This post was written by Randy Newman on December 6, 2006
C. John Sommerville’s The Decline of the Secular University, raises more questions than it answers – and that is by design. The University of Florida historian wanted to promote discussion among Christian academicians more than settle issues that need vigorous debate. What some have called a weakness of the book, the failure to resolve tensions, may also be considered a great strength.
This short book could be the basis for an entire semester’s worth of discussions at Christian faculty fellowship meetings. Consider these eight brainstorm-starters posed in the opening pages of the book:
(He introduces this list with these words: “My thesis in what follows is, first, that the secular university is increasingly marginal to American society and, second, that this is a result of its secularism. In effect, I mean, that questions that might be central to the university’s mission are too religious for it to deal with.� p. 4-5)
1) What is the status of the concept of the human today; have we become unable to justify a distinction between humans and all other life-forms?
2) Doesn’t professional education, which attracts the vast majority of our students, always relate to a view of the human?
3) How should we judge between religions, in a day when those differences are clearly becoming more upsetting to the world? Why do universities seem determined to ignore the differences and insinuate a moral equivalency?
4) Why are we afraid of requiring the study of what used to be called “Western Civilization�? Should multiculturalism trump an understanding of the forces, including religious forces, that have shaped us, so that we don’t understand ourselves?
5) Is there really a philosophical justification for the fact/value dichotomy, which was the keystone of secularism throughout the last century?
6) How does the university justify the moralizing that still dominates the humanities subjects, having given up acknowledged moral judgment?
7) Isn’t it time to begin studying about secularism, instead of just indoctrinating students in it, as we now do?
8) Why is intellectual fashion replacing reasoned argument in the university itself?
If you’re planning now to start, renew, or continue a Christian faculty fellowship next semester, Sommerville’s work could be a stimulating and valuable syllabus.
Part 1 Part 3 Part 4
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