RELIGIOUS CULTURE IN STATE UNIVERSITIES
By Rev. Byrdine A. Abbott, Editor The Christian Evangelist, St. Louis, Mo
The poet Tennyson in the first part of his immortal elegy on the death of
his college friend, Arthur Hallam, breathes a prayer which might fittingly be
used as the daily litany of both minister and teacher, for it states the whole
case of the true relation of learning and religion. He sings:
Let knowledge grow from more to more,
But more of reverence in us dwell;
That mind and soul according well,
May make one music as before.
True religion includes real education and genuine education must
eventually lead to true religion.
On the recent foundation of the university for the natives of South
Africa the Government declared, according to the British Weekly, that to
educate them without religion would be to raise up a nation of devils.
To educate Englishmen, Frenchmen, Americans or any other people
without religion would produce the same result.
The deepest thinkers of our day have come to see the evils of a purely
materialistic education. It makes the world merely a huge machine that
grinds up men and women, soul and body.
The idea is brilliantly expressed by Paul Elmer More in his latest
volume of the Shelburne Essays. He says:
"As we contemplate the world converted into a huge machine and
managed by engineers, we gradually grow aware of its lack of meaning, of its
emptiness of human value; the soul is stifled in this glorification of mechanical
efficiency. And then we begin to feel the weakness of such a creed. . . .
we discover its inability to impose any restraint upon the passions of men or
to supply any government which can appeal to the loyalty of the spirit.
And seeing these things we understand the fear that is gnawing at the vitals
of society."
A demon at the wheel of the ship, or in the cab of the engine, or admitted
into life in the formative hours of youth is scarcely more to be feared
than a conscienceless man in possession of the secrets of chemistry, electricity,
government, commerce, or war, or in charge of the ordinary machinery
of society.
These things have filled the modern father and mother with almost a
poignant anxiety as they have seen their sons and daughters go forth to the
great universities with their brilliant and sometimes fierce intellectual lights.
This fear has made it easy for the ill-informed and the mischief-maker to
create prejudice and make cleavage between the church and the university.
To continue this and allow it to grow would result in calamity to civilization.
It would be possible to overcome this problem in the independent
universities by ordinary processes of influence, but the State universities
present greater obstacles, owing to the separation of Church and State in
this country. The church college will afford some relief. Through it the
student may be so thoroughly trained that he will need no special religious
opportunity after getting to the university. It would be possible to make
out a strong case for the position that a student ought not to be admitted to
the State university unless he had had training in a church school of worthy,
educational standards. Plainly, however, this course would be found
impracticable because the State universities will always grow greater and
stronger and more students, rather than fewer, will attend them directly
from the public schools.
It is left to the churches, then, to find a way to follow their young people
to the State universities and throw about them such influences, put before
them such opportunities, and lay upon them such obligations, that in pursuit
of the knowledge and training requisite to their aims in life they will not
surrender the mastership of the soul nor abandon the conviction of the
reality and greatness of God nor of the supreme value of things eternal.
But that the student may keep his spiritual vantage ground the church must
follow him to the classroom, the campus and the dormitory of the university
as far as possible.
It is now twenty-eight years since the Disciples of Christ, the body of
Christians with whom I am identified, took definite steps to supply this
urgent demand. Through the Christian Woman's Board of Missions, an
organization which recently became merged into the United Christian
Missionary Society, it was determined to institute Bible Chairs at such
universities as would receive them, even if only on toleration first. And it
may have been that on their first advent they were very narrowly watched.
They might contain possibilities of annoyance and a certain kind of trouble
even if not of mischief. They might be crusaders of proselyting, they might
stir up friction between the adherents of different denominations, they might
introduce quite an unhealthy emotionalism or at least encourage an unscientific
approach to learning and to life. If there was such cautionary bias
it was unnecessary, for the Bible Chair at the university has proved its value
in many ways.
The Chancellor of the University of Kansas said, referring to one of
these institutions: "The Bible Chair is a real factor in the religious life of
the university, and I desire that its influence increase."
My people are now supporting such chairs at the State universities of
Michigan, Texas, Virginia and Kansas. In addition we have The Bible
College of Missouri, which is operated in its own building at the University
of Missouri, the "Indiana School of Religion" at the University of Indiana,
the Eugene Bible College at the seat of the University of Oregon, and at the
present time, buildings are in course of erection for the "California School of
Religion" in Los Angeles, just across the street from the University of
Southern California. The initial amount of money raised for the "California
School of Christianity" was $800,000 which will be quickly increased
to $1,000,000 and added to thereafter until the school has satisfactory
support.
In addition to these schools and chairs we support student pastors at
Purdue University, the University of Illinois and the University of Washington.
It is their duty especially to establish confidence and form pastoral
connection with our own young people and also to render such Christian
service generally as may be considered proper in the student body at large.
These schools, Bible Chairs, and pastors give fine opportunity for religious
contact with, and training of the young people and they are doing much
to achieve the ends sought by their establishment.
Of course they are absolutely non-sectarian and the Bible Chairs and
schools do not presume to offer courses of study sufficient in themselves to
equip men and women for the pulpit or the mission field. But they bear
witness to the part religion must have in a well-rounded and fully girded life.
They help to create an atmosphere which permeates the entire school and
makes teaching easier and more delightful. They make a moral and
spiritual appeal and, because the big men of the universities like to have them
there, they gain respect from even those who do not patronize them. "The
Bible Chair building itself is a protest against the scientific materialism of
the campus, and stands a silent but impressive reminder that there is a God
of truth and that all truth, both scientific and religious is His truth."
While we do not presume that other and better ways of spiritual
culture for the young people in the State Universities are impossible, we are
happy in what has been achieved in that respect and we hope to increase
the value and number of these agencies in keeping regnant the soul life of the
students destined to become the makers of all the to-morrows.
