The rotunda of the Divinity Faculty building at the University of Cambridge is pierced through its centre so that on any floor one can look up and see the sky, a feature intended to suggest the free passage of ideas as much as it affords a glimpse of heaven
For its 800th anniversary this year Cambridge has adopted the slogan “Transforming tomorrow”, so it is reasonable to ask whether theology and religion have a role in shaping the future as they have shaped the past.
Students think so: applications to study theology and religion in British universities have been rising steadily throughout the past decade. But plenty of academics think theology has no place in a modern university. Many cannot see the point of it as an academic discipline. According to this view, the discipline of theology as a critical reflection on the faith of Jews or Christians, Muslims or Buddhists, simply does not belong.
So what else is new? The academic world has been marginalizing theology for decades; it’s part of the push to drive Christianity (and other religions, but especially Christianity) out of the public square and relegate to the private sphere and thus neutralize its truth claims, its divisive tendencies, etc.
Ironically, when Cambridge was founded 800 years ago, theology was at the very heart of the curriculum as “the Queen of sciences.” But that was near the height of the Christendom era in terms of the Church’s dominant role within European societies. Back then, all the faculty were Christian clerics.
This kind of article is just further evidence that we’ve entered a radically different age in western, global north civilization, a Post-Christendom age. And that has vast, far-reaching implications for how we need to redesign the way we do Church for the third millenium.
David Handy+
Passionate advocate of an adversarial, confrontational, Christ-against-culture, Post-Christendom, believer’s church Anglicanism
I hate to say it, but two of the major reasons that theology applications are up at both Oxford and Cambridge are (a) that it’s easier to get a place to read Theology than almost any other subject apart from Classics, and (b) that one can apply for Theology without having studied any particular subject at A level.
I’m normally pretty good at predicting whether any given student I teach will manage to get a place at Oxbridge; the only time I’ve been wrong, the student had applied for Theology and was accepted.
I’d like to inject a couple of positive points from the article:
1. As Plant says, some critics see no place for theology within a curriculum. Of course this debate has been going on for several decades in the United States as well. I remember talking with Professor Thomas F. Torrance about it in the late 1970s; he, of course, thought that theology should be taught in the university, seeing theology as a science.
But by doing religious studies, departments can include theology in a way that makes sense to most unbiased observers: critical reflection on belief, the views of Augustine and Anselm and Aquinas for example, need to be included to understand one major religious tradition, Christianity.
Theology in a university setting is not just handing on “the Faith” but is critical reflection on the relation between faith and modernity, including the role of science and biblical criticism. It also deals directly, for example, with questions concerning providence–how God acts in history–and, related to that, questions about theodicy. It would also take up such questions as, Who are the saints? and related to that, justification and sanctification, and the range of Christian responses to such questions, &c;. These questions are fascinating to students. They’ve typically wondered about them for years but almost always have never had a chance in their own churches to discuss them or often even to raise them.
The perspective in a university setting is a bit different from that in a seminary: in religious studies, faculty attempt to adopt an “insider-outsider” stance–demonstrating empathy and understanding but a critical, objective perspective as well. And they would represent more than one denomination or tradition within Christianity. But in the modern university setting ALL faculty would accept modern science (in its proper role–and that would be a major point of discussion) and biblical criticism. Students are engaged by this approach; they can say what they want in class; but they soon learn that quoting a verse or two from the Bible is not an argument.
2. Plant says something else important: “The effect has been to make theology and religious studies in the UK essentially and richly interdisciplinary, equipping graduates with an unusual range of academic skills, including literary and historical analysis, a capacity for philosophical reasoning and an understanding of the social sciences and their application to religious study.”
I don’t know anywhere else, besides theology, that a student can get so much exciting stuff: great texts, various methods, and a subject matter that by definition has to do with what is most important to human beings.
Students may not be the best when they enter such a program–I don’t know–but certainly the breadth, depth, and rigor of such a program should soon test and engage them to the max. This article I find to be simply more encouraging than the first two commenters suggested.
While agreeing with David Hein’s thoughtful contribution above, I would want to enter if not a caveat, at least a question. Can you study theology without experience of life? Can theology make sense to someone just out of adolescence? In theology, even at academe, you find yourself tackling questions such as the meaning (if any) of suffering, why good people do bad deeds, whether a fulfilled life has any role for the virtues, contemporary culture and ancient wisdom, and so on. Behind and through it all, of course, there is the presence of God, and how we could understand God. I write as a believer, BTW: I am simply viewing some of the issues in through the lens of university study. I have known good and thoughtful university teachers conclude that theology, if it is to be truly profitable, needs to be studied by someone with experience of life.
PS: I was in that very faculty building a couple of weeks ago for the valedictory lecture of Prof David Thomson, who holds the Chair of Church History. I would like to respond to Sue above and say that the students I saw there in the Runcie Room seemed pretty sharp to me.
Terry Tee: “Can you study theology without experience of life?”
Thanks for your comment and for your question. It’s an excellent one. And I will offer in response two inadequate answers:
1. You’re so right. Often, when I teach modern theology (which I guess I’ve been doing now for 30 years), I will think and often say something like: “Think about this as you go along (in life)…” Or: “Keep this in mind…” Or “Watch out for this and see if it doesn’t make sense when you….” Or I will give a mini-summary of a piece of my own journey, when something–some theological perspective or point of doctrine–seemed to fall into place after a particular life experience I’d had. All those sorts of responses suggest that, yes, you’re quite right.
There’s a reason for this of course: religious truth-claims, while they cannot be tested in the scientific laboratory like hypotheses, are supposed to demonstrate an empirical fit: they should be capacitating as we go thru life, helping us to see life more deeply, more fully and accurately. (The doctrine of original sin has been helpful to many in this regard!) So, yes, approached by a callow youth, the first task might be to get students simply to see what theology means or is trying to say; their larger grasp of its point might take years. But as C S Lewis knew, there’s a place for imaginative preparation, for getting students to have what Austin Farrer called “initial faith”–at least seeing that something is at stake here; popular culture may not have all they need; even students can see that the dominant culture is a bit thin.
All right: you’ve forced me to make a confession. In teaching undergraduates, I cheat. I don’t try to teach modern theology the way I did when I started–the great theologians and theologies of the twentieth century that we’ve all heard of. I try instead to make a connection. So we will read Screwtape or a novel–Greene’s The Power and the Glory or Macaulay’s The Towers of Trebizond–or we will talk about who the “saints” are, how different denominations view them. Deeper confession: I use my article from Sewanee Theological Review on saints–Saints: Holy, Not Tame–because it was originally a paper, it’s easy for them to read and grasp, and it connects with where they are; it starts by talking about how celebrities have replaced saints in our culture; yes, the article mentions JLo, Ben Affleck, and so forth–but also Farrer, Hugh Lister, Lewis, Macaulay, and so forth. The key is–no surprise here–to hook up with where they are and then pull them up to a level appropriate for their knowledge and (intellectual/academic/personal) experience. And keep in mind I’ve got 30 students ranging from fundamentalists to secular seekers. I can’t assume they’re all Christians. It’s a challenge.
The point is that, because of students’ lack of knowledge of and experience in modern theological themes, students would need another course in modern theology after this introductory undergraduate course–to acquaint them with the major figures and ways of thought in a more comprehensive, systematic way. I’ve tried that at the basic level, and the results are not pretty. Also keep in mind that college teachers are teaching two things all the time: content and something else. The content these students may well forget in a year. But the something else includes: critical thinking skills, reading, writing, and–enthusiam. I’m trying to get them excited about this stuff, to feel confident about exploring these topics (which can seem very airy and difficult to a biology or management major or to a kid straight out of a fundamentalist church where everyone believes God directly wrote every word in the Bible).
2. Me at 18 and one of today’s students at 18: two different animals. They have more experience than I want to contemplate! So, yes, I take your point, but it is possible for a teacher to think a bit about who the students are, what they’ve seen and heard and thought about, and connect with that. Footnote: this means I rarely lecture, and never for more than 20 minutes out of the 75. The reason relates to your point: I want to connect to their experience, then raise them higher and take them deeper. We read great stuff; I ask them many questions; they present many short (1- or 2-p.) papers analyzing the reading (not just simple summaries); and that’s how I easily find out what they’re thinking, what’s important to them.
The statements above makes it sound as if I know what I’m doing–that would be misleading; don’t be deceived!