George M. Marsden - The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship

In The Soul of the American University: From Protestant Establishment to Established Nonbelief (Oxford Univ. Press, 1994), I explored how and why American university culture, which was constructed largely by Protestants, has come to provide so little encouragement for academically rigorous perspectives explicitly shaped by Christian or other religious faith. One theme of The Soul of the American University is that the century-long process of dismantling the old Protestant establishment was, among other things, an understandable way of addressing problems of equity in an increasingly pluralistic society. However, as I argued in a "Concluding Unscientific Postscript,"the dominant university culture has overcorrected to the point that expressions of religious perspectives are liable to be considered inappropriate or offensive.

As might be expected, that "Postscript;' in which I stepped into a more prescriptive role, has drawn the attention of critics. In particular, they have asked what I had in mind by "Christian scholarship,"an idea that I claimed had relevance to much of academic life. Many people find this idea strange unless it refers only to theology or to study about religious topics. Outside of that, they have no idea what it might mean. Reviewers have also raised a number of helpful questions about the appropriateness of introducing explicitly faith-informed perspectives into mainstream academia.

I am grateful to all those who have responded to my proposal and for the present opportunity to explain more fully what I have in mind. I am particularly grateful to those who have spoken out frankly and raised some hard questions. I appreciate the good spirit of the debate and I hope I have answered their questions, at the least, fairly. Even though I use some of their comments as points of departure, the goal of this volume is not primarily to respond to critics. Rather, the goal is to take a step toward clarifying what the ancient enterprise of relating faith and learning might mean in the academy today.

I also want to thank my many friends who have helped me with this volume. These include many friendly respondents at numerous lectures, conferences, and symposia. Especially, however, I want to thank those friends who took the time from extremely busy schedules to read and comment on the entire manuscript. These include Michael Beaty, Paul Kemeny, Mark Noll, James Turner, and John Van Engen. Lucie also gave me some good advice and her love and good humor have once again been more valuable than I can possibly express.

Cynthia Read again has gone beyond the duties of a senior editor in providing needed stylistic editing. I am grateful also to Stephanie Sakson for copyediting and to Karin Commeret for proofreading.

I am continually grateful to the McAnaney family for the Francis A. McAnaney Chair, which has been a source of ongoing support for this work. I am also grateful to the administration of the University of Notre Dame and to many congenial colleagues and graduate students.

Parts of this material were presented as the 1995 Walter Pope Binns Lectures at William Jewell College and I am grateful to my hosts there for their hospitality and support. Chapter 3, "Christian Scholarship and the Rules of the Academic Game," originated as a paper presented at a conference on advocacy and scholarship sponsored by the Institute for the Study of American Evangelicalism. I am grateful for the comments I received at that time and for permission to publish a version of the argument here. The original together with other papers from that conference are being published as Religious Advocacy and the Writing ef American History (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1997). That volume provides some valuable discussion of the broader issue of advocacy, especially in relation to religious faith.

Chapter One
Why Christian Perspectives Are Not Welcomed

Chapter Two
The Arguments for Silence

Chapter Three
Christian Scholarship and the Rules of the Academic Game

Chapter Four
What Difference Could It Possibly Make?

Chapter Five
The Positive Contributions of Theological Context

Chapter Six
Building Academic Communities