"The first sustained history of the academic study of religion at American universities, The University Gets Religion: Religious Studies in American Higher Education is a timely book that explores the present-day implications of religious studies' Protestant past."--BOOK JACKET.

An exploration of the challenges of teaching and studying about religion in secular academic settings. The study of religion in American higher education is fraught with difficulties that raise important questions about the nature of faith and the purpose of advanced learning. Although religion has been foundational to some of the United States’ most prestigious universities, religious studies is a relatively recent addition to the liberal arts curriculum. As a result, students often take courses in religion with expectations that exceed what professors can actually deliver. D. G. Hart explores the conundrums of the ambiguous position of religious studies in the academy and offers advice about the best way to approach and benefit from the teaching and study of religion in contexts often hostile to faith.

During the twentieth century, theological and religious perspectives have been marginalized, if not utterly excluded in many of our colleges and universities. The essays in this book argue in different ways for the critical, appreciative inclusion of theological and religious perspectives in higher education. The contributors believe that even in our secular, religiously disestablished era, religion and God continue to occupy an important and dynamic role in personal and social life. If our colleges and universities are to fulfill their higher aspirations of educating whole persons for the real world in all of its diversity and challenge, we need to go bravely against the flow and “give God tenure.”

College in the United States changed dramatically during the twentieth century, ushering in what we know today as the American university in all its diversity. Religion departments made their way into institutions in the 1930s to the 1960s, while significant shifts from college to university occurred. The college ideal was primarily shaping the few to enter the Protestant management class through the inculcation of values associated with a Western civilization that relied upon this training done residentially, primarily for young men. Protestant Christian leaders created religion departments as the college model was shifting to the university ideal, where a more democratized population, including women and non-Protestants, studied under professors trained in specialized disciplines to achieve professional careers in a more internationally connected and post-industrial class. Religion departments at mid-century were addressing the lack of an agreed-upon curricular center in the wake of changes such as the elective system, Carnegie credit-hour formulation, and numerous other shifts in disciplines spelling the end of the college ideal, though certainly continuing many of its traditions and structures. Religion departments were an attempt to provide a cultural and religious center that might hold, enhance existential and moral meaning for students, and strengthen an argument against the German research university ideals of naturalistic science whose so-called objectivity proved, at best, problematic and, at worst, inept given the political crisis in Europe. Colleges found they were losing sight of the college ideal and hoped religion as a taught subject could bring back much of what college had meant, from moral formation and curricular focus to personal piety and national unity. That hope was never realized, and what remained in its wake helped fuel the university model with its specialized religion departments seeking entirely different ends. In the shift from college to university, religion professors attempted to become creators of a legitimate academic subject quite apart from the chapel programs, attempts at moralizing, and centrality in the curriculum of Western Christian thought and history championed in the college model.

Is Confucianism a religion? If so, why do most Chinese think it isn't? From ancient Confucian temples, to nineteenth-century archives, to the testimony of people interviewed by the author throughout China over a period of more than a decade, this book traces the birth and growth of the idea of Confucianism as a world religion. The book begins at Oxford, in the late nineteenth century, when Friedrich Max Müller and James Legge classified Confucianism as a world religion in the new discourse of "world religions" and the emerging discipline of comparative religion. Anna Sun shows how that decisive moment continues to influence the understanding of Confucianism in the contemporary world, not only in the West but also in China, where the politics of Confucianism has become important to the present regime in a time of transition. Contested histories of Confucianism are vital signs of social and political change. Sun also examines the revival of Confucianism in contemporary China and the social significance of the ritual practice of Confucian temples. While the Chinese government turns to Confucianism to justify its political agenda, Confucian activists have started a movement to turn Confucianism into a religion. Confucianism as a world religion might have begun as a scholarly construction, but are we witnessing its transformation into a social and political reality? With historical analysis, extensive research, and thoughtful reflection, Confucianism as a World Religion will engage all those interested in religion and global politics at the beginning of the Chinese century.

The transition from RE A level, or from entirely alternate roots (many RS students have not taken previous RS related courses), to Religious Studies at university requires some careful shepherding. The field is huge. This introductory book will provide a clear map for the key features of the terrain. The two main strands shaping the book define what religions are and explain how Religious Studies approaches the religions. The language is clear at the same time as introducing some of the key terminology used in the study of religions. The study of religions and the academic discipline of Religious Studies are growing areas in tertiary education in the UK. The continued interest in RE AS and A level as well as the growth in cognate humanities and social sciences, such as Psychology, Sociology, Philosophy, at AS/A level and GNVQ level indicates the significant interest amongst students on matters that pertain to culture and humanity in general. Students realise that religion is a driving force in contemporary culture and the study of it is central to understanding the contemporary world. The statistics on religious belief bear out their interest: four billion out of the six billion people who inhabit the world profess religious belief; even in the 'secular' societies of the Western world religiosity is growing and changing--a recent BBC poll stated that 70% of people in the UK believe in a 'higher being' or spiritual force.

In these essays, Donald Wiebe unveils a significant problem in the academic study of religion in colleges and universities in North America and Europe - that studies almost always exhibit a religious bias. To explore this issue, Wiebe looks at the religious and moral agendas behind the study of religion, showing that the boundaries between the objective study of religion and religious education as a tool for bettering society have become blurred. As a result, he argues, religious studies departments have fostered an environment where religion has become a learned or scholarly practice, rather than the object of academic scrutiny. This book provides a critical history of the failure of 20th- and 21st-century scholars to follow through on the 19th-century ideal of an objective scientific study of religious thought and behaviour. Although emancipated from direct ecclesiastical control and, to some extent, from sectarian theologizing, Wiebe argues that research and scholarship in the academic department of religious studies has failed to break free from religious constraints. He shows that an objective scientific study of religious thought and practice is not only possible, but the only appropriate approach to the study of religious phenomena.