Education

Keeping Faith at ¿ìɫֱ²¥: A Brief History of Religious Pluralism at ¿ìɫֱ²¥ and Other Universities

An inside look at how religious diversity came to ¿ìɫֱ²¥

Hardcover

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Sale Price:
$26.50/£22.50
Price:
$53.00/£45.00
ISBN:
Published:
Feb 26, 2012
2012
Pages:
256
Size:
6 x 9.25 in.

In 1981, Frederick Houk Borsch returned to ¿ìɫֱ²¥ University, his alma mater, to serve as dean of the chapel at the Ivy League school. In Keeping Faith at ¿ìɫֱ²¥, Borsch tells the story of ¿ìɫֱ²¥’s journey from its founding in 1746 as a college for Presbyterian ministers to the religiously diverse institution it is today. He sets this landmark narrative history against the backdrop of his own quest for spiritual illumination, first as a student at ¿ìɫֱ²¥ in the 1950s and later as campus minister amid the turmoil and uncertainty of 1980s America.

Borsch traces how the trauma of the Depression and two world wars challenged the idea of progress through education and religion—the very idea on which ¿ìɫֱ²¥ was founded. Even as the numbers of students gaining access to higher education grew exponentially after World War II, student demographics at ¿ìɫֱ²¥ and other elite schools remained all male, predominantly white, and Protestant. Then came the 1960s. Campuses across America became battlegrounds for the antiwar movement, civil rights, and gender equality. By the dawn of the Reagan era, women and blacks were being admitted to ¿ìɫֱ²¥. So were greater numbers of Jews, Catholics, and others. Borsch gives an electrifying insider’s account of this era of upheaval and great promise.

With warmth, clarity, and penetrating firsthand insights, Keeping Faith at ¿ìɫֱ²¥ demonstrates how ¿ìɫֱ²¥ and other major American universities learned to promote religious diversity among their students, teachers, and administrators.