Council Report: Religion in Courses

For more than a year a Council committee has investigated the role of religion at Harvard. Its report, approved by the Council shortly before Christmas vacation, recommends that the University offer more courses in religion and give greater emphasis to the personal meaning of philosophical ideas in present courses.

The committee, headed by Richard L. Bushman 1G, based its conclusions on a random poll it took of 150 undergraduates to determine student attitudes toward religion. Taken as a whole, according to the report, the "figures indicate that the intellectual facets of religion are closest to Harvard students. Spiritual experiences were of little or no importance to questions about God. The comments under the question on spiritual experience interpreted it as an intellectual experience almost as often as a mystical one."

Only 23 percent of those answering the poll denied the need for religious orientation in their lives. The pattern of answers varied little between freshmen and seniors, indicating "the absence of significant increase in religious interest" during undergraduate years. Despite this fact, however, the report states that more than three-quarters of the students polled said that intellectual concern for the ultimate meaning of their lives had increased since their arrival at Harvard.

From these statistics, and from interviews with faculty members and local clergymen, the report attempts to determine the proper place of religious instruction in a liberal arts college. "A liberal education," it states "is the education of free men and must teach men how to be free. The free man must be able to discern and evaluate independently, and this is impossible without some basic understanding of ultimate worth. Unless he has conceptions of worth which he has chosen, his judgements will be based on standards imposed from without and he is not free."

The committee feels it is the function of the University to develop this commitment within the student. "If a student is to retain a living commitment, the University must expose him to new possibilities for commitment, or enable him to examine and understand the ideas he brings with him. A traditional sense of worth which is ossified or decayed and is not part of a person's effective intellectual commitment cannot be deemed a commitment."

Course work, the report concludes, is the most likely part of the college curriculum for introducing these concepts, because it represents the area in which the student meets the largest number of fundamental ideas.

Any presentation of these ideas should also include "radical thinking, in the classical sense of the word," the report says. "Too often critical thinking, at least as interpreted by undergraduates, merely looks for logical flaws. Radical thinking emphasized the importance of understanding and evaluating the bases on which a logical structure is built. This concept is not disregarded in the Harvard Report, 'General Education in a Free Society', but we wish to emphasize it."

No Endorsement Needed

The report states that only through this radical thinking, applicable in all intellectual disciplines, can the student fully realize the "ultimate meaning of the structure of his thought." In these terms, religion deserves a place in the curriculum. Such action would not force the University to endorse religious truth any more than it officially stamps its approval on any other system of thought.

What the report most strongly recommends in this connection is that the administration provide not just courses in religion, but courses including the religious approach to the basic problems of life: "Religious thought deals directly with questions of ultimate meaning. It recommends an overarching scheme of life that lends significance to much of man's experience, and suggests criteria which will divide good and evil.

"...the fact that religion treats life, and proposes conceptions of ultimate worth which have vitalized the thinking and lives of many, suggest it as an effective avenue for approaching ultimate questions. Our argument at this point is not for courses in religion as such, but as a means by which religion as such, but as a means by which radical thinking can be encouraged. We recommend courses in religion because they seem to provide a natural and easy way of approaching fundamental questions and stimulating students to consider the relevance of their education to their lives."

Within the special religious course, the approach should not differ essentially from that of other courses, and the emphasis throughout should be upon teaching rather than preaching. "We do not believe that the teacher should emphasize the importance of commitments at crucial points of the course. If the importance of what he is saying is not implied by the evidence and reasoning he brings to bear, then any exhortation will be shrugged off."

The report states that the individual professor ought to decide for himself whether or not he shall use the objective approach, but stress that it is important in controversial questions that the teacher's position be made known. There should throughout be a careful distinction between fact and opinion, and total objectivity on the part of the student should not be demanded in places where opinions are discussed.

One of the main directions towards which the committee directed its efforts was the determination of the University's own stand on religion in undergraduate courses. "General Education in a Free Society" specifically disclaims the "practicability, as a source of intellectual unity, of religion, for most colleges," while at the same time stressing the need for such a unity.

Knowledge Not Enough

The Council committee argues, however, that the University would not oppose an emphasis upon religion in course instruction. The council report states that the Harvard Report "recommends principles and raises questions with religious implications. The eventual objective of education, it maintains, is not just knowledge of values but commitment to them."

Throughout the history of Western Civilization, the committee says, men have accepted the religious interpretation of life and found the way to good through religion. "The Harvard Report," it adds, "does not rule out the validity of these religious ideals; it only opposes inculcating a certain religious morality or making a religious ideal the unifying element in liberal education."

The committee feels that education, none the less, should acquaint the student with the questions religion raises and the answers it gives. "Commitment is based on free choice, and choice, to be truly free, demands a knowledge of all the possibilities."

Superficial Contradiction

"The superficial contradiction in the Harvard Report," the committee continues, "in including religious ideals among those to be considered in a liberal education and at the same time opposing religious instruction is easily dissolved. Throughout it is apparent that the Report grapples with the largest problem of leading men to discern and chose good without specifying what the good is. There is no denial of the need for the discussion of religious thought in an education which teaches men to evaluate.

"What it opposes is the domination of education by a single religious ideal or the inculcation of moral precepts. In short, it would disapprove preaching religion while admitting the value of teaching about religion. This is an important distinction that is frequently misunderstood by academicians. Many of them nervously expect teaching about religion always to lapse into preaching. Unfortunately the fear of the one has led to the abandonment of the other in many curriculums."

The Council committee grants that the University in its courses and in its stand in "General Education in a Free Society" does not now specifically encourage individual commitment; yet, in reply, it submits the following statement from President Pusey:

"What every young person seeks in college from liberal education--whether or not he has articulated this--is self-discovery. What he wants most to know is what it means to be a human being, what is expected of him as such, what the world is, and what are the options in it that lie before him, and how he is to get on with others. In short, the really burning question that faces someone trying to live through his mind is what is he to do with his life? What such a person wants--what we all want--is a meaning that becomes a motivating force in our lives. And when we ask this question, whether we are conscious of it or not, we have begun to think religiously, and have begun to ask of God."