The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship by George Marsden
Allen, Diogenes
CHRISTIANITY 101 The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship George Marsden Oxford University Press, $22,137 pp. Diogenes Allen It is instructive to compare George Marsden's book to Newman's...
...Diogenes Allen It is instructive to compare George Marsden's book to Newman's The Idea of a University...
...In the technical aspects of a subject this would not likely show, but in judgments of value, Christian conviction would make a difference...
...The closing chapter, "Building Academic Communities," makes the important point that the full contribution of Christian scholarship to the university cannot be made without institutional support and organization...
...In chapters 4 and 5, Marsden seeks to encourage academics who are Christians to take responsibility for becoming Christian scholars, rather than hiding their light under a bushel...
...Perhaps the clearest places where Christian convictions are evident is in motivation and, as Newman pointed out, in the unmasking of the tendency to make absolute claims...
...I could add a number in addition to those Marsden cites, including Marsden's own work as an historian...
...In my own field, philosophy, I know only too well how true this is...
...Again and again, Marsden stresses that if one is convinced that the universe is created, it must affect one's scholarship...
...There is such a thing as Christian scholarship, and Christian scholarship has a contribution to make to the intellectual inquiry...
...Nor does he argue for a Christian world view as the central organizing principle...
...The Enlightenment understanding of the universe as self-contained, the attempt to separate public life from religion, combined with the Protestant ascendancy which considered the study of the humanities as a sufficient religious surrogate in public life, once rendered the notion of a Christian scholarship as outrageous and even ridiculous...
...In spite of the contribution of many individual scholars, it was only with the founding of the Society of Christian Philosophers that the significance of a distinctive Christian perspective has been recognized as making a vital contribution to the subject of philosophy of religion and, even more broadly, to the subject of philosophy...
...Marsden accepts "pragmatic liberalism as the modus opemndi for the contemporary academy...
...For Marsden the role Newman assigned philosophy and theology is to be played by Christian scholarship in all subjects...
...Newman also strongly argued for the vital function of theology in the university...
...Marsden does not mention a specific role for philosophy or theology in the university...
...Although this book is written as a response to the controversy caused by Marsden's The Soul of the American University (1994), it is in its own right an exciting and thought-provoking work for anyone who cares about the future of the university and education today...
...Newman believed philosophy should help overcome the fragmentation of knowledge and be a constant reminder to the university community of larger questions concerning human purpose...
...A Christian motivation can affect the questions a scholar chooses to investigate and encourage a particular concern for students...
...Diogenes Allen teaches at the Princeton Theological Seminary...
...In his first three chapters, Marsden seeks to rebut objections to the idea of Christian scholarship...
...But liberalism should not be regarded, as it now is, as excluding all religious points of view a priori...
...Often the difference is muted, because a great deal of Christianity has been absorbed into secular perspectives...
...In a pluralistic society with the demise of the Enlightenment notion that all legitimate scholarship is uniform and the increasing recognition that all knowledge is contingent, Christian scholarship has a legitimate place in the university, just as feminist and African-American scholarship do...
...Perhaps the most telling way to make a case for such a thing as Christian scholarship is to show that a number of fine examples of it actually exist...
...Although subsequently a cardinal of the church, and commissioned by the pope to found a national Catholic university for Ireland, Newman argued that philosophy, not theology, ought to be the centerpiece of the university...
...Marsden gives considerable space to reporting examples such as the work of Charles Taylor and Roger Lundin...
...Its specific contribution to the larger university community was to prevent the tendency of various special subjects, say economics or a natural science, to make imperialistic claims...
Vol. 124 • March 1997 • No. 6
