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The University Gets Religion

Religious Studies in American Higher Education

D. G. Hart

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In The University Gets Religion: Religious Studies in American Higher Education, historian D. G. Hart examines the rise of religion to its current place as one of the largest academic disciplines in contemporary higher education. Protestant ministers and faculty, arguing for the importance of religion to a truly "liberal" education, were especially influential in staffing departments and designing curricula to reflect their own assumptions about the value of religion not just for higher education but for American culture in general.

But the success of mainstream Protestantism in fostering the...

In The University Gets Religion: Religious Studies in American Higher Education, historian D. G. Hart examines the rise of religion to its current place as one of the largest academic disciplines in contemporary higher education. Protestant ministers and faculty, arguing for the importance of religion to a truly "liberal" education, were especially influential in staffing departments and designing curricula to reflect their own assumptions about the value of religion not just for higher education but for American culture in general.

But the success of mainstream Protestantism in fostering the academic study of religion has become the field's greatest burden. Religion scholars have distanced themselves from traditional Protestant orientations while looking for topics better suited to America's cultural diversity. As a result, religion is in the awkward position of being one of the largest scholarly disciplines while simultaneously lacking a solid academic justification. It may be time, Hart argues, for academics to stop trying to secure a religion-friendly university.

Reviews

Reviews

[An] excellent and insightful study... His book significantly increases our understanding of a neglected aspect of American religious history.

Hart contributes a first-rate piece of intellectual and institutional history to this discussion... For those who wish to think seriously about the relationship between religion and religious studies and to understand how we have arrived at our current situation, this book is indispensable.

Hart should be commended for pulling together the history of this issue and for the careful reflection he offers about the current status of the discipline.

The book he has given us offers richness of information, astute analysis, and provocative interpretation.

This book is provocative, to say the least. It constitutes another voice in the discussion over the place of religion in secondary and higher education.

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Book Details

Publication Date
Status
Available
Trim Size
6
x
9
Pages
336
ISBN
9780801871009
Author Bio
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D. G. Hart

D. G. Hart is an associate professor of church history and theological bibliography at Westminster Theological Seminary.