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The Dying of the Light Paperback – June, 1998

by James Tunstead Burtchaell (Author)

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James Tunstead Burtchaell, who has extensive experience in American higher education as both a teacher and an administrator, provides case studies of seventeen prominent colleges and universities with diverse ecclesial origins - Congregational, Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist, Lutheran, Catholic, and Evangelical. Using published and archival sources as well as firsthand interaction with each institution he covers, Burtchaell narrates how each school's religious identity eventually became first uncomfortable and then expendable, and he analyzes the processes that eroded the bonds between school and church.

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Product Details

Paperback: 888 pages
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company (June 1998)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0802844812
ISBN-13: 978-0802844811
Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1.8 inches
Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds
Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #818,196 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #935 in Books > Education & Teaching > Schools & Teaching > Education Theory > History
- #1010 in Books > Christian Books & Bibles > Churches & Church Leadership > Church Institutions & Organizations
- #1841 in Books > History > World > Religious > General

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Encyclopedic Micro-History of College Secularization

By John P. Rooney on June 7, 2000

Format: Paperback Verified Purchase

"The Dying of the Light" by Fr. James Tunstead Burtchaell. This is an enormous book, some 868 pages long. Fr. Burtchaell deals with the secularization of the Christian colleges, which, as with Harvard and Yale, changed from a church-started, church-supported institution into secular, non-sectarian schools. His method is to pick one, two or three institutions in the particular denomination and deal with the history of the changes from a religious school into a secular institution. Fr. Burtchaell has a chapter for the Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, Lutherans, Catholics and Evangelicals. The author's irony borders on humor once in awhile, as when he wonders why the Presbyterians found it so difficult to report the number of attending Presbyterians to church boards, but now find it so easy to report to the Federal government the racial make-up of the student body, down to the last Samoan. In the preface, Fr. Burtchaell notes that the reader will probably go directly to the section dealing with his/her religious affiliation. I did, but mainly because I was working on an MA thesis on Catholic colleges in the United States. I would recommend this encyclopaedia work to any one truly interested in the recent wave of secularization of church-related colleges in the US. Many details and stories from around the nation make this an interesting micro-history....

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Continuing disengagement threatens Churches' influence.

By william g. condon on April 30, 1999

Format: Paperback

Antidisestablishmentarianism in contemporary Catholic religious-community sponsored colleges might well be a subliminal message in Fr. James Burtchaell's incisive disection of the historical disengagement of colleges and universities from their Christian Churhes. The biting humor and irony in Burtchaell's style counterpoints the euphemistic rationale vaunting past and current disengagement from the specific founding church's credo and etholgy. The present widespread disengagement by many Catholic colleges and uni-versities is the legacy of the historic, passive, submission of church related schools beneath whelming financial and enrollment pressures.
The Vatican might well use "The Dying of the Light" as its primer to argue the case for rescuing Catholic institutions from modern-day disengagement by means of episcopal appropriation.
In his asessment of the disengagement of seven-teen representative colleges and univer-sities, the author delved deeply into their ar-chival and historical references and posits a commonality of purpose, basically driven by economic necessity.
Is "greed" the dysphoric, but correct, syn-onym for what Burtchaell records? Is "naivete" an, assuaging, palliative for moral incom-petence? Is "hierarchic megalomania" being masked by ecclesiastical dogmatism? The answers to these questions are interpretable from Burtchaell's data. The answers are not easy. The information is complex, but the pattern is quite simple, money requires compromise. The issue becomes: is the loss worth the cost? Is the price of freedom too high? Is skewed pedantry inevitable with church involvement in education? Can academic excellence be acheived without academic freedom?Read more ›

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Accurate History, Relevant Warning

By John Eidsmoe on July 5, 2016

Format: Paperback Verified Purchase

An outstanding book! Fr. Burtchaell includes a chapter on my alma mater, St. Olaf College, from which I graduated in 1967. I know his description of St. Olaf's slide into apostasy is accurate, because I remember the events he narrates happening while I was there.
THE DYING OF THE LIGHT is a warning to Christian colleges and universities of all denominations that if they lose the Christian distinctives upon which they were founded, they will be like salt that has lost its savor.

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Marie Dean

By Supertradmum on April 9, 2013

Format: Hardcover

I read this book when it first came out and have recommended it again and again. It should be reprinted. The lack of leadership skills seen at all levels of American society is directly related to the lack of faith in institutions so clearly documented by Burtchaell. This book could be one all educators who want to renew faith-based education in the States use.

I hope it can be republished.