepts underpinning the question of religious illiteracy in Europe. Part II, Understanding illiteracies, debating disciplines?, highlights the theological, philosophical, historical and political roots of the phenomenon, looking at the main nodes that are both the reasons religious illiteracy is widespread and the starting points for literacy strategies. Part III, Building literacy, shaping alphabets, examines the mix of knowledge and competences acquired about religion and from religion at school as well as through the media, with a critical perspective on what could be done both in the schools and for the improvement of journalists’ religious literacy. Part IV, Views and experiences, presents the reader with the opportunity to learn from three different case studies: religious literacy in the media, religious illiteracy and European Islam, and a Jewish approach to religious literacy. Building on existing literature, the volume takes a scientific approach which is enriched by interdisciplinary and transnational perspectives, and deep entrenchment in historical methodology.