Download or read book The Decline of the Secular University written by C. John Sommerville and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2006-06-29 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Publisher Description

Download or read book The Decline of the Secular University written by C. John Sommerville and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2006-06-29 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Publisher Description

Download or read book The Sacred and the Secular University written by Jon H. Roberts and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-05-11 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: American higher education was transformed between the end of the Civil War and the beginning of World War I. During this period, U.S. colleges underwent fundamental changes--changes that helped to create the modern university we know today. Most significantly, the study of the sciences and the humanities effectively dissolved the Protestant framework of learning by introducing a new secularized curriculum. This secularization has long been recognized as a decisive turning point in the history of American education. Until now, however, there has been remarkably little attention paid to the details of how this transformation came about. Here, at last, Jon Roberts and James Turner identify the forces and explain the events that reformed the college curriculum during this era. The first section of the book examines how the study of science became detached from theological considerations. Previously, one of the primary pursuits of "natural scientists" was to achieve an understanding of the workings of the divine in earthly events. During the late nineteenth century, however, scientists reduced the scope of their inquiries to subjects that could be isolated, measured, and studied objectively. In pursuit of "scientific truth," they were drawn away from the larger "truths" that they had once sought. On a related path, social scientists began to pursue the study of human society more scientifically, attempting to generalize principles of behavior from empirically observed events. The second section describes the revolution that occurred in the humanities, beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, when the study of humanities was largely the study of Greek and Latin. By 1900, however, the humanities were much more broadly construed, including such previously unstudied subjects as literature, philosophy, history, and art history. The "triumph of the humanities" represented a significant change in attitudes about what constituted academic knowledge and, therefore, what should be a part of the college curriculum. The Sacred and the Secular University rewrites the history of higher education in the United States. It will interest all readers who are concerned about American universities and about how the content of a "college education" has changed over the course of the last century. "[Jon Roberts and James Turner's] thoroughly researched and carefully argued presentations invite readers to revisit stereotypical generalizations and to rethink the premises developed in the late nineteenth century that underlie the modern university. At the least, their arguments challenge crude versions of the secularization thesis as applied to higher education."--From the foreword by William G. Bowen and Harold T. Shapiro

Download or read book Religious Ideas for Secular Universities written by C. John Sommerville and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 2009-11-10 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the last century American students and scholars have found it increasingly difficult to discuss the relation of religion to the mission of self-consciously secular colleges and universities. Respected scholar C. John Sommerville here offers thought-provoking reflections on this subject in a conversational style. / Sommerville explores the crisis of the secular university, argues that religion and secular universities need each other, and examines how Christianity shows up on both sides of our culture wars. The astute reflections in Religious Ideas for Secular Universities point the way to a dialogue that would do justice both to religious insights and to truly neutral secular education.

Download or read book A Secular Age written by Charles Taylor and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2018-09-17 with total page 889 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The place of religion in society has changed profoundly in the last few centuries, particularly in the West. In what will be a defining book for our time, Taylor takes up the question of what these changes mean, and what, precisely, happens when a society becomes one in which faith is only one human possibility among others.

Download or read book Religion s Sudden Decline written by Ronald F. Inglehart and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2021-01-02 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Religion's Sudden Decline' provides evidence of a major decline in religion in most of the world, based on surveys of over 100 countries containing 90 percent of the world's population, carried out from 1981 to 2020 - the largest base of empirical evidence ever assembled to analyse mass acceptance or rejection of religion.--

Download or read book White Elephants on Campus written by Margaret Grubiak and published by . This book was released on 2022-09-30 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines churches and chapels built on campuses during the twentieth century to reveal declining role of religion within the mission of the modern American university.

Download or read book Religion the Secular and the Politics of Sexual Difference written by Linell E. Cady and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2013-11-12 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Global struggles over women’s roles, rights, and dress have taken center stage in a drama that casts the secular and the religious in tense if not violent opposition. Advocates for equality speak of the issue in terms of rights and modern progress while reactionaries ground their authority in religious and scriptural appeals. Both sides presume women’s emancipation is tied to secularization. This volume upsets these certainties by blending diverse voices and traditions, both secular and religious, in studies historicizing, questioning, and testing the implicit links between secularism and expanded freedoms for women. Rather than treat secularism as the answer to conflicts over gender and sexuality, these essays show how it structures the conditions generating them.

Download or read book Indoctrination written by Colin Gunn (Filmmaker) and published by New Leaf Publishing Group. This book was released on 2012 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Companion book to documentary film, IndocriNation.

Download or read book Why the Democrats are Blue written by Mark Stricherz and published by Encounter Books. This book was released on 2007 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Stricherz argues that secular, educated elites, using a commission created at the 1968 convention in Chicago, took the Democratic Party away from working class and religious Democrats. This quiet revolution helps explain why six of the last nine Democratic presidential candidates have lost.

Download or read book Decline and Revival in Higher Education written by Herbert I. London and published by Transaction Publishers. This book was released on 2011-12-31 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is an analysis of higher education in the past half century, a period of dramatic change and democratization. But it is more than that. The author has been a participant in the struggle to stem the decline in higher education, as it moved from an emphasis on classical liberal values toward relativism and ideological extremism. This volume reflects an awareness of what has been lost, but sees hope for a revival of traditional values as technological change and awareness of failure forces institutions to examine their premise. Herbert I. London has provided here fuel for fundamental redirection in American college and university affairs. Decline and Revival in Higher Education is uncompromising in its concerns, but points the way toward a future linked to the best of the past. The work follows the personal evolution of the author, while at the same time, describes the devolution of university standards in such institutions as Columbia, Duke, the University of California at Berkeley, and New York University. While seeing optimistic trends in oases of traditional programming that can serve as a counterweight to campus orthodoxies, London argues that the dramatic transformation of the academy cannot be denied. The social sciences and humanities in particular have become isolated from mainstream requirements in the nation. London deals with concrete concerns, such as the collapse of classic book programs in the contemporary curriculum, the decline and even vigilante raids on opposition in campus publications, the collapse of moral judgment in favor of pure relativism, the transformation of many museums into a storage houses of debris, and the confusion of coarse language with democratization. These developments lead the author to write this book, for if the culture wars are over, the American people may be the losers.

Download or read book Is Reality Secular written by Mary Poplin and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 2014-01-02 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is the nature of reality? At the root of our society's deepest political and cultural divisions are the conflicting principles of four global worldviews. While each of us holds to some version of one of these worldviews, we are often unconscious of their differences as well as their underlying assumptions. Mary Poplin argues that the ultimate test of a worldview, philosophy or ideology is whether it corresponds with reality. Since different perspectives conflict with each other, how do we make sense of the differences? And if a worldview system accurately reflects reality, what implications does that have for our thinking and living? In this wide-ranging and perceptive study, Poplin examines four major worldviews: naturalism, humanism, pantheism and Judeo-Christian theism. She explores the fundamental assumptions of each, pressing for limitations. Ultimately she puts each perspective to the test, asking, what if this worldview is true? If reality is secular, that means something for how we orient our lives. But if reality is not best explained by secular perspectives, that would mean something quite different. Consider for yourself what is the fundamental substance of reality.

Download or read book The Decline of Established Christianity in the Western World written by Paul Silas Peterson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-09-22 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While Church attendance in the West is often cited as being in decline, it is argued that this applies primarily to the older established forms of Christianity. Other expressions of the faith are, in fact, stable or even growing. This volume provides multidisciplinary interpretations of and responses to one of the most complicated and controversial issues regarding the global transformation of Christianity today: the decline of "established Christianity" in the Western world. It also addresses the future of Christianity in the West after the decline. Drawing upon historical research, sociology, religious studies, philosophy and theology, an international panel of contributors provide new theoretical frameworks for understanding this decline and offer creative suggestions for responding to it. "Established Christianity" is conceptualized as historically, culturally, socially and politically embedded religion (with or without official established status). This is a dynamic volume that gives fresh perspective on one of the great social changes taking place in the West today. As such, it will be of great interest to scholars of religious sociology, history and anthropology, as well as theologians.

Download or read book Kingdom Triangle written by J. P. Moreland and published by Zondervan. This book was released on 2009-07-13 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Western society is in crisis, the result of our culture's embrace of naturalism and postmodernism. At the same time, the biblical worldview has been pushed to the margins. Christians have been strongly influenced by these trends, with the result that the personal lives of Christians often reflect the surrounding culture more than the way of Christ, and the church's transforming influence on society has waned. In Kingdom Triangle, J.P. Moreland issues a call to recapture the drama and power of kingdom living. He examines and provides a penetrating critique of these worldviews and shows how they have ushered in the current societal crisis. He then lays out a strategy for the Christian community to regain the potency of kingdom life and influence in the world. Drawing insights from the early church, he outlines three essential ingredients of this revolution: ? Recovery of the Christian mind ? Renovation of Christian spirituality ? Restoration of the power of the Holy Spirit He believes that evangelical Christianity can mature and lead the surrounding society out of the meaningless morass it finds itself in with humility and vision.

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 Secular Conscience written by Austin Dacey and published by Prometheus Books. This book was released on 2009-09-18 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work is needed at a time when both the religious right and the religious left claim that there can be no public or private morality without religion. With wit and a philosopher's insight, Dacey explains exactly why secular morality . . . is sorely needed"--Susan Jacoby, author, "Freethinkers."

Download or read book The Rise and Decline of American Religious Freedom written by Steven D. Smith and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2014-02-18 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Familiar accounts of religious freedom in the United States often tell a story of visionary founders who broke from centuries-old patterns of Christendom to establish a political arrangement committed to secular and religiously neutral government. These novel commitments were supposedly embodied in the religion clauses of the First Amendment. But this story is largely a fairytale, Steven Smith says in this incisive examination of a much-mythologized subject. The American achievement was not a rejection of Christian commitments but a retrieval of classic Christian ideals of freedom of the church and of conscience. Smith maintains that the First Amendment was intended merely to preserve the political status quo in matters of religion. America's distinctive contribution was, rather, a commitment to open contestation between secularist and providentialist understandings of the nation which evolved over the nineteenth century. In the twentieth century, far from vindicating constitutional principles, as conventional wisdom suggests, the Supreme Court imposed secular neutrality, which effectively repudiated this commitment to open contestation. Instead of upholding what was distinctively American and constitutional, these decisions subverted it. The negative consequences are visible today in the incoherence of religion clause jurisprudence and the intense culture wars in American politics.