This is a story of religious and democratic covenants and controversies in the foundations of the American nation and in the soul of its colleges and universities. Its powers are religion and politics in America, the creeds and convictions constituting the beliefs and theologies of citizens and religious people. Critically overlapping and entangled democratic beliefs and convictions distinctly define the American body politic and are in the foundation of the nation and its colleges and universities. In that story, an unmistakable feature and idea is that the religion of the Republic in America is intertwined with and parallel to a symbiotic religion of the academy in its colleges and universities. The nation and its colleges share the same space, history, and religious and democratic heralds and heroes. Democratic and political theories and philosophies, and competing and cooperating religious faiths and impulses, have been reflected both the Republic and in battles waged about the essential nature of the American nation and its colleges and universities. These traits constitute how America, its public and its citizens, in and outside the gates of the academy, have wrestled with the aspirations and ideals that define civic duty, the commons, and the common good.
Stephen J. Nelson is professor of education and educational Leadership at Bridgewater State University, and senior scholar in the Leadership Alliance at Brown University.
Acknowledgments Introduction Chapter One: Religion in the American College: The Landscape and Saga Chapter Two: The Religion of the Republic and the American Enlightenment: Foundations of the Nation and the Academy Chapter Three: John Witherspoon and Princeton: Political Theology and Theological Politics Chapter Four: Four Score and Seven: The March from the Founding of the Republic to Civil War and Beyond Chapter Five: The Watershed of the Civil War and What it Wrought: Gazing Backward and Forward Chapter Six: Religious Underpinnings of Liberal and Social Democracy: The Bridge to the Twentieth Century Chapter Seven: The Curses and Blessings of Religious and Democratic Pluralism: Twentieth Century Quandaries and Controversies Chapter Eight: The Puzzle of Pluralism and An "Almost Chosen People": Religion and Democracy in the Academy and Nation in the Twentieth and Twenty-first Centuries Chapter Nine: The Contemporary Religion of the Republic: Religious and Ideological Conscience and the Quest for E Pluribus Unum Epilogue: The Soul of the College and University: Is the Past Prologue? Bibliography About the Author
Professor Nelson has produced an engaging and provocative exploration of how religious influences have shaped the core values of American higher education. He traces an arc from the founding of Harvard College to the realities of the modern university, arguing that the fundamentals have long endured. For presidents, trustees, and other higher education leaders navigating today's cross-cutting political pressures, the book is a worthy read that offers a powerful case for importance of remaining faithful to those fundamentals. -- Robert Iuliano, Gettysburg College
