Religion, Education and the American Experience

Reflections on Religion and American Public Life

Browse Return to Previous Page       Related Subjects All Subjects Education Religious studies Theology

Edited by Edith L. Blumhofer,

Introduction by Martin E. Marty

University of Alabama Press

Due/Published May 2002, 256 pages, cloth

ISBN 0817311467

Education in America--public and private, from the elementary to the university level--is the subject of urgent, ongoing debates. School vouchers, home schooling, prayer in the classrooms, sex education in the schools, and evolution versus creationism are just a few of the touchstones and flashpoints that have ignited a national dialogue concerning the role of religion in U.S. educational institutions.

The ten major essays assembled here emerged from a series of conferences conducted by the Public Religion Project at the University of Chicago Divinity School, funded by a grant from The Pew Charitable Trust. Written by recognized leaders in the fields of education and religion, the essays address such issues as the role of religious studies programs in tax-supported public universities; the evolving role of the university chaplain; the impact of religious doctrine on literary scholarship and the natural sciences; the college president as a spiritual leader; the secularization of private colleges whose foundations rest in the spiritual mission of a specific church or denomination and, conversely, the obligations, if any, of colleges that have maintained distinct denominational identities toward pluralistic outreach and openness; and an examination of the home schooling movement.