TheRealIssue

Issue #3, Oct 2004

The Dying of the Light:
The Disengagement of Colleges and Universities from Their Christian Churches

Book by James Tunstead Burtchaell

Review by Austin L. Hughes
Professor of Biology, University of South Carolina

In a conversation with my dean at a large state university (not the one where I now teach), the dean began to wax eloquent about the important role of universities in today's society. Polls show, he said, that Americans have lost confidence in government and in business leaders. But the prestige of universities remains high. At that point I thought of interjecting, "If universities are so great, why don't you ever give us Christians credit for inventing them?"

I resisted the impulse to ask that somewhat flippant question, but I do wonder how many academics are even aware of the Christian origins of the modern university. In early medieval Europe, centers for the training of clergy began to form in places like Oxford, Paris, and Salamanca. Because an educated clergy required training in the fundamentals of mathematics, the natural sciences, and philosophy, as well as in theology, the universities began to attract laymen in search of a general education. Yet for many centuries, the universities of Europe remained closely tied to the Church. Great Christian thinkers like Aquinas, Luther, Suarez, and Newman played key roles in the development of the university as we know it today.

In the United States, the majority of private colleges and universities began under denominational sponsorship. Again this is probably not well known to the general public - or even most educational professionals. How many people know that Harvard's famous motto Veritas ("Truth") was chosen as recently as 1885 to replace the earlier Christo et Ecclesiae ("For Christ and the Church")? America's elite educational institutions have followed Harvard's lead in distancing themselves from their Christian roots over the past century or so, and a similar process has occurred in numerous other denominational colleges and universities both large and small.

James Tunstead Burtchaell sets out to document the progressive secularization of American denominational colleges and universities in his monumental study The Dying of the Light. Using detailed case studies of institutions representing a variety of Christian traditions, Burtchaell shows how similar patterns of change have repeated themselves over and over again. Compulsory chapel services lose their devotional character and become merely informational assemblies; then attendance is made optional. Statements of faith to which faculty must adhere are progressively watered down, then eliminated altogether.

Often a charismatic and determined college president plays a key role. William Jewett Tucker, president of Dartmouth College from 1893 to 1909, provides an archetypal example. In his public pronouncements, Tucker had a singular ability to use terms derived from the Christian tradition in a way that emptied them of doctrinal meaning and turned them into vague moralistic platitudes. The apparent religiosity of Tucker's vocabulary seemed to reassure conservative trustees and alumni even as he was dismantling the last vestiges of Dartmouth's original Congregationalist identity.

In some cases, the break between educational institutions and their denominational sponsors has occurred much more recently than it did at Harvard or Dartmouth. Wake Forest University broke with the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina only in 1986. In other cases, a formal break with church sponsors has been avoided, although (as Burtchaell documents) many of these institutions have taken a few cautious steps down the road that has led to complete secularization elsewhere.

As self-congratulatory academics (like my former dean) are fond of pointing out, America's elite universities are the envy of the world. They are unrivaled as centers of research, especially in the natural sciences. And universities provide students access to the technical knowledge and skills they need to compete successfully in today's multi-faceted global economy. Whether the universities do such a good job at educating the whole person is doubtful. By ignoring and even denying the spiritual dimension to human nature, the modern university is in danger of creating a class of technocrats whose development as complete human persons has been dangerously stunted.

From its medieval origins, the Christian university has sought to provide a more balanced and fully human education. As Newman wrote in The Idea of a University (1852), "Religious Truth is not only a portion, but a condition of general knowledge. To blot it out is nothing short, if I may so speak, of unraveling the web of University Teaching." Burtchaell's book serves as a timely warning to those Christian colleges and universities that, lured by the model of the elite secular university, are in danger of casting aside their heritage and "unraveling the web" of Christian culture that remains their unique gift to their students.

Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company; (June 1, 1998)
ASIN: 0802844812