Provoking the Sacred: Baptist Connections and Heritage at ...

Provoking the Sacred: Baptist Connections and Heritage

at Wake Forest University

By Matthew T. Phillips

Submitted to Dr. Grant A. Wacker according to the requirements of RELIGION 293: Religious Issues in Post-WWII America

Duke University Divinity School Durham, North Carolina April 23, 2003

A mile and a month apart, Baptists announced the beginning of a school and the severing of old ties. In October, the scene was Wait Chapel on the campus of Wake Forest University. A modern acoustical "sound cloud" hung over the podium: the mass of sheetrock, speakers, lights and wires obscuring the artistry and symbolism of the old crossshaped iron grille over the organ pipes. Divinity school dean Bill J. Leonard preached to a crowd of students, faculty, community members, and representatives from the nations' universities gathered to celebrate the opening of Wake Forest's Divinity School, which he described as "Christian by tradition, ecumenical in outlook, and Baptist in heritage."1 Just over a month later, in the coliseum complex down the street, a modular floor was doing the obscuring, covering the basketball floor used by the Wake Forest Demon Deacons so that the room could be a little more somber as the Baptists of North Carolina conducted their annual State Convention. The convention's morning business did not include an acknowledgement of the new divinity school, but they did discuss Wake Forest, passing by "a substantial margin" a resolution criticizing the university for not barring use of the chapel for homosexual union services and serving alcoholic beverages on campus. The convention then initiated a constitutional amendment severing remaining ties with the school.2

At first glance the Convention's resolution (and the giant sound reflector in the chapel, for that matter) would appear to be evidence of the secularization of a historically Baptist school, but Wake Forest--not only the divinity school, but the university as a whole

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over the past decade--presents an opportunity to challenge and reshape conceptions of secularization in the modern American university. The opening of a new seminary and several other symptoms represent a ground swell of religious activity at all levels of the school. Wake Forest University perceived a mission and even a mandate that is not necessarily connected with its institutional denominational heritage, but may still be very much Christian or, in Wake Forest's case, even may be described as uniquely "Baptist" in the sense of overarching beliefs about how life and faith are to be approached if not in the sense of the institutional denomination.

Secularization in Higher Education

As institutions of higher education in the United States have struggled to weather the times, their relationships with churches and denominations have been dynamic by necessity. Foundational theory about the religious affiliations of modern American universities comes from George Marsden's The Soul of the American University. Marsden writes that Protestantism insured its own irrelevance in higher education. The liberalism that many Protestants had supported became the argument against the prevalence of Protestantism in higher education. The "inclusive" higher education pattern that emerged gave Protestantism no more priority than any other religious perspective, and in fact placed them all on a distant periphery. For Marsden, the difficulty in describing the trends in higher education comes not from the schools that stand out from the secularizing crowd (he excludes large groups of these from his study), but rather from the subtle differences in disestablishment of religion and secularization.3 Either means a reduction in the effect of religion on mainstream higher education and so, to persons seeking to retain ancient

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connections between the church and the academy, both are bad. The product of this disestablishment of institutional religion, Marsden asserts, is a "virtual establishment of nonbelief, or the near exclusion of religious perspectives from dominant academic life."4

In the sociological work Religion On Campus, Conrad Cherry and other sociologists of religion described their problems with existing secularization theories, saying that in their own experiences teaching in various types of universities, "religion as taught and practiced has been alive and well."5 But Marsden's concern that religion had ceased to shape the modern American university could be true in a setting where the teaching and practice of religion is alive and well.

Elizabeth Newman, Professor of Theology and Ethics at Baptist Theological Seminary in Richmond, Virginia, saw evidence of Marsden's theories at her alma mater and the subject institution of this paper, Wake Forest University. She shared her observations of the university's president in his efforts to explain the religious orientation of Wake Forest, noting that he seemed to search for explanations that deflected concerns from both sides, saying that the school's chief commitment should be to "the unique and promising path which is [Wake Forest's] alone." Still, she admits, at least the struggle is happening at Wake Forest at a time when struggle over Christian identity simply does not happen in most places.6

Even as they report on struggles (or lack thereof) over Christian identity in higher education, scholars struggle with how to use terms like "secularization," "religious," and "establishment." At least part of my thesis is that the theories regarding the secularization of higher education are inadequate, so my arguments hinge on definition. Though my

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definitions may not align exactly with the authors mentioned, they will in some combination cover the issues raised in their theory. The first category for definitions is the sphere of religious activity. Cherry can say, for example, that in his experience religion as taught and practiced is alive and well, but a school where students regularly attend campus ministry meetings and enroll in religion classes is not necessarily a school where university officials consistently refer to the institution as "Christian." Although the distinction is more subtle, a school where officials talk openly about Christian principles and try to incorporate them in the administration of the institution may or may not be shaped on a day-to-day basis by a collective religious identity. These distinctions lead to a division between three different spheres of religious activity: institutional leadership and definition, optional (and possibly peripheral) religious practice and study, and a pervasive, almost environmental, religious identity within the community of the institution. Another way to represent that third sphere would be as the truth behind institutional claims of religious identity.

Cherry and his co-authors assert that religious teaching and practice is alive and well in institutions of higher education. That statement does not negate--and in fact accents--the importance of exploring the reduction in institutional claims about religious identity. If religious practice continues, then it is all the more strange when fewer university administrations claim or advertise their religious identity and when religious perspectives in administration are excluded. Marsden is aware of religious practice among students, and this type of activity is purposefully dismissed in his work. Optional religious practice does not contradict secularization or disestablishment of religion.7

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