The Soul of the American University: From Protestant Establishment to Established Nonbelief [Paperback]

George M. Marsden (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 2, 1996

Only a century ago, almost all state universities held compulsory chapel services, and some required Sunday church attendance as well. In fact, state-sponsored chapel services were commonplace until the World War II era, and as late as the 1950s, it was not unusual for leading schools to refer to themselves as "Christian" institutions. Today, the once pervasive influence of religion in the intellectual and cultural life of America's preeminent colleges and universities has all but vanished. In The Soul of the American University, Marsden explores how, and why, these dramatic changes occurred.
Far from a lament for a lost golden age when mainline Protestants ruled American education, The Soul of the American University offers a penetrating critique of that era, surveying the role of Protestantism in higher education from the founding of Harvard in the 1630s through the collapse of the WASP establishment in the 1960s. Marsden tells the stories of many of our pace-setting universities at defining moments in their histories, including Harvard, Yale, Princeton, the University of Michigan, Johns Hopkins, the University of California at Berkeley, and the University of Chicago. He recreates the religious feuds that accompanied Yale's transition from a flagship evangelical college to a university, and the dramatic debate over the place of religion in higher education between Harvard's President Charles Eliot and Princeton's President James McCosh. Marsden's analysis ranges from debates over Darwinism and higher critics of the Bible, to the roles of government and wealthy contributors, the impact of changing student mores, and even the religious functions of college football. He argues persuasively that the values of "liberalism" and "tolerance" that the establishment championed and used to marginalize Christian fundamentalism and Roman Catholicism eventually and perhaps inevitably led to its own disappearance from the educational milieu, as nonsectarian came to mean exclusively secular.
While the largely voluntary disestablishment of religion may appear in many respects commendable, Marsden believes that it has nonetheless led to the infringement of the free exercise of religion in most of academic life. In effect, nonbelief has been established as the only valid academic perspective. In a provocative final chapter, Marsden spells out his own prescription for change, arguing that just as the academy has made room for feminist and multicultural perspectives, so should there be room once again for traditional religious viewpoints. A thoughtful blend of historical narrative and searching analysis, The Soul of the American University exemplifies what it advocates: that religious perspectives can provide a legitimate contribution to the highest level of scholarship.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

This work is a readable, well-documented historical narrative on the influence of Protestantism in shaping U.S. higher education during the late 19th century. The author explores the hows and whys of the once - pervasive influence of religion in the intellectual and cultural life of America's pace-setting colleges and universities (e.g., schools like Harvard, Yale, and Princeton) from its beginnings to it disestablishment. In concluding, the author argues that just as the academy has introduced alternative curricula (e.g., feminist and multicultural perspectives), it should again consider making room for traditional religious viewpoints that can provide a legitimate contribution to the highest level of scholarship. Recommended for academic libraries.
- Samuel T. Huang, Northern Illinois Univ. Libs., DeKalb
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Kirkus Reviews

In pleading for universities to give religious teachings the same respect they give feminist and multicultural perspectives, Marsden (History/Notre Dame, The Secularization of the Academy, etc.) cogently argues that major American universities, founded essentially as religious institutions, are now so hostile to religion that they largely exclude religious viewpoints. Marsden reminds the reader that in the 19th century, while ``the United States was formally pluralistic, its cultural centers had never seen a time when Protestantism was not dominant.'' Indeed, most late 19th-century colleges and universities actively promoted evangelical Christianity. Strikingly, by 1920, evangelical Protestantism had largely disappeared from the leading universities, as establishment Protestants used values of secular humanism and buzzwords like ``tolerance'' and ``liberalism'' to marginalize both fundamentalist Protestantism and Catholicism. This ``disestablishmentarism'' of religious perspectives, together with the ``universalism'' of the mainstream Protestantism that identified itself with secular culture and forced other religious positions to the periphery, ironically contributed to the establishment of nonbelief as the only valid viewpoint. The same arguments and attitudes used by liberal Protestants to exclude other religious perspectives were used to exclude normative religious teaching of any kind. Marsden argues that while the disestablishment of a universal religious culture is probably a positive development, the prevailing secularism actually constrains the free exercise of religion. The academy should make room for traditional religious viewpoints, he says, just as it has done for other perspectives that go against the grain of mainstream scholarship. First-rate historical analysis, joined with a compelling argument for giving God a voice on campus, although Marsden, limiting his discussion to ``great universities,'' does gloss over relevant areas: influential Jewish or Catholic institutions, most Southern and African-American colleges, and conservative Protestant colleges. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 480 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (May 2, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195106504
• ISBN-13: 978-0195106503
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #799,744 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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21 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A fascinating story, May 4, 2000

By 

Mike Matheny (Nashville, Tennessee) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Soul of the American University: From Protestant Establishment to Established Nonbelief (Paperback)

I really enjoyed this book. It is very detailed, and I would occasionally get lost in all those details. But I enjoyed Marsden's story of the gradual shift from colleges and universities dominiated by Protestant church influence to college and universities that had become neutral or even hostile to expressions of religious faith. Since I have worked in and around college campuses all my life, I found myself several times saying "So that's why that is true today!" I really enjoyed Marsden's tracing of the rise of the scientific worldview as dominate in university life. I wish Marsden had treated the shift from modernism to postmodernism more, since I believe that shift began occuring in the latter part of the 1900's, well within the scope of his book. I will say that only motivated readers will finish this book--it is very detailed and long. But for those who are interested, it is worth the time spent.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Soul American University, April 7, 2009

By 

Gerard Reed - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Soul of the American University: From Protestant Establishment to Established Nonbelief (Paperback)

One of America's finest scholars, George M. Marsden, offers us a first-rate intellectual history in The Soul of the American University: From Protestant Establishment to Established Nonbelief (New York: Oxford University Press, c. 1994). The book's subtitle sums up Marsden's thesis. He moves from the Colonial era's "establishment of Protestant nonsectarianism" to "defining the American university in a scientific age" during the last century, to analyzing "when the tie no longer binds" in our day.
America's "university system was built on a foundation of evangelical Protestant colleges" (p. 4). Until after the Civil War, virtually all universities retained a certain "evangelical" commitment, with required chapels, recurrent revivals, and resident clergymen-presidents. Yet within a short 50 years virtually all these universities underwent a metamorphosis, so that "by the 1920s the evangelical Protestantism of the old-time colleges had been effectively excluded from leading university classrooms" (p. 4). During the next half-century, the faith which had founded and structured the universities would be routinely ignored, pilloried and rejected.
Marsden finds a key to this process in the bombshell of a book William F. Buckley, Jr. published in 1951, God and Man at Yale. Reviewing his texts and teachers at Yale, Buckley pointed to "the triumph of 'relativism, pragmatism and utilitarianism,' in the spirit of philosopher of John Dewey. 'There is surely not a department at Yale,' Buckley observed, 'that is uncontaminated with the absolute that there are no absolutes, no intrinsic rights, no ultimate truths'" (p. 12). Though his judgment may have been severe, Buckley incisively exposed the true state of Yale's secularized irreligion.
Sixty years earlier Yale had still seemed distinctly Evangelical. Noted preachers such as Dwight L. Moody, R.A. Torrey, A.J. Gordon, and John R. Mott found the campus open to their ministries. Students responded zealously to Christian appeals. Only inwardly, especially in the minds of the faculty, Yale was changing. "Higher criticism" of the Bible incarnated itself in professors such as George Adam Smith, and social action rather than personal piety increasingly attracted students' commitments. While sustaining an appearance of Evangelical orthodoxy, Yale in fact lost its intellectual integrity as an orthodox Christian college. It became a purely secular institution.
To explain this process, Marsden presents in-depth case studies of significant colleges (or presidents or scholars) which illustrated significant trends in their day. Decade by decade, accommodations were made, often with little understanding the ultimate import of such moves. Religious principles and objectives, encrusted like fossils in mission statements, were often assumed, since they had provided the basis for the colleges' founding and comforted their donors. But in fact they were increasingly pushed to the periphery of institutional operations.
Generally speaking, by the end of the 19th century, colleges such as Harvard retained a commitment to only a vaguely Christian morality. For example, Harvard's president, Charles Norton Eliot, announced, "'The moral purpose of a university's policy should be to train young men to self-control and self-reliance through liberty'" (p. 188).
Committed to the notion of human goodness, Eliot embraced William James' voluntarism, defining man's nature as the result of exercising his free will. So Eliot eliminated required courses (Latin and Greek and the classics, including doses of Bible and Christian theology) in favor of "electives," allowing students to design their own course of studies. He also eliminated mandatory chapel, insisting young men be allowed to choose whether or not to learn about the Christian faith.
Almost alone, as the 19th century ended, Princeton University retained a commitment to more traditional Evangelicalism. Publicly debating Eliot, Princeton's President James McCosh (an eminent philosopher as well as administrator) insisted that students must be exposed to traditional Christian teachings. To simply tolerate Christianity, as one among competing ideologies, would effectively dislodge it from the core of the institution. Still more: McCosh insisted there could be no "morality" without distinctly Christian theology, a position proven self-evident by spending a few days on most any modern university campus!
McCosh, however, was a lonely resister. His successor, Woodrow Wilson, deserted McCosh's stadard. In short order most universities followed the model which flourished during the 1890s at the University of Chicago, where John Dewey espoused "the religion of democracy." In Dewey's opinion, "'a society in which the distinction between the spiritual and the secular has ceased, and as in Greek theory, as in the Christian theory of the Kingdom of God, the church and the state, the divine and the human organization of society are one'" (p. 250). Progressive politicians like Theodore Roosevelt and social reformers such as Jane Addams sought to inaugurate the new kingdom enunciated by John Dewey: the religion of democracy.
Illustrating the change taking place in the universities, in 1909 Cosmopolitan maga¬zine published an article by Harold Bolce, "Blasting at the Rock of Ages." Bolce's words bit with the teeth of a pit bull: "'Those who are not in close touch with the great colleges of the coun¬try, will be astonished to learn the creeds being foisted by the faculties of our great universities. In hundreds of class-rooms it is being taught daily that the decalogue is no more sacred than a syl¬labus; that the home as an institution is doomed; that there are no absolute evils; that immorality is simply an act in contravention of society's accepted standards; that democracy is a failure and the Declaration of Independence only spectacular rhetoric; that the change from one religion to another is like getting a new hat; that moral precepts are passing shibboleths; that conceptions of right and wrong are as unstable a styles of dress; . . . and that there can be an are holier alliances without the marriage bond than within it'" (p. 267).
Bolce's prescient words charted the course of higher education in our century. Flagship colleges and universities cut down their religious emblems, casting off from the denominations which had chartered them. Virtually all abandoned any reserva¬tions concerning naturalistic evolution; virtually all abandoned compulsory chapel; and in time virtually all abandoned any clear identification with Christianity. The "liberal" Protestantism which triumphed on American campuses quickly lost much resemblance to traditional Christian orthodoxy.
What American universities such as Harvard and Yale lacked was what John Henry Newman had espoused his Idea of a University: a firmly-anchored theo¬logical center which maintains a genuine university. Unfortunately, most Evangelical colleges too easily majored in emotions and ethics rather than theology. They frequently fomented life-changing revivals and dispatched missionaries around the world. But they failed to immerse and dye their intellectual clothing in the classical theology which could sustain their institutional mission.
To identify such trends, note the difference between two mission statements of Duke University, a Methodist institution. In 1924, the statement said: "'The aims of Duke University are to assert a faith in the eternal union of knowledge and religion set forth in the teachings and character of Jesus Christ, the Son of God'" (p. 422). In 1988, this was revised to read: "'Duke cherishes its historic ties with the United Methodist Church and the religious faith of its founders, while remaining non-sectarian'" (p. 421). Secularization was, essentially, complete.
The Soul of the Uni¬versity concludes with a brief challenge, a "concluding unscientific postscript," from Marsden. It's more a wish-list than an agenda for action, but he does have some reason for hope. Given the openness to various perspectives of "postmodern" academicians, Christians need to insist their views get a fair hearing on univer¬sity campuses. It's time to disestablish the anti-religious orthodoxy which has dominated academia for decades. The book's value, however, is its wealth of historical data and skillfully-drawn vignettes. To understand why American education has developed as it has, Marsden's treatise is essential.

14 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Creating a platform for secular wisdom, October 1, 2003

By 

Mary E. Sibley (Carneys Point, NJ USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Soul of the American University: From Protestant Establishment to Established Nonbelief (Paperback)

No historical interpretation lacks an agenda. The author struggles to determine why American higher education has such strong prejudices against traditional religious viewpoints. Religion was relegated to the periphery on Enlightenment grounds. Religious viewpoints were unscientific.

The liberal Protestant establishment endorsed the scientific ideal. It was believed, inter alia, that positive cultural development advanced the Kingdom of God. There was a broad idealism, especially in the humanities. Nonsectarian moral ideals received emphasis. Campus ministries were added when it was perceived that academic life favored purely naturalistic and materialistic worldviews. Then academics ceased to believe in purely objective science.

Recently the postmodernist views presuppose naturalistic worldviews exclusively. The alternative to liberal pragmatism is postmodern relativism. Procedural rationality is still necessary. Prejudice against academic expression of religion has flown under the banner of academic freedom. Academic freedom was limited to the common good as defined by the predominantly male Anglo establishment. Control of the universities has now diversified. The book concerns pace-setting American universities with a Protestant heritage.

The American university system was built on a foundation of evangelical Protestant colleges. By the 1920's evangelical Protestantism had been effectively excluded from classrooms. Many of the same educational theories were conceived as a means of assimilating other traditions into the American heritage. The attitudes were imperialistic and exclusive.

The American Protestant leadership wanted a standardized educational system. Protestant universities, the nonsectarian ideals of the Protestant establishment, dictated that even liberal Protestantism itself should move to the periphery, virtually excluding all religious perspectives to resolve the problem of pluralism. The book tells a story of disestablishment and secularization.

Higher education was influenced by English, Scottish, and German models. William Buckley wrote GOD AND MAN AT YALE in 1951. Buckley conflated economic and religious issues. Buckley pointed to the gap between Yale's rhetoric and reality.

The Reformation brought changes in the social function of education. The scholar's gown was the garment of the Protestant clergy. Oxford and Cambridge colleges had been particularly important to the Puritan movement. Higher education was a keystone of the edifice of social authority. The sacred and secular were not sharply differentiated. It was assumed that pagan learning should be surrounded by biblical and theological subjects. Protestantism was congenial to the study of the natural order.

The founding of Yale College grew out of a concern for maintaining orthodoxy. The College of William and Mary was part of the Anglican establishment. America's primary university models in the eighteenth century were Scottish. The Scottish universities were dominated by Presbyterian Moderates.

Most American college builders were heirs to the Great Awakening. Later there was a vision of making America a land of great scholars based upon the idea of the German university. Germany had symbolic importance. The rise of the German universities coincided with the rise of German idealism. By the mid nineteenth century German trends had an impact on American Protestant theology.

At the University of Michigan Henry Tappan sought to fuse Scottish and German influences to create a great university. He required of the faculty scientific or literary qualifications. The University of California emerged from the College of California. Typically the transition from old style colleges to universities was peaceful. While essentially Protestant, the University of California was committed to a nonsectarian course. At Johns Hopkins, established in 1876, there was voluntary chapel. It was America's leading graduate university. Gilman, president of the university, saw his work as a Christian ministry.

Harvard's transition to liberal Chrisitianity had been going on since the revolutionary era. Charles Eliot of Harvard mobilized forces of professionalism and modern technique. He founded the elective system. He initiated practical reforms to implement religious ideals. He struck one observer as having Unitarianism to the nth degree. The moral purpose was to build character. Philosophers like James and Royce played a mediating role in the era of transition in cultural authority from the minister to the scientist.

At Princeton there was insistence that it be a Christian university in the traditional sense. When Woodrow Wilson was president of Princeton religious emphasis was toned down. Wilson unsuccessfully sought to reform the social life at Princeton. His plans for reform were the outgrowth of his Christian vision. Wilson was thwarted in his efforts to build a model Christian and nation-serving educational community. The issues were social as much as they were religious.

Whereas Cornell had stood for democracy and Johns Hopkins research, the University of Chicago stood for pragmatism and innovation. William Rainey Harper was a quintessential organizer. Harper's enthusiasm for popular education was fortified through his connection to the Chautauqua movement. The Chautauqua network was an extension of Methodist technique. Harper had a tendancy to conflate Christianity and democracy. The religious stance of Stanford was expressed most vividly in its architecture.

In 1906 Andrew Carnegie set up the Carnegie Foundation. It provided incentives for colleges and universities to drop their denominational ties in order to participate in a faculty pension program. An assimilationist vision of universal science and universal morality was promoted by the Religious Education Association.

By the 1920's explicitly Christian rationales for the ideals of the university would seem to be vestigial. The fatal weakness in Christian terms was the university's commitment to scientific and professional ideals. Academic expressions of Christianity seemed superfluous.

By the 1950's academic freedom had attained sacred status. The inspiration for academic freedom comes from Germany. The peculiarity of the German scene is that academic freedom was guaranteed by an autocratic state. Freedom for public speech was a guarantee rolled into the American version. In the 1890's most of the controversies over academic freedom were political.

By 1921 the YMCAs reached their numerical peak. By the end of that decade the influence of the Y's had declined markedly. American Protestant higher education trends militated against keeping theological principles part of the educational enterprise. Unfortunately, tolerance and diversity do not in and of themselves present a coherent ethical stance.