Being religious at knox college: Attitudes toward religion, christian expression, and conservative values on campus

Religion and Education

Volumn 31, Issue 2, 2004, Pages 41-61

  Hulett, L Sue ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 85007873377     PISSN: 15507394     EISSN: 19498381     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/15507394.2004.10012340     Document Type: Article

References (13)

1. As faculty adviser to Intervarsity Christian Fellowship, I have engaged faculty, administrators, and students over the right of faith-based clubs to run their organizations and activities within the framework of their doctrines and purposes. The right of free exercise of religion and the students’ right to explore fully the marketplace of ideas (including religious ideas) that colleges promise them often bump against the postmodern interest in limiting (and even excluding) the voice of groups that claim to know the truth, want to act or choose leaders on the basis of that truth, and intend to engage all comers in a discourse over truth and untruth.
2. See, for example, the periodic (and happily sometimes temporary) delegitimization of religious clubs for breaking these “rules” on Eastern elite campuses like Harvard, Tufts and Dartmouth; Midwestern liberal arts colleges like Knox and Coe; and recent entries like Rutgers and the University of North Carolina.
3. At my institution, some of the faculty recently advised students to go off campus for religious worship and fellowship.
4. See the sample autobiographical story, “Faith and Intellectualism: A Knox War,” submitted by a 2003 Knox student lamenting being targeted as the “hateful” and “bigoted” fundamentalist Christian in her First year Preceptorial class in the appendix. A professor asked students in this required course to identify themselves as Christians and defend their faith against his charges that religious beliefs were stupid and illogical. The professor then encouraged the rest of the students to “take on” the illogical, judgmental, and intolerant Christians.
5. New expressions of spirituality, broadly defined, also now mix with various minority religions in America like Judaism, Islam and various Eastern and New Age faiths and sects. We also see Gallup Polls from1999-2003 reporting that from 78-82% of Americans identified themselves as Christians. A poll reported in the 4/24/03 issue of Christianity Today showed that 86% of Americans “believe in a God who answers prayers” and 50% thought of themselves as “religious.” As for the existence of a culture war, a 2004 PBS/US News and World Report poll found that 75% of Evangelical Americans felt that “they must fight to make their voices heard” (46% of non-evangelicals didn’t think this was the case) and 72% believed the mass media is hostile to their moral and spiritual values.
6. For the full Survey results ask lhulett@knox.edu. Key results and cross tabulations that isolate the Christian student subset follow below.
7. Professors in the various disciplines handed out the Knox College Survey at the end of class time. Students were told that their responses were voluntary and confidential.
8. One student refused to identify his or her gender; several students identified themselves as an American ethnicity and as international student; 1 student chose Catholic but not Christian; and only 3 respondents were outside the age range of 18-22.
9. More anecdotally, IVCF records that attendance at the weekly Large Group meetings from 2002-2004 averaged from 29-40 students.
10. According to the 2000-2003 survey conducted by the UCLA Higher Education Research Institute (HERI) more than two-thirds of the 3680 college students surveyed have a strong interest in religious or spiritual matters or questions. 70% of the student respondents reported that they had attended religious services in the past year, and 78% discussed religion or spirituality with college friends. 73% indicated that their religious or spiritual beliefs had helped develop their individual identity. 70% said people could grow spiritually without being religious. And, the survey found that 58% of the students had participated in discussions about spirituality or religion in college classroom settings.
11. The latter figure was from a series of surveys from 1989-1996. I should also note that enrollments in religious colleges have increased greatly in the past seven years. See the reports in the annual data collections in the Chronicle of Higher Education, US News and World Report, and in the publications of the Coalition of Christian Colleges.
12. Poll reported in the 12/3/02 Barna Update. See www.barna.org for more survey data.
13. In the voluntary written comments on the surveys, students wrote that they did not want to appear “narrow-minded” or “arrogant” in classroom or dorm settings. They admitted to some ambivalence about “universal truth.”