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Colleges and universities are often thought of as godless institutions of secular thought and anti-religious sympathies, where Nietzsche, Darwin, and Marx are taught and religious thinkers are ignored. That may have been true for the past 50 years, but higher education is changing, and may be accepting religion and spirituality as integral parts of learning.</p>
<p>”Marginalized for the better part of a century, the study of religion is making a comeback in American higher education,” <a title=”John Schmalzbauer and Kathleen A. Mahoney write for <I>Contexts</I>” href=”http://contexts.org/articles/winter-2008/schmalzbauer/” target=”_blank”>John Schmalzbauer and Kathleen A. Mahoney write for <i>Contexts</i>
</a> (excerpt only available online). Prominent thinkers including Cornel West, Harold Bloom, Toni Morrison, and Stanley Fish have all explored the idea of the sacred in their academic careers.</p>
<p>Some scholars have begun to incorporate religious thinking into their study, others are taking a “spiritual-but-not-religious” approach to learning, and still others are studying religion from an objective, non-theological perspective. All of these modes of thought, Schmalzbauer and Mahoney content, are aspects of the same multifaceted movement giving religion greater representation in the realm of academia.</p>
<p>–<i>
<a href=”https://www.utne.com/bios/bennett-gordon.aspx”>
<font color=”#800080″>Bennett Gordon</font>
</a>
</i>
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<i>Photo by <a title=”Tom Godber” href=”http://flickr.com/people/masochismtango/” target=”_blank”>Tom Godber</a>, licensed under <a title=”Creative Commons” href=”http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en” target=”_blank”>Creative Commons</a>.</i>
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