The Place of Religion in the State-Supported University

Abstract

The often proclaimed separation of Church and State in America has an undoubtedly authentic significance, but it is fraught with ambiguity. It is less a definition of settled policy than a commitment to grapple with a perennial problem. That problem results from the momentous cultural mutation that gave rise to pluralistic societies in which a high degree of political unity must be maintained despite the persistence of cultural diversity. E pluribus unum is indeed the symbol of a high national purpose, but it also reflects a cultural predicament. The resulting problem is basically educational. It is therefore refreshing to find a scholarly symposium that undertakes to treat a major aspect of the problem in operational terms, without dogmatism or polemics, and with an unillusioned and tempered optimism as to the possibilities inherent in the present situation. Religion and the State University is such a book. F. S. C. Northrop of Yale, in his chapter on "Students from Other Lands," remarks that "the separation of politics from religion is foreign to any people who have not passed through the Protestant Reformation or come under modern Western secular political philosophy" (page 269). This is a startling reminder that the United States is a great political experiment committed to the achievement of order, social integrity, and a high level of spiritual and moral maturity in the absence of agreed religious sanctions and common ritual on which nations have traditionally depended. The editor of the volume characterizes it as "a co-operative attempt . . . to define the place of religion in higher education, in the university community, and particularly in the statesupported university" (page i). The last phrase indicates the specific purpose of the book. However, the more inclusive scope indicated is a reflection of the current tendency at the university level to blur the distinction between public and private institutions with respect to the attention given to religion. As a matter of fact, the legal and constitutional inhibitions against sectarian instruction in tax-supported educational institutions are now matched, so to speak, by a growing aversion among educators generallyeven in church-related schools-to indoctrination, in the sense of setting forth propositions to be accepted without question. Yet the tendency to give religion a definite place in the curriculum and in the activities program of the public university is one of the most significant developments in higher education. Incidentally, it is sometimes remarked that there are publicly supported universities which manifest a greater readiness to give