Stud Philos Educ DOI 10.1007/s11217-015-9501-4

The Secular University and Its Critics Yuval Jobani1

 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015

Abstract Universities in the USA have become bastions of secularity in a distinctly religious society. As such, they are subjected to a variety of robust and rigorous religious critiques. In this paper I do not seek to engage in the debate between the supporters of the secular university and its opponents. Furthermore, I do not claim to summarize the history of the critique of the secular university, nor to present an exhaustive map of its current articulations. My purpose is rather more limited and modest, namely, to locate some of the key arguments of the current religious criticism of the secular university and put them in a wider philosophical context. Exploring the philosophical infrastructure of this criticism enables not only a more comprehensive and profound understanding of it, but also urges us to rethink the purpose and essence of the university as an institution that both reflects and forms our society and culture. The article is structured as follows; first section puts the religious criticism of the secular university in the context of the latest wave of criticism levelled at contemporary universities. Second section explores the argument according to which the secularization of the university led to the loss of the ideal of education for excellence in the wide, classical sense of the term. Third section examines the theoretical foundations of the call to reintegrate religion in contemporary universities, while fourth section explores the various practical consequences of this demand. Keywords

Secularization
Higher education
Excellence

& Yuval Jobani [email protected] 1

Department of Educational Policy and Administration and Department of Hebrew Culture Studies, Tel-Aviv University, 69978 Ramat-Aviv, Israel

123

Y. Jobani

The Marginality of the Secular University The Decline of the Secular University by the American historian John Sommerville, opens with the following argument1: American universities today are bigger, better funded and more academically productive than ever. Moreover, an increasing number of young people choose to study at universities and perceive the various degrees they confer as entrance tickets for full participation in society (and this in spite of the fact other kinds of institutions are being developed for this purpose). However, the influence of universities on American society is waning. Universities are losing their role as leading institutions in the political, social and cultural realms.2 Relatively few academics hold key political roles, universities are barely involved in promoting various social causes, and the radical secular culture prevalent in them does not widely permeate American society, which is still distinctly religious. According to Somerville, the marginalization of the American universities, as well as their inability to function as bastions of social leadership, are direct results of the process of secularization they underwent in the last 100 years.3 According to Marsden, American universities went through a tripartite dialectical secularization process.4 In the first stage (from the beginning of the nineteenth century until 1870), most leading American universities developed from evangelical colleges. Accordingly, they clearly functioned as evangelical institutions. During the second stage (1870–1920) liberal Protestantism replaced evangelism and expelled it from the universities, claiming it to be overly sectorial and therefore threatening to academic tolerance and freedom. In the third stage (1920–1970), the anti-sectorial logic used by the liberal Protestants in their arguments against their rivals, was now used against them and against religion in general. During these 50 years, religion as such became increasingly perceived as a sectorial phenomenon alien to the universal character of academia, and was therefore gradually driven out of American universities. However, even Marsden who provides a comprehensive and meticulous analysis of the distinct character of the secularization process which occurred in American universities, acknowledges that most of the causes of the process itself were not distinctly American, but rather part of the more general process of Western modernization, of which secularization is both a driving force as well as a result.5 Indeed, among the driving forces which led to the secularization of the universities in the West, we find the emergence of modern sciences and technologies and the resulting disenchantment of the world; the recognition of 1

Sommerville (2006, pp. 3–22).

2

As opposed to Sommerville, other researchers claim that universities continue to greatly influence American politics, culture and economy. See for example Levine (1997) and Cole (2009). Indeed, the notion Academia remains a bastion of social significance and impact, would explain why, to quote Sandalow, universities ‘‘have in recent years become so prominent a battleground. Groups making moral claims are likely to see the capture of universities as an important victory, gaining for them a site that is not only itself an important piece of social territory, but that also offers a staging ground for pressing their claims elsewhere’’. Sandalow (1991, p. 155).

3

The literature on the secularization of the American university is vast, see, for example, Marsden (1994) and Smith (2003).

4

Marsden (1994, pp. 4–5). Funkenstein presents modern dialectial thinking as a secularized version of an ancient Biblical mode of thought. He argues that the roots of the Hegelian dialectic—in particular Hegel’s idea of ‘‘the cunning of history’’ – are not to be found in ancient Greek literature but rather in the theodicies developed by the Biblical prophets after the destruction of the first temple. Funkenstein (1993, pp. 131–155).

5

For more on the dialectical relation of modernization and secularism see, for example, Pecora (2006, pp. 1–24).

123

The Secular University and Its Critics

the historicism of human existence; the exploration of the psychological and sociological aspects of human life; the legitimacy given to thorough and intensive criticism of religious tradition and political authority; and the rationalization of the attitudes towards labor in particular and human activity in general.6 Furthermore, the impressive development of the various branches of knowledge, as well as their diversification, undermined theology’s ancient preeminence among the various branches of knowledge, as well as its claim to bridge between them, conceptions which were prevalent in medieval universities.7 Therefore, even if it is impossible to dissociate the criticism levelled at secular American universities from its particular social context, this criticism also articulates general and fundamental arguments against secularization processes in other societies and cultures.8 However, religious criticism of modern universities does not only take place within the framework of a general critique of secularization. Another framework of criticism through which it should be understood, a framework that is neither less significant nor less comprehensive, is the latest wave of criticism levelled at universities. At the heart of this wave of criticism, Stanley Fish finds a recurrent motive of a ‘‘lost paradise’’, which he describes as follows: Once upon a time higher education was a thriving, healthy enterprise; its landscape was bucolic and filled with bright-eyed young men and women engaged in the exhilarating task of broadening their horizons and expanding their minds; but then a serpent entered the garden bearing the seeds of corruption and decay, and now the 6

In addition to the influence of general cultural factors on the secularization process of American universities, Marsden also recognizes the influence of academic models prevalent in European universities. As he puts it: ‘‘Americans did not invent universities, even if they reshaped them in their own image. Higher education in the United States was directly influenced by English, Scottish, and German models, which in turn were shaped by the impact of all the overwhelming forces for change in those countries.’’ Marsden (1994, p. 7). For more on the decline of the conservative tradition in Modern universities, see Shils (1981, pp. 179–184).

7

Roberts and Turner (2000, pp. 84–94).

8

Following the recent collapse of the master narrative of secularization as a homogeneous process rooted in the Christian world, research has turned to explore the unique characteristics of secularization in various societies and cultures. See, for instance, Casanova (1994), Joas and Wiegandt (2009), Cady and Shakman Hurd (2010), Jakobsen and Pellegrini (2008). Recent studies about secularism reflect the realization that ‘‘even within Europe itself, different local conditions created different types of secularization. Puritan England gave rise to a different form of the secular than did Lutheran Germany. Catholic Poland scarcely secularized at all until a late date, while Catholic France cut off the heads of its clergy when it underwent its revolution. Moreover, this focus on Christianity—and particularly on its western European expressions— fails to acknowledge that secularism has many and varied manifestations outside of Europe. In far-flung places like China, India, and Turkey, modern secular movements reflect, in one form or another, the religious contexts—Confucianism, Hinduism, and Islam—out of which they sprang.’’ Biale (2010, p. 4). In fact, as Somerville maintains, ‘‘The collapse of secularization theory should be a stimulus to the study of secularization. For it will enable us to see that different societies or cultures have had very different experiences of secularization […] So long as scholars thought that these processes always followed the same course, there was little interest in those differences. Not only that, but the disappearance of the secularization thesis would finally allow us to recognize what a huge topic secularization is. We have innumerable books on the growth of the modern state, on industrialization, on the development of capitalism, on the growth of modern science and Rationalism. Secularization, in all its aspects, is as big as any of these.’’ Somerville (1998, pp. 252–253). Secularism understood as a retreat of religion from spheres which it previously occupied, can denote, among other things, the advancement of materialism and even forms of exploitation as seen for example in the debate regarding commerce on days of rest, see Perez and Gavison (2008); the rise of secularism in the public sphere can also be seen as an attack on publicly shared values in religious societies, as seen for example, in the stormy debate regarding the Lautsi decision of the ECHR, concerning the legitimacy of the mandatory placement of the Crucifix in public schools in Italy, see Perez, N. Lautsi vs. Italy: Questioning the Majoritarian Premise. (Draft, on file with the author).

123

Y. Jobani

once-great structure lies in ruins, although many of its inhabitants seem not to have noticed. The identity of the serpent varies from story to story. Sometimes it is ideology, sometimes it is politics (left or right), sometimes it is big-time athletics, sometimes it is venture capitalism, sometimes it is political correctness, sometimes it is the military-industrial complex. Recently, however, it has been the managerial class or, more simply, administrators.9 Although Fish does not specifically address the religious criticism of the modern university in his article, his quasi-Biblical description of the decline of the university is particularly fitting to the religious claim that the disengagement from religious life and belief are the main causes of this decline. One of the main religious criticisms of the university is based on the notion, which we will now look into, that the secularization of the university led to the loss of the ideal of education for excellence in the wide classical sense of the term, and as a consequence to the degradation of the university as an educational institution.

The Loss of the Classical and Religious Ideal of Excellence In his highly influential The Idea of a University (1889), the Catholic theologian John Henry Newman argues against the conception of a university as a collection of disconnected faculties competing with each other for students.10 In spite of the fact this book is based essentially on lectures in which Newman discussed the founding of a Catholic university in Dublin, it has remained a perennial point of reference in various polemics about the function and essence of the university. Indeed, some scholars still think of it as one of the most important work about these issues.11 According to Newman, universities should not be limited merely to research and to the formation of scholars and others kinds of professionals, but are rather intended to foster human excellence in the widest possible sense. This kind of excellence is cultivated by what Newman labels ‘‘liberal education’’, the purpose of which is to liberate the student, both intellectually and emotionally, from all narrow one-sidedness. Newman claims that by means of a university education ‘‘a habit of mind is formed which lasts through life, of which the attributes are, freedom, equitableness, calmness, moderation, and wisdom; or what … I have ventured to call a philosophical habit’’.12 According to Newman, this ‘‘philosophical habit’’ will enable the students to make a significant contribution to their society: A University training … aims at raising the intellectual tone of society, at cultivating the public mind… It is the education which gives a man a clear conscious view of his own opinions and judgments, a truth in developing them, an eloquence in expressing them, and a force in urging them. It teaches him to see things as they are, to go right to the point, to disentangle a skein of thought, to detect what is sophistical, and to discard what is irrelevant. It prepares him to fill any post with credit, and to master 9 10

Fish (2005, p. 271). Newman (1996).

11

See for example, Pelikan (1993, p. 9). On Newman’s conception of the University see also Chadwick (1983, pp. 51–57) and MacIntyre (2009, pp. 145–150). For an insightful critical discussion of the relevance of Newman’s book to current polemics about the essence and role and purpose of the university, see Collini (2012, pp. 39–61). 12

Newman (1996, p. 77).

123

The Secular University and Its Critics

any subject with facility. It shows him how to accommodate himself to others, how to throw himself into their state of mind, how to bring before them his own, how to influence them, how to come to an understanding with them, how to bear with them. He is at home in any society …13 According to Newman, beyond the inculcation of knowledge and practical skills, university education has two main purposes; firstly, to cultivate in the students a critical approach towards any subject matter they might encounter, an approach which can be labeled ‘‘knowledge of the second order’’. Secondly, to instill in the students a ‘‘philosophical habit’’ that will enable them to combine sensitivity, moderation and prudence in their interpersonal and social interactions.14 As a Catholic theologian, Newman claims that without the religious faith and way of life, full knowledge of reality, as well as personal and social excellence, cannot be obtained. Theology does not undermine or substitute science, yet it contains true and indispensable knowledge, and as such it accompanies science and functions as its basis. Theology must, therefore, be a constitutive aspect of any university education. Without theology, Newman argues, the university will be unable to fulfill its purpose as an institution aiming at full knowledge of reality and at cultivating in its students personal excellence in the widest sense of the term.15 The kind excellence the university seeks to promote according to this view, echoes the ancient Greek notion of ‘‘Arete´’’. Excellence in this comprehensive and demanding sense is, therefore, absolute. It is limited neither to significant achievements in any of the human fields of endeavor (science or sports for example), nor even to the fulfillment of the students’ personal potential, as both of these are but relative senses of excellence; in the first case, the measure of excellence is defined by other human achievements, and in the second, by the individual’s own personal potential.16 In its classical Greek sense, however, excellence stands for the absolute realization of the perfect essence or idea of man, which encompasses the intellectual, emotional and physical aspects of human life.17 Both the education for excellence Newman suggests, as well as the one suggested by the Ancient Greek philosophical tradition, are anchored in the notion of the absolute. Yet, while in ancient Greece, the concept of the absolute was identified with philosophical truth, Newman, as a Catholic theologian, identifies it with religious revelation. Still, in both cases, the conception of human excellence is anchored in a comprehensive and exhaustive system that assumes an absolute point of reference. This point of reference—‘‘God’’ in 13

Ibid, pp. 125–126.

14

Collini doubts the university’s ability to fulfill the goals Newman’s liberal education sets for it. As he puts it: ‘… something this wonderful liberal education does not teach seems to be a sense of proportion in justifying itself. As Newman’s confident incantations sound in our ears, we are bound to find ourselves wondering whether all this does not set the bar a tad high? Can it really be that three years spent in some particular course of study in one’s late teens can encompass all this?‘ Collini (2012, p. 47). 15 For a comprehensive and thorough discussion of the relation of Newman’s theology to his views on the university, see Loughlin (2009). 16 In 1983, a public debate erupted following the publication of a report by the American National Commission on Excellence in Education, the title of which declared the USA to be ‘‘A Nation at Risk’’ because of the promulgation of mediocrity in the education system. For a discussion of the ways in which the relative senses of excellence (i.e. significant achievements, or fulfillment of personal potential) were used during this controversy, see Hotem (2010, pp. 184–188). 17 As an organizing principle of Ancient Greek Culture, the exact nature of arete´ was fiercely debated, and had various, even contradictory, meanings. I adopt here one of the central meanings of the term in the Greek philosophical tradition. For a comprehensive survey of the various meanings of this term, see Prior (1991).

123

Y. Jobani

theology or ‘‘Truth’’ in philosophy—as well as anything that might follow from it, is considered both objectively valid and unconditionally binding. The appeal of the grand systems is twofold; firstly, they suggest a comprehensive and exhaustive account of nature, society and the individual. Secondly, they provide educational guidance for the absolute fulfillment of the individual’s purpose and for the realization of his essence. In general, these grand philosophical and theological systems assume that the individual is part of society, and that society is part of nature. Therefore, in order for the individual to achieve self-realization, he must act according to the prevailing order of nature and society, which is a divine order in the religious context and one of reason in the philosophical realm.18 The critique of religion and ideology which emerged in the second half of the nineteenth century, the period in which Newman’s book was published, undermined the traditional systems of both religion and philosophy, and hence too the educational conceptions derived from them. Nietzsche, for example, whose declaration of the death of God succinctly expressed the spirit of the time, denied the very existence of an absolute point of reference, and accordingly, undermined all attempts at deriving objectively binding obligations from it.19 The expulsion of the absolute from the horizons of contemporary universities has, according to several critics, emptied them of their educational content. In The Closing of the American Mind, Allan Bloom, for example, asserts that ‘‘relativism has extinguished the real motive of education, the search for a good life’’.20 This line of thinking suggests that universities have turned into institutions which tend to focus exclusively on inculcating knowledge in, and providing professional training to, their students. Modern university’s seeming indifference to the development of its students’ character, as well as to the ways in which its graduates use the knowledge they have acquired during their studies, testifies to the fact it no longer earnestly seeks to fulfill profound educational ideals. Paraphrasing Newman’s The Idea of the University, both Readings and Loughlin refer to the contemporary secular university as ‘‘the university without an Idea’’.21

‘‘The University of Excellence’’ and the Religious Criticism of the Secular University As opposed to the notion of the absolute, the notion of excellence has not disappeared from contemporary discourse on the essence and purpose of the university. To the contrary, it has become the central concept through which the university defines itself. There is no concept more prevalent today in the definition of the aims and purpose of the university than the concept of excellence. The preeminence of this concept led Bill Readings to label

18

See for example, Strauss (1989, pp. 24–39).

19

‘‘I distrust all systematizers and avoid them. The will to a system is a lack of integrity’’ (Nietzsche 1994, Sect. 26, p. 159); in another context, Nietzsche asserts that ‘‘the morality of distinction is in its ultimate foundation pleasure in refined cruelty’’, (Nietzsche 1997, Book I, Sect. 30, p. 31). For a discussion of the ideal of excellence and the process of sublimation in Nietzsche and in Freud, see Golomb (1989). According to Sigad, Nietzsche himself established a philosophical system with the ‘will to power’ as its organizing principle. See Sigad (2013). 20

Bloom (1988, p. 30). See also, Strauss (1989, pp. 36–37).

21

Readings (1999, p. 118); Loughlin (2009, pp. 229–232). According to Fish, the description of the modern university as a ‘‘university without an idea’’ is appropriate, but in contrast to Readings and Loughlin, he finds this lack of a guiding idea to be an ideal, one that should be maintained and promoted. See Fish (2005).

123

The Secular University and Its Critics

the contemporary university ‘‘the university of excellence’’ in the historico-philosophical typology he suggests in his The University in Ruins. According to Readings, the prevalent use of the concept of excellence is enabled by a thorough transformation of its meaning. If in the context of classical philosophical and religious thought, as we saw in the previous section, excellence was defined according to absolute and rigid standards and served no purpose but its own; today, as Readings claims, excellence is neither anchored in any binding and determinate characteristics or properties, nor is it defined by a predetermined outcome. Rather, it is defined by, and subservient to, supply and demand in the global knowledge market. Excellence demarcates achievements and abilities that are not only unrelated, but even at times contradictory. So for example, it is used to unify the appraisal of achievements in the exact sciences and the humanities through a similar evaluation of results in both fields.22 The administration of universities requires the standardization of their various faculties through a seemingly unified concept of excellence, in order to enable academic globalization. Administrative logic and operations therefore supersede the dialectic of research and teaching as the constitutive activity of the university. That which is researched and taught at the universities has no importance in and of itself, what matters is only for research and teaching to uphold the standards of that which Readings labels the ‘‘university of excellence’’. There is no moral vision that could impart meaning to the knowledge accumulated in universities. Universities produce more and more information, but are less and less able to provide meaning to it. The production of knowledge has become its own purpose, and guiding principles or ideals are lacking.23 The current sense of academic excellence, therefore, encapsulates the process of the university’s depletion of any essence or meaningful content. As Readings puts it: …the appeal to excellence marks the fact that there is no longer any idea of the University, or rather that the idea has now lost all content. As a non-referential unit of value entirely internal to the system, excellence marks nothing more than the moment of technology’s self-reflection. All that the system requires is activity to take place, and the empty notion of excellence refers to noting other than the optimal input/output ratio in matters of information.24 The transformation of universities into commercial organizations induces them to approach their students as clients. Universities, therefore, do not primarily seek to educate their students or cultivate their characters, but rather to turn them into ‘‘products’’ other commercial corporations would be willing to ‘‘purchase’’, i.e. hire as employees. Similarly, universities relate to their researchers as ‘‘suppliers’’ and condition their employment on their fundraising abilities. Readings’ analysis is philosophical-sociological rather than theological. At its heart lies the contrast between the ‘‘university of excellence’’ and the ‘‘university of culture’’ that preceded it. In the former model, the university functions as an autonomous bureaucratic and potentially transnational capitalistic corporation, in the latter as the ideological 22 Readings points out that ‘‘As an integrating principle, excellence has the singular advantage of being entirely meaningless, or to put it more precisely, non-referential’’. Readings (1999, p. 22). 23

In this context, Midgley points out in her Wisdom, Information and Wonder—What is Knowledge for? that ‘‘all academic departments are now bombarded with floods of incoming articles, only a tiny proportion of which could they possibly read, even if they did nothing else […] The main effect of this flood of papers (apart from exhausting the world’s forests) must therefore be to pile up articles which, once they are published, nobody reads at all’’ (Midgley 1991, pp. 6–7).

24

Ibid, p. 39.

123

Y. Jobani

apparatus of the nation state.25 Nonetheless, Readings’ criticism of the contemporary university, fits together well with the religious criticism of the secular university. So, for example, when examining the place of theology in university education in Newman’s thought, Loughlin relies on Readings’ analysis in order to point at the meaninglessness of the notion of excellence in the secular university: Today universities offer vocational courses, but little or no sense of vocation, of being called to a way of life for others, and through others for God … The University of Excellence is university without an idea, since it pursues only excellence rather than any excellent thing. Excellence as such is a null category, and so answers to the interests of global capital, which turns all it touches into the means of its own acceleration.26 The claim that the secularization of the university emptied it of all substantive pedagogical value and content, is developed in depth by Sommerville in The Decline of the Secular University. According to Sommerville, the secular university has concluded its historical role as an institution whose purpose is the acquisition and organization of information. Today, he claims, we do not lack organized information, we lack rather an answer to the question of what we ought to do with all the knowledge we have accumulated. Accordingly, we are returning to the ‘‘big questions’’ about the essence and purpose of human existence; ‘‘What makes us human?’’, ‘‘What is the Good life?’’, ‘‘How can we make our lives worthwhile?’’ etc. As the Suisse Theologian Hans Kung points out, the recurring interest in such questions is part of an increasing awareness that concrete problems (in fields such as science, technology, or sociology) cannot be detached from more general and abstract problems relating to reality as a whole.27 As it no longer functions as a pedagogical institution, the secular university, Sommerville and King argue, does not and cannot provide a suitable response to these questions and has therefore become irrelevant in contemporary society.28 During the secular age, Sommerville claims, the university’s orientation was scientific and its basic aspiration was for a complete understanding of physical reality. The burden of proof was on the theologians; they were the ones who had to proof their relevance to the universities. Nowadays, however, in what Sommerville labels the post secular age, we have become concerned mainly with what it is we ought to do with all the knowledge we have accumulated, and how we ought to put to use the professional training gained in disciplines such as medicine, law, engineering and journalism, etc. Therefore, the burden of proof moves to the scientists; now they are the ones who have to demonstrate how scientific concepts and paradigms are relevant to questions of value and morality that are critically significant to human life.29

25

Ibid, p. 164.

26

Loughlin (2009, p. 230).

27

Kung (1991, p. 63).

28

One could rightfully argue that Sommerville and King’s claim is too sweeping. Beyond the assistance they claim universities should provide students in coming to grips with questions of meaning and purpose, universities fulfill other important functions such as the advancement of knowledge, vocational training, the cultivation of political habits and virtues that strengthen democratic citizenship etc. However, if universities do not aim at fashioning what Alexander Meiklejohn, the president of Amherst College, described a century ago as ‘‘a life worth living’’, their ability to fully realize their mission is grievously hindered. See Meiklejohn (1908, p. 554) and Kronman (2007, pp. 37–45). 29

Sommerville (2006, p. 13 and pp. 135–141).

123

The Secular University and Its Critics

Religion, in contrast, has always been equipped with a discourse able to contend with the big questions of human life. Therefore, a thorough, comprehensive and critical assessment of these moral and ethical issues, necessitates the acquaintance with religious culture and the study of the theological discourse it gave rise to.30 Neil Postman, who in The End of Education calls to include the study of comparative religion in public schools and other pedagogical institutions in the U.S.A., expresses this view as follows: Although many religious narratives provide answers to the questions of how and when we came to be, they are all largely concerned to answer the question: Why? Is it possible to be an educated person without having considered questions of why we are here and what is expected of us? And is it possible to consider these questions by ignoring the answers provided by religion? I think not, since religion may be defined as our attempt to give a total, integrated response to questions about the meaning of existence.31 A similar, but more radical argument is made by critics of the secular university who view the question of the essence and significance of human excellence as an obvious example of one which surpasses the boundaries of the naturalistic conception dominant in the secular university.32 The classic notion of human excellence they uphold, demarcates man’s ability to elevate himself towards the ideal, the sublime or the transcendent. Only the reintegration of such characteristically theological concepts into academic discourse, they argue, will transform universities into institutions in which human beings can think themselves in all the complexity, richness and depth of their existence. It is in this spirit that Sommerville calls for the rehabilitation of religion at universities; a rehabilitation not in the sense of having religion rule the university, but in the sense of not having universities rule religion out.33 Bringing back the study of religion to the university, he claims, is neither an attempt at reviving the Medieval universities in which theology was the queen of sciences, nor even at putting into practice Newman’s model of a modern religious university in which religion, while not a queen among sciences, is first among equals.34 To the contrary, the renewed study of religious texts is presented by Sommerville as a step forwards from the secular era to the post-secular one; the era in which religion exists alongside secularism, and in which neither religion nor secularism holds a monopoly on culture like the one they had in the past (religion in the religious era and secularism in the secular one). In the post secular era, Sommerville claims, as a response to man’s aspiration for self-knowledge, universities as educational institutions must encourage the encounter of their students with both the secular and the religious traditions of their culture.35 30

Ibid, pp. 31–33.

31

Postman (1996 p. 150). The study of comparative religion is important, according to Postman, for two further reasons; firstly, it encourages the students to develop a pluralistic and tolerant worldview and secondly, without the study of comparative religion, a significant part of cultural work in fields such as painting, music, architecture, literature and even science cannot be properly understood. 32

MacIntyre suggests, in this vein, in his God, Philosophy, Universities that it is ‘‘only insofar as we understand the universe, including ourselves, as dependent on God for our existence that we are also able to understand ourselves as directed toward God and what our directedness toward God requires of us’’ (2009, p. 178).

33

Sommerville (2006, p. 143).

34

Loughlin (2009, p. 228).

35

Sommerville (2006, pp. 143–144). Taylor views the ‘‘secular age’’ differently than Sommerville. He does not locate the secular age between the religious and the post secular ones, but rather prefers to differentiate

123

Y. Jobani

Just as educational institutions ceased functioning as religious institutions with the end of the religious age, so too they must cease to function as secular institutions with the end of the secular one. In the post secular age, educational institutions ought instead to function neutrally. A neutral standpoint requires, to quote Nagel, to ‘‘view the world not from a place within it, or from the vantage point of a special type of life and awareness, but from nowhere in particular and no form of life in particular at all’’.36 Neutral educational institutions should therefore include both the study of religion as well as the study of secularism. Neutrality requires a narrative presentation of both religion and secularism, in the context of which students will be exposed to the assumptions, development and decline of these legacies. This contrasts with the indoctrinatory presentation of either religion or secularism as the all-embracing and unquestionable truth, presentations characteristic of the religious and secular ages respectively. In this spirit, Sommerville suggests in the seventh chapter of his The Decline of the Secular University the outline for an academic course in the history of secularism. This course is supposed to expose the students to what he refers to as the ‘‘narrative’’ character of secularism, i.e. the presentation of secularism as ‘‘a story with a beginning and presumably and end—and not the all-embracing myth that it once seemed to be’’.37 Though Sommerville does not suggest a similarly detailed depiction of equivalent courses dedicated to exposing religion in a narrative form, he does seem to support such courses. These courses, as Postman claims, must present the religious viewpoint both from a historical perspective, exposing their dynamic dimension, as well as from a comparative one.38 As Feinberg puts it: Perhaps the most important learning that students could gain from any religion course is the understanding that there is no one religious point of view and that even members of the ‘‘same’’ religion can differ on fundamentals. In addition, students could begin to understand religions as evolving systems that, much like other systems, change over time as they respond to internal tensions and external environmental factors. This learning is far different, however, from much of what is presently taught in many religion courses.39 The elucidation of the meaning of Christian excellence and its relation to other notions of excellence, is viewed by Sommerville not only as an integral part of the university’s duty to expose the students to a wide range of conceptions of excellence, but also as part of its duty to expose them to the roots of their culture. So for example, Sommerville reports how he, as an historian, teaches the Christianization of the Anglo-Saxons in England in the seventh and eighth centuries AD. This process, he explains to his students, marks the Footnote 35 continued the secular age (in which we still live today) from the religious one that preceded it. According to Taylor, the long and complex process which brought us to the secular age, denotes a transition from a society in which faith in God is considered obvious and beyond discussion, to a society in which a religious life is only one among many options; an option that is neither straightforward nor obvious in and of itself. This process of secularization, Taylor writes, puts the believer in the following position: ‘‘I may find it inconceivable that I would abandon my faith, but there are others, including possibly some very close to me, whose way of living I cannot in all honesty just dismiss as depraved, or blind, or unworthy, who have no faith (at least not in God, or the transcendent). Belief in God is no longer axiomatic. There are alternatives.’’ Taylor (2007, p. 3). 36

Nagel (1991, p. 208). See also Nagel (1989).

37

Sommerville (2006, p. 92).

38

See Postman (1996, pp. 143–171).

39

Feinberg (2013, p. 438).

123

The Secular University and Its Critics

passage from a culture centered on the notion of honor to one centered on the notion of charity. This was a long, complicated and demanding process, as it involved the transition from one way of life, with its own customs, meanings and values, to another way of life, with almost contradictory customs, meanings and values.40 Beyond the genealogical-historical analysis tracing the roots of Western morality in Christianity, Sommerville also makes a philosophical claim according to which any moral judgment must be anchored in some kind of religious system. By religious system he does not, in this context, refer to historical religions per se, but rather to forms of life and viewpoints derived from some kind of understanding of the notion of the absolute. In hospitals, for example, we must decide what to dedicate our limited resources to: prolonging human life or improving its quality. This question, Sommerville claims, is clearly a religious one, as formulating an answer to it requires us to adopt a comprehensive and allembracing perspective on reality and the status of human beings in it. Science can, according to Sommerville, at the very most provide relevant information necessary for a better understanding of the problem; it is unable to provide, in and of itself, a satisfactory solution. The opponents of the secular university claim, therefore, that universities should be neutral, and that as educational institutions they need to once again address the big questions of human existence, and to do so by exposing their students to a variety of notions of excellence. The claim according to which contemporary universities neglect the big questions of human life and the central issue of the meaning of knowledge requires a clarification as obviously, these issues are not completely ignored at universities. The big questions are after all addressed, taught and studied in a variety of faculties and courses at universities. Philosophy departments, for example, will in courses and research about ancient Greek thought or modern existentialism extensively address questions such as the meaning of life, the purpose of knowledge, the good life etc. The critical problem, however, is that the university as an institution does not provide a comprehensive, integrative and organized response to these questions. There is no attempt at integrating a wide conception of knowledge with, to quote Midgley, the students’ ‘‘practical and emotional attitude to life’’.41 This negligence on the university’s part means that any of its students who are not directly exposed to such questions as part of their coursework will not necessarily be spurred to critically engage with these matters.42 The university will therefore have failed to cultivate the quest for meaning a proper educational institution should foster in all of its students. According to the critics of the secular university, this undermines the university’s significance and depletes it of what should be its most meaningful educational content. Universities should, therefore, as educational institutions address the questions of the meaning and, the religious critics of the secular university claim, need to do so by exposing 40 As Sommerville puts it: ‘‘An ethical system based in honor is a self-regarding ethic, while one based in charity is an other-regarding ethic… With honor goes a concentration on pride rather than humility, dominance rather than service, courage rather than peaceableness, glory rather than modesty, loyalty rather than respect for all, generosity to one’s friends rather than equality. Charity expresses the contrasting values in each of these pairs. Students only have to see this comparison on the blackboard to realize how Christian their moral orientation still is’’, Sommerville (2006, p. 70). 41

Midgley, (1991, p. 8).

42

As Alasdair MacIntyre puts it ‘‘The contemporary research university is, therefore, by and large a place in which certain questions go unasked or rather, if they are asked, it is only by individuals and in settings such that as few as possible hear them being asked’’ (2009, p. 174).

123

Y. Jobani

their students to a variety of notions of excellence, especially the religious conception of excellence at the heart of their particular culture.43 This argument, as we shall see in the next section, is translated into legal claims which could have far reaching consequences on the status, scope and depth of the inclusion of the study of religion in university education.

Beyond the Secular University: From Theory to Practice The theoretical framework presented in the previous sections enables translating the general call for the inclusion of religion in academia into three concrete demands: (1) establishing the study of religion as a compulsory part of university education (2) incorporating a religious perspective in all academic disciplines (3) exposing the students to the faithful’s inner perspective, and thus enabling them to grasp religion from within (henceforth demands 1, 2 and 3 respectively). Before providing a detailed account of these demands and the various justifications provided for them, a short remark on the way they relate to each other is in order. Opponents of the secular university, such as Nord and Haynes for example, present these three demands as inseparable aspects of a single cause. They claim that establishing the study of religion as compulsory at universities requires not only obligatory courses dedicated to the study of religion, but also the incorporation of the religious perspective in all academic disciplines. This inclusion, in turn, must involve exposing the students to the ‘‘inner perspective’’ of religion.44 We shall argue, however, that the claim these demands are inseparable is not compelling. Though the three demands are indeed related, the latter two are extensions of the first, added with the purpose of widening and deepening it. The second demand aims to extend the scope of the study of religion to all subjects studied at the university, and the third one to grant the study of religion an emotional and cultural profundity. In principle, therefore, the latter two demands could be separated from the first. Moreover, the first demand, i.e. the demand to make the study of religion compulsory at universities in some format or another, is, in and of itself, already a significant and substantial demand. Nord and Haynes’ argument and the ensuing demand to integrate the compulsory study of religion in academic studies raises a further difficulty: One could accept their claim that Universities need to actively engage all students with the ‘big questions’ of the meaning and purpose of life and of the knowledge they acquire in their studies, without accepting that religion is the only, or even the most appropriate discipline to address these issues. Indeed, one could argue that other disciplines like Philosophy, Literature or Cultural studies engage most comprehensively and profoundly with questions of meaning and purpose, and these, therefore, would be the subjects that should be made compulsory at universities and not, or not only, religious studies as Nord and Haynes would have it. In this vein, Kronman suggests, in his Education’s End; Why our Colleges and Universities Have Given Up on the Meaning of Life, to adopt various components from the secular humanistic model, which prevailed in American Universities from the civil war until the mid-twentieth century. The organizing principle of this model was, as Kronman puts it, that ‘‘a college or university is not just a place for transmission of knowledge but a forum for exploration of life’s mystery and meaning through the careful but critical reading of the 43 For more on whether exposing students to religious ideas is the only or most suitable way of dealing with the big questions, see the discussion in the conclusion below. 44

See Nord (2010), Nord and Haynes (1998), Nord (1995).

123

The Secular University and Its Critics

great works of literary and philosophical imagination that we have inherited from the past’’.45 The acquaintance with the various ‘big answers’ that were offered to humanity’s ‘big questions’ by prominent philosophers, poets and artists throughout history, stands at the heart of the secular humanistic model, which, accordingly, provides the students with ‘‘a common set of references, a shared lexicon of works, and a fund of developed ideas with which to formulate their individual judgments and express them to others’’.46 As such, the secular humanistic model Kronman describes, offers exactly the kind of comprehensive engagement with the big questions of meaning and purpose which Nord and Haynes claim is lacking in universities, but unlike their proposals, it does so without relying mainly or solely on the study of religion. In the USA, attempts have been made to find a legal basis for the demand for compulsory study of religion in public education in the first amendment of the constitution which, amongst other, requires the neutrality of the state in all religious matters. This neutrality, the argument goes, must be maintained not only between varying religions but also between religion and secularism. Yet this neutrality is breached by public universities in which research and teaching are undertaken exclusively from a secular perspective. The religious silence in universities, Nord and Haynes argue, is in practice the silencing of the religious position, which cultivates a prejudicial perspective of religion and religious faith.47 In order to uphold the constitutional demand for neutrality and therefore, according to Nord and Haynes, ensure a balance between secularism and religion, universities must require their students to participate in religious classes as part of their academic studies. Nord, for example, proposes a compulsory course introducing religions for college students; in the first semester the course would deal with the Bible, Christianity and Judaism; in the second semester the students would learn about Islam and Eastern religions.48 But the opponents of the secular university are not satisfied only with imposing compulsory participation in courses introducing religious studies (demand 1), because they claim such a limited and restricted framework cannot provide the religious perspective with the fair and comprehensive exposition it deserves. They therefore make a further demand, namely, to incorporate the religious perspective in all academic disciplines (demand 2). The religious viewpoint, they argue, should be integrated wherever it is ‘‘natural’’ to do so; not only in history and literature classes wherein religious texts and perspectives 45

Kronman (2007, p. 6).

46

Ibid, p. 85.

47

Nord and Haynes present a similar claim about public schools: ‘‘…it is anything but neutral to ignore religion. Neutrality cannot mean hostility or even silence. It is, of course, true that public schools cannot be in the business of religious indoctrination; faith formation is properly the province of the family and religious institutions. But at the same time, schools have an obligation to make sure that religion is taken seriously. Neutrality […] requires fairness to religion’’ Nord and Haynes (1998, p. 18). Feinberg completely rejects Nord and Hayes’ identification of silence with the silencing of religion or the adoption of a hostile position vis a vis the study of religion in the public American education system. He claims that such identification is valid only in situations wherein silence is maintained towards a position or group that draws a negative attitude from the majority. So, for example, a school’s silence towards homophobia or racism could be interpreted, and justly so according to Feinberg, as the schools’ own aversion to homosexual or African American students. But when the position about which the university or school maintains its silence is the one widely held and accepted in society—religion in general and Christianity in particular in the USA, the most religious of the Western states today—this silence cannot be interpreted as a silencing or even as a form of hostility. See Feinberg (2013, p. 463).

48 Nord (2010, pp. 236–238). In a similar vein, Prothero suggests two different religious courses need to be incorporated in public schools; one dedicated to the study of the New Testament, the other dedicated to religious studies in general. See Prothero (2007, pp. 155–184).

123

Y. Jobani

are studied anyhow, but also in other subjects taught at universities such as law, biology, economy, medicine etc. Ignoring the voice of the faithful in text books and curricula in public education, Nord and Haynes claim, breaches the neutrality and fairness the public education system should be committed to, and is analogous to the suppression of the voices of minorities or women and their contribution to the various branches of human culture.49 Moreover, in order to ensure the full and fair presentation of the religious position, the opponents of the secular university claim, it is not sufficient to institute compulsory introductory courses to religion (demand 1) nor even to integrate the religious perspective in all disciplines taught (demand 2). This because the exposition of the religious perspective in academic settings, both in introductory courses as well as in other classes wherein the religious perspective is incorporated, often tends to be schematic and unfavorable, or even hostile. Marsden, for example, notes that a significant number of lecturers who teach the introductory courses to religion are former believers themselves, who aside of their extensive and wide acquaintance with the religious world, naturally tend to present religion in a rather negative light in order to revalidate their own disengagement from religion.50 Neutrality demands fairness, and fairness requires enabling all sides to express their truth in their own voice. Nord and Haynes rely in this context on John Stuart Mill’s argument according to which students should be exposed to a direct and unmediated articulation of the positions of their teachers’ opponents. It is not sufficient, writes Mill in On Liberty, for the student who aspires to truth to: … hear the arguments of adversaries from his own teachers, presented as they state them, and accompanied by what they offer as refutations. That is not the way to do justice to the arguments, or bring them into real contact with his own mind. He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them; who defend them in earnest, and do their very utmost for them. He must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form; he must feel the whole force of the difficulty which the true view of the subject has to encounter and dispose of; else he will never really possess himself of the portion of truth which meets and removes that difficulty. Ninety-nine in a hundred of what are called educated men are in this condition; even of those who can argue fluently for their opinions. Their conclusion may be true, but it might be false for anything they know: they have never thrown themselves into the mental position of those who think differently from them, and considered what such persons may have to say; and consequently they do not, in any proper sense of the word, know the doctrine which they themselves profess.51 Nord and Haynes do not explicitly demand that universities include theologians and clergy in their teaching staff in order for them to present the religious position in the most appropriate manner. They do insist, however, on teaching religion using primary sources (autobiographies, poetry, literature, art, cinema etc.) in which the religious voice is expressed in the first person, from an empathic, ‘‘insider’’ perspective (demand 3).52 Only by relying on primary sources, Nord and Haynes claim, can the student encounter the 49

Nord and Haynes (1998, p. 47).

50

Marsden (1992, p. 36).

51

Mill (1989, p. 40). See also Nord and Haynes (1998, p. 53). In a similar spirit Bloch writes that ‘‘to penetrate the consciousness of another person… we must virtually lay aside our own ego, whereas, to say what we think, we need only remain ourselves. This is a less arduous endeavor’’, Bloch (1964, pp. 140–141). 52 In this context, Smart claims that the phenomenological study of religion (which attempts to grasp religion as it is grasped by the believers themselves through a suspension of the researcher’s own personal

123

The Secular University and Its Critics

religious position as a ‘‘live option’’ for the understanding of the world and our position within it. The teaching of religion cannot be reduced to merely reviewing its dogmas or listing basic facts. In order to view the religious position from the inside, students must be exposed to the particular kind of awareness or gestalt, and sensitivity religious bestows on believers. In this context, Nord and Haynes suggest an analogy to musical education; learning a musical piece, they argue, can be reduced neither to an examination of the composer’s biography or the status of the work in music history, nor to a theoretical analysis of its score. Only by listening to the piece can the student understand the work from the inside. A full understanding of the piece and its significance can only be attained by those who experience it. In such a learning process, the student makes sense of music by experiencing it, while gaining a new vocabulary of musical concepts as well as a set of categories. Eventually, both the experiential and the analytic aspects significantly contribute to the student’s musical development.53 Nord and Haynes claim to be committed to the separation of church and state and object to religious indoctrination in the context of public education. Schools and universities, they claim, cannot teach religion but must teach about religion. They therefore oppose the idea students should take part in any form of religious activity in order to gain an inner perspective on the religious position. However, they do demand, in the name of neutrality between the secular and the religious positions, that the students engage in a direct fashion with works of art and literature that contain a personal, unmitigated expression documenting the variety of religious experience, in order to balance the unmitigated encounter they continually have with secular works of art and literature that express a clearly secular perspective (demand 3).54 Furthermore, in order to ensure a true balance, Nord and Haynes claim the religious position must be presented not only in introductory courses dedicated to religious studies (demand 1), but also in every other course that relates, in some way or another, to religious practice, beliefs or institutions (demand 2). Before turning to the conclusion, critical remarks are in order. Indeed, three significant arguments could be made against the critics of the secular university. Firstly, they intentionally blur the distinction between two models of secularism, namely, a-religious secularism and anti-religious secularism.55 Under the cover of this obfuscation they derive from the secular character of the university its supposed anti-religious disposition. This, in turn, seemingly justifies their demand to integrate religion in universities. But universities, it might well be argued, are a-religious rather than anti-religious institutions. Just like one cannot derive from the lack of a scientific perspective in church the claim that the church is anti-scientific, so too one cannot conclude from the lack of a religious perspective in university that it is anti-religious. Secondly, one could argue that the notion of neutrality doesn’t lead to the conclusion that one has to include religion in the university but rather to the opposite conclusion, i.e. that religion should remain outside of academia. Maintaining the university’s neutrality, the argument would go, requires disengaging it from the conflict between religion and secularism rather than demanding it offers equal opportunities to Footnote 52 continued position) must be based on what he calls ‘‘informed empathy’’ towards religion, an empathy anchored in the symbols, narratives, rituals and works of art of the religious world. See, for example, Smart (1996, p. xxiii). 53

Nord and Haynes (1998, pp. 50–51); See also Radford (2001, pp. 151–159).

54

On the secular and anti-traditional character of American university education see also, for example, Shils (1981, pp. 10–11). 55

See Sommerville (1998) and Jobani (2008).

123

Y. Jobani

both. Put differently, neutrality would entail what Carens referred to in another context as a hands off approach rather than a hands on approach to the controversy between religion and secularism.56 Thirdly, universities in the USA are situated in a highly religiously infused environment. Therefore, those who believe (as opposed to the previous argument) that the university’s role is to actively balance the religious and secular positions, might have to acknowledge that in order to balance religion and secularism in a predominantly religious society, universities should expose their students’ to a thorough critique of the prevalent religious beliefs, rather than defending and advocating them. As Feinberg puts it in his criticism of Nord’s position ‘‘it is important for students to be exposed to alternative ways of understanding—particularly those that promote reflection on and criticism of one’s own belief, including religious belief’’.57 Religious studies, then, according to this position, would not aim mainly at strengthening religion, as Nord and Haynes suggest, but rather at developing critical thinking about significant existential and theological questions and thusly contribute to the intellectual, moral, emotional and spiritual development of the students.58 Feinberg and Layton also suggest a different aim to the inclusion of religion in curricula when claiming that through a critical understanding and interpretation of the religious cannon, students could gain a deeper understanding of their identity and tradition, which, they claim, would promote dialogue within and across traditions.59

Conclusion The criticism of the secular university operates in the intersection of two wider and more general frameworks of criticism. The first framework reflects current discontentments with processes of secularization and their consequences in various societies and cultures. The second framework encompasses the various criticisms levelled at contemporary universities, which, according to various critics, have been taken over by external factors (capitalism, administration etc.). Such takeovers, it is claimed, completely undermine the inner logic of the university’s existence. These two frameworks of criticism are separate and different, yet both perceive the crisis in the university, and more widely in society as a whole, as the outcome of the downfall or degradation of an ideal state of affairs. This common conservative and nostalgic perception of a more highly valued past, of a ‘‘lost paradise’’, is, it was argued in the first part of this paper, the junction where the criticism of the secular university is located. The critique of the secular university is not monolithic and the various arguments it includes aren’t necessarily compatible. Even so, like the wider context of the critique of the secular university, so too particular arguments against the secular university do not hover in empty space but are, rather, satellites of wider cultural, political and social critiques. This was exemplified in the second part of the paper, which examined the ways in which the critique of the secular university connects to, and draws from, a wider argument decrying the loss, in modern society, of the classic ideal of education for excellence. The expulsion of the notion of the absolute from the horizons of our society, claim both secular and religious critics (like, respectively, Bloom and Sommerville for example), prevents the 56

See Carens (1997). See also Jobani and Perez (2014, pp. 486–489).

57

Feinberg (2013, p. 435).

58

See Noddings (1993).

59

See Feinberg and Layton (2014).

123

The Secular University and Its Critics

university from adequately functioning as an educational institution. One can mention in this context, for example, the claim universities do not make any attempt at developing their students’ character, as well as their apathy to the use their students make of the knowledge they gain during their studies. A further claim holds that the loss of an absolute point of reference has destructive consequences too for the function of the university as a research institution. This argument, explored in the third part of the paper, portrays the secular university as one in which the production of knowledge has become its own purpose and any guiding principles or ideals are lacking. This phenomenological criticism of the university’s depletion of any essence or meaningful content, gained various satellite arguments by the critics of the secular university. According to the most central and notable argument of this kind, religion has always been equipped with a discourse able to contend with the ‘‘big questions’’ of meaning and purpose, and therefore, rethinking these questions in universities requires the reintegration of religion in academia. Other arguments of the opponents of the secular university circle other cultural conceptions and ideals. According to an argument presented in the third part of the paper, for example, a modern adaptation of the classic Greek ideal ‘‘know Thyself’’ requires university education to include the study of religion in order to accommodate man’s aspiration for self-knowledge which involves knowledge of his own culture. This culture, the argument goes, was formed not only by secularism, but also by a long and rich religious tradition. Therefore, a robust acquaintance with this religious tradition is required in order to understand a significant part of cultural creations in fields such as painting, music, literature etc. Another argument relies on the duty of the state in general and public education in particular, in a pluralistic, secular society, to maintain neutrality with regards to matters of religion. According to this argument, this neutrality must be maintained not only between various religions, but also between religion and secularism, which requires the reintegration of the study of religion in university courses. The various ways in which the general call for the inclusion of religion in academia can be implemented were explored in the fourth and final part of the paper. Underneath the surface of the discussion outlined in this paper, lies a basic, essential and only seemingly simple question, namely, what are universities for? From this inquiry, numerous concrete, but no less fundamental and significant, questions are derived. For example, beyond collecting, organizing and critically reviewing knowledge, should universities also provide it with meaning? Should the university, as an institution, be indifferent to the ways in which the knowledge and technology it generates are used? Do universities have a responsibility to expose their students not only to human culture in general, but also, and in a more profound and comprehensive way, to their particular culture? Should the university be politically, ideologically and religiously neutral? The attempt to examine the religious criticisms of the secular university compels us to rethink these issues as well as others, and mainly, as mentioned, to reconsider what is in this context the central question, namely, what is a university? Or, what are universities for? The religious critique of the secular university, therefore, spurs us to rethink one of the most central institutions in our society and culture and as such, whether we accept its conclusions and demands or not, the issues it raises are profoundly significant. Acknowledgments This work was supported by grants from the European Union Marie Curie Program (No. 321680), the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and the Posen Foundation. The author would like to thank the following scholars and colleagues who have contributed important insights and suggestions: Avner

123

Y. Jobani Ben-Amos, Jeremy Fogel, Ron Margolin, Miriam Strube and the editor and referees of Studies in Philosophy and Education.

References Biale, D. 2010. Not in the heavens: The tradition of jewish secular thought. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Bloch, M. 1964. The historian’s craft. Trans. P. Putnam. New York: Vintage Books. Bloom, A. 1988. The closing of the American mind: How higher educations has failed democracy and impoverished the souls of today’s students. New York: Simon & Schuster. Cady, L.E., and Hurd E. Shakman (eds.). 2010. Comparative secularisms in a global age. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Carens, J.H. 1997. Two conceptions of fairness: A response to Veit Bader. Political Theory 25(6): 814–820. Casanova, J. 1994. Public religions in the modern world. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Chadwick, O. 1983. Newman. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cole, J. 2009. The Great American University: Its rise to preeminence, its indispensable national role, and why it must be protected. New York: Public Affairs. Collini, S. 2012. What are universities for?. London and New York: Penguin Book. Fish, S. 2005. Take this job and do it: Administering the university without an idea. Critical Inquiry 31(2): 271–285. Feinberg, Walter. 2013. Teaching religion in public schools: Review of Warren A. Nord, does god make a difference? Educational Theory 63(4): 431–438. Feinberg, W., and R.A. Layton. 2014. For the civic good: The liberal case for teaching religion in the public schools. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Funkenstein, A. (eds.). 1993. Maimonides: Political theory and realistic messianism. In Perceptions of Jewish history, 131–155. Berkeley: University of California Press. Golomb, J. 1989. Nietzsche’s enticing psychology of power. Ames: Iowa State university Press. Hotem, Y. 2010. Space theodyssey: Science fiction, religiosity and education in a post-secular age. Tel Aviv: Resling. (Heb.). Jakobsen, J.R., and A. Pellegrini (eds.). 2008. Secularisms. Durham: Duke University Press Books. Joas, H., and K. Wiegandt (eds.). 2009. Secularization and the world religions. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. Jobani, Y. 2008. Three basic models of secular Jewish culture. Israel Studies 13(3): 160–169. Jobani, Y., and N. Perez. 2014. Women of the wall: A normative analysis of the place of religion in the public sphere. The Oxford Journal of Law and Religion 3(3): 484–505. Kronman, A.T. 2007. Education’s end: Why our colleges and universities have given up on the meaning of life. New Haven: Yale University Press. Kung, H. 1991. God: The last taboo? Science, god and the university. In Theology and the university, ed. D.R. Griffin, and J.C. Hough, 51–66. Albany: State University of New York Press. Levine, Lawrence W. 1997. The opening of the American mind: Canons, culture, and history. Boston: Beacon Press. Loughlin, G. 2009. Theology in the university. In The Cambridge companion to John Henry Newman, ed. I. Ker, and T. Merrigan, 221–240. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. MacIntyre, A. 2009. God, philosophy, universities: A selective history of the catholic philosophical tradition. Plymouth: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Marsden, G.M. 1992. The soul of the American university: An historical overview. In The secularization of the academy, ed. G.M. Marsden, and B.J. Longfield, 9–45. New York: Oxford University Press. Marsden, G.M. 1994. The soul of the American university: From protestant establishment to established nonbelief. New York: Oxford University Press. Meiklejohn, A. 1908. College education and the moral ideal. Education 28: 552–567. Midgley, M. 1991. Wisdom, information and wonder: What is knowledge for?. London and New York: Routledge. Mill, J.S. 1989. On liberty’ and other writings. ed. Stefan Collini, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nagel, Thomas. 1989. The view from nowhere. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Nagel, Thomas. 1991. Mortal questions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Newman, J.H. 1996. The idea of a university. ed. Turner, F.M., New Haven: Yale University Press. Nietzshe, F. 1994. Twilight of the idols, in the anti-christ, ecce homo, twilight of the idols and other writings. Trans. Norman, J. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

123

The Secular University and Its Critics Nietzsche, F. 1997. Daybreak: Thoughts on the prejudices of morality. Trans. Hollingdale, R.J. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Noddings, N. 1993. Educating for intelligent belief or unbelief. New York: Teachers College Press. Nord, W. 1995. Religion and American education: Rethinking an American Dilemma. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press. Nord, W., and C. Haynes. 1998. Taking religion seriously across the curriculum. Nashville: First Amendment Center. Nord, W. 2010. Does god make a difference? Taking religion seriously in our schools and universities. New York: Oxford University Press. Pecora, V.P. 2006. Secularization and cultural criticism: Religion, nation and modernity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Pelikan, J. 1993. The idea of the university: A reexamination. New Haven: Yale University Press. Perez, N., and R. Gavison. 2008. Days of rest in multicultural societies: Public, private, separate? In Law and religion in theoretical and historical context, ed. P. Cane, C. Evans, and Z. Robinson, 186–213. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Perez, N. Lautsi versus Italy: Questioning the Majoritarian Premise. (Draft, on file with the author). Postman, Neil. 1996. The end of education: Redefining the value of school. New York: Vintage. Prior, W.J. 1991. Virtue and knowledge. London: Routledge. Prothero, S. 2007. Religious literacy: What every American needs to know—and doesn’t. San Francisco: Harper San Francisco. Radford, M. 2001. Aesthetic and religious awareness among pupils: Similarities and differences. British Journal of Music Education 18(2): 151–159. Readings, B. 1999. The university in Ruins. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Roberts, J.H., and J. Turner. 2000. The sacred and the secular university. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Sandalow, T. 1991. The moral responsibilities of universities. In Moral values and higher education: a notion at risk, ed. D. Thompson, 149–171. Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press. Shils, E. 1981. Tradition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Sigad, R. 2013. The Socratic Nietzsche. In Nietzsche as affirmative thinker, ed. Yovel Y. 109–118. Martinus Nijhoff Philosophy Library,Vol. 13. Smart, N. 1996. Dimensions of the sacred: An anatomy of the world’s beliefs. Berkeley: University of California Press. Smith, C. 2003. The secular revolution: Power, interests, and conflict in the secularization of american public life. Berkeley: University of California Press. Sommerville, C.J. 1998. Secular society/religious population: Our tacit rules for using the term ‘secularization’. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion. 37(2): 252–253. Sommerville, C.J. 2006. The decline of the secular university. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Strauss, L. 1989. An introduction to political philosophy: Ten essays. Detroit: Wayne State University Press. Taylor, Charles. 2007. A secular age. Harvard: Harvard University Press.

123