Good news is no news

In the last few weeks of mid-semester rush, I have barely had time to do more than pass on the day’s news stories about religion on our campuses. And in my hasty scan of news aggregators for religion (e.g.,  The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life or Religion News Service) or for higher education (e.g., The Chronicle of Higher Education or Inside Higher Ed) I have been struck by how seldom religion on campus actually makes the news. And when it does, the story, not surprisingly, is almost always about conflict: controversial bans on “advocating” homosexuality or abortion, disputes over the teaching of evolution, discrimination against religious or secular minorities, alleged violations of “student”  or “faculty” academic freedom.

Perhaps I won’t have been as bothered if I were not trying to have at least one post a day during the work week with at least one or two “positive” and “useful” posts for those interested in thinking through the appropriate role for religious perspectives on their particular campus. After all, how is it news when things are going smoothly? Who wants to read about successful classes where religious perspectives play a pedagogically useful role? Where is the story in a campus that lives out a religious sense of mission while welcoming and successfully supporting students and faculty who believe and practice otherwise? Good news is no news, but no news about good news helps explain why secular faculty associate religion on campus with controversy! And while stories about conflict can spark useful faculty conversations, it helps to have “success stories” and examples of “best practice”  to talk about as well.

I invite my readers to help flesh out a fuller and more useful picture of religion on our campuses. Please consider emailing me:

• “Teachable Moments”: Anecdotes that illustrate the challenges and opportunities that arise when students or faculty bring explicitly religious considerations into the classroom.
• “Conversation Stoppers”: Anecdotes that illustrate the challenges and opportunities that arise when faculty raise explicitly religious considerations in conversations with each other or with administrators.
• Recommended Reading: Books, articles, postings that offer insight into the question of explicitly religious discourse on campus.

Send these to “markuedwards AT gmail DOT com.” I may not be able to post all that is sent, but I will respond to each email.

Keeping up with the latest with Martin Marty

This blog aims to give readers a basis for conversation on the latest news and publications that intersect with the broad theme of “Religion on our Campuses.” To keep up with the vast literature on religion, I myself turn to a number of online and print sources. One of the best and most valuable is Martin Marty’s Context, which I receive monthly in my inbox as a two-part PDF. It is also available in a print version, mailed monthly. Here’s a sample newsletter from 2002.

Martin Marty is the Fairfax M. Cone Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus at the University of Chicago. He is the author of more than fifty books and thousands of articles. Most importantly, he is one of the most insightful and well-informed commentators on the American religious scene.

God and Evolution

One good article—or in this case, one good guest op-ed contribution in The New York Times—can give you much of the thesis of a big 500-plus page book. In this case it is Robert Wright’s The Evolution of God (Little, Brown, and Company, 2009). Wright takes on the origins of the “human moral sense” and uses current speculation in evolutionary psychology about the origins of “reciprocal altruism” to make his argument.

Here’s Wright’s claim regarding militant atheists and equally militant religious believers:

These two warring groups have more in common than they realize. And, no, it isn’t just that they’re both wrong. It’s that they’re wrong for the same reason. Oddly, an underestimation of natural selection’s creative power clouds the vision not just of the intensely religious but also of the militantly atheistic.

If both groups were to truly accept that power, the landscape might look different. Believers could scale back their conception of God’s role in creation, and atheists could accept that some notions of “higher purpose” are compatible with scientific materialism. And the two might learn to get along.

The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life

The Pew Forum is the place to start for those of us interesting in religion and public life.

In addition to handy links to the top religion headlines for the day, the Forum features in-house opinion surveys, say, on “religion in politics” or giving a “religious portrait of African-Americans.” It also offers regular special reports on issues in the news; to mark the Darwinian anniversary, for example, they have a piece on the conflict between religion and evolution. It has occasional forums on timely topics, and gives legal backgrounders on religion and the law.

Finally, the Forum offers indepth coverage and links to several major issues:

• Bioethics
• Death Penalty
• Gay Marriage
• Religion & Politics
• Religion & Public Schools
• Religion & Social Welfare
• Religion & the Law
• Religion & World Affairs

Check it out!