God and Man at Yale

The Superstitions of 'Academic Freedom'

William F. Buckley

• Publisher: Gateway Editions
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781596988033
• Topic: Politica e relazioni internazionali
• Subtopic: Conservatorismo e liberalismo

"For God, for country, and for Yale... in that order, " William F. Buckley Jr. wrote as the dedication of his monumental work—a compendium of knowledge that still resonates within the halls of the Ivy League university that tried to cover up its political and religious bias.In 1951, a twenty-five-year-old Yale graduate published his first book, which exposed the "extraordinarily irresponsible educational attitude" that prevailed at his alma mater. The book, God and Man at Yale, rocked the academic world and catapulted its young author, William F. Buckley Jr. into the public spotlight. Now, half a century later, read the extraordinary work that began the modern conservative movement.Buckley's harsh assessment of his alma mater divulged the reality behind the institution's wholly secular education, even within the religion department and divinity school. Unabashed, one former Yale student details the importance of Christianity and heralds the modern conservative movement in his preeminent tell-all, God and Man at Yale: The Superstitions of "Academic Freedom."

GOD AND MAN AT YALE

Chapter One RELIGION AT YALE

I call on all members of the faculty, as members of a thinking body, freely to recognize the tremendous validity and power of the teachings of Christ in our life-and-death struggle against the forces of selfish materialism. If we lose that struggle, judging from present events abroad, scholarship as well as religion will disappear.

—President Charles Seymour, Inaugural Address, October 16, 1937

In evaluating the role of Christianity and religion at Yale, I have not in mind the ideal that the University should be composed of a company of scholars exclusively or even primarily concerned with spreading the Word of the Lord. I do not feel that Yale should treat her students as potential candidates for divinity school. It has been said that there are those who “want to make a damned seminary” out of Yale. There may be some who do, but I do not count myself among these.

But we can, without going that far, raise the question whether Yale fortifies or shatters the average student’s respect for Christianity. There are, of course, some students who will emerge stronger Christians from any institution, and others who will reject religion wherever they are sent. But if the atmosphere of a college is overwhelmingly secular, if the influential members of the faculty tend to discourage religious inclinations, or to persuade the student that Christianity is nothing more than “ghost-fear,” or “twentieth-century witchcraft,” university policy quite properly becomes a matter of concern to those parents and alumni who deem active Christian faith a powerful force for good and for personal happiness.

I think of Yale, then, as a nondenominational educational institution not exclusively interested in the propagation of Christianity. The question must then arise whether or not the weight of academic activity at Yale tends to reinforce or to subvert Christianity, or to do neither the one nor the other. It is clear that insight into this problem cannot be had from counting the number of faculty members who believe as opposed to those that do not believe. Some instructors deal with subject matter that has little, if any, academic bearing upon religion. Some have more influence than others. Some teach classes that as a matter of course attract a large number of students, while others seldom address more than a half dozen or so.

The handiest arguments of those who vaunt the pro-religious atmosphere at Yale is that the University has a large religion department, a great number of strong and influential men whose beliefs are strongly pro-Christian on its faculty, and a powerful and pervasive “religious tradition.”

To a greater or lesser extent, these statements are true. And yet, it remains that Yale, corporately speaking, is neither pro-Christian, nor even, I believe, neutral toward religion.

To begin with, it is impossible to gauge the Christian purpose of a college by counting the number of courses offered in religion. It is, of course, of interest that such courses are offered, because this serves as an official indication, at least, that the University recognizes religion as an important field of learning, worthy of the student’s academic endeavor. But it is important to remember that a student may major in Christianity and not be pro-Christian, just as he can major in Far Eastern Studies and be anti-oriental.

Also relevant is the number of students who are influenced by the religious department of a university or avail themselves of the college’s religious facilities. Professor Clarence P. Shedd, of Yale, speaking on the radio program “Yale Interprets the News” on August 15, 1948, insisted upon the dramatic upswing in postwar religious interest, but added: “I talked with a chaplain in a large state university only last week who asserted that all the religious influences in his university were not significantly influencing more than ten percent of the undergraduates. My own figure for the large university situation nationally has been fifteen percent.”

The degree to which a college is pro-Christian depends then, not so much on the number of religion courses it offers or even the number of students electing such courses, but on the orientation and direction given to the students by the instructors in these courses, and, most especially, in other courses that deal or should deal with religious values.

THE DEPARTMENT OF RELIGION

Even as with chapel, the bare figures of the presence of courses in religion are no reliable guide as to the value of the work offered.¹

At Yale, the religion course which consistently attracts the greatest number of students is entitled the Historical and Literary Aspects of the Old Testament. Mr. Lovett, the widely admired university chaplain,^I teaches this course; but he does not proselytize the Christian faith or, indeed, teach religion at all. Even the title of the course does not call for understanding of, or even sympathy with, Christianity. Mr. Lovett, to be sure, has both; but he apparently feels that it would be presumptuous to speak on behalf of Christianity in a course so dispassionately designated. Strictly speaking he is right, though the cause of Christianity suffers to a certain degree from a treatment which focuses upon the Bible as a “monument over the grave of Christianity.” It must be acknowledged that Mr. Lovett’s personal interest in religion can be, and frequently has been, quietly contagious. Through the years, many students, impressed by his faith and goodness, have sought out religion on their own. And some of these have ended up at divinity schools.

My point is that a Bible course no more bespeaks an influence on behalf of Christianity than a course on Das Kapital would necessarily indicate an influence on behalf of Marxism. Attendance at Dr. Lovett’s classes is deceptive in itself, because far from signifying an interest in “religion” it indicates, on the part of many undergraduates, nothing more than a fruitful search for a “gut.” It is notorious that far less is expected of a student in this course than in most others in the University, as, it seems, is the case in many other colleges:

All that glitters in the catalogues is not mentally respectable gold, and courses in religion, as any experienced observer knows, are often “snaps” or “crips.”… Put purely on the basis of grades, seldom is it as difficult to get an A in religion as it is in philosophy or biology or economics. Yet God is a God of judgment as well as of mercy.²

We move to the next largest course in the Religion Department, the Philosophy of Religion taught by Professor T. M. Greene. While Mr. Greene is a Christian by a great many definitions (he replies ambiguously when asked if he believes in the divinity of Christ), his course is largely a completely nondogmatic examination of the philosophies of religion. Mr. Greene is unflinching in his respect for Christian ethics, but it is, after all, assumed that most people are. Therefore, while some students are moved by Mr. Greene’s approach to his problem and by his patent respect for Christianity, there is a widespread opinion that what he teaches is ethics, not religion.^II

Much the same can be said of Professor Schroeder’s (he is the chairman of the Religion Department) courses on Problems of Religious Thought and the Development of Religious Thought in Western Civilization. Mr. Schroeder, an ordained minister, is emphatically an influence toward the good, but not necessarily through the instrument of his religion. While respecting Christianity and what it represents, Mr. Schroeder does not seek to persuade his students to believe in Christ, largely because he has not, as I understand it, been completely able to persuade himself.^III

Next in line is Mr. Goodenough, the renowned scholar of Judaism, who teaches Types of Religious Experience, and Judaism and Jesus. Mr. Goodenough was once a Congregationalist minister, and surprisingly, a number of persons who are, on the face of it, intimately acquainted with the University, have remarked that he “is considered a good Congregationalist.”

And yet, I know of at least one occasion on which Mr. Good-enough has classified himself, before his students, as “80 percent atheist and 20 percent agnostic.” No wonder that the preponderant influence of a scholar of his persuasion is to drive his students away from religion, the subject he “teaches.”

There are three or four other instructors in the Religion Department, most notably Mr. Latourette, a staunchly pro-Christian minister who teaches mostly at the Divinity School, but maintains contact with undergraduates by offering a course on the history of Christianity. Unfortunately, the enrolment in this course is very small. Mr. Walton (of the Philosophy Department), a Roman Catholic, teaches a course on scholastic philosophy which is even more lightly subscribed.

Even if we assume, then, that a vigorous Religion Department indicates the prevalence of religion on the campus, we find that at Yale there does not even exist within the Religion Department itself a remarkably pro-religious bias. It is staffed by able scholars, many of whom several universities would be glad to add to their teaching staff. Academically, in other words, it is everything one could wish. But to the student who seeks intellectual and inspirational support for his faith, it is necessarily a keen disappointment.

Let us not forget that even if the courses offered by the Religion Department did lead to a more active faith in Christianity, it would still remain true that less than 10 percent of the student body elect courses in the Department.^IV We must remember, too, that Yale sets up a number of “required studies” for the students of the liberal arts. Unless he can earn an exemption for this or that exceptional reason, he must take a full year course in each of the following fields: (1) English, Latin, or Greek, (2) Modern Language, (3) Formal Thinking (Mathematics, Logic, or Linguistics), (4) Laboratory Science, (5) Classical Languages, Literature, and Civilization, (6) Modern Literature, the Fine Arts, and Music, (7) Anthropology, Economics, Geography, Political Science, Psychology, Sociology, (8) History, Philosophy, Religion, and (9) Natural or Physical Science.

It is to be noted that the group which includes religion allows the option of a course in history or philosophy. Statistics reveal that the overwhelming majority of students avail themselves of these alternatives. Thus, the University insists that the student take a course in a laboratory science, in a modern language, and in classical civilization, but accepts history and philosophy as alternatives to religion. In so doing, it denies equal status with, say, French or Spanish grammar and pronunciation, to the teaching that has played the most vital role in our civilization and can play the most vital role in our lives.^V

THE SOCIAL SCIENCES

…the social sciences and humanities are more properly called upon for value-judgments; when these are ignored or are made inimical to religion, the harm is often irreparable.³

It should already be clear that the Religion Department is not a source of pervasive Christian influence at Yale, that its impact on the vast majority of students is negligible, and that the University does not recognize religion as an indispensable field of study for an educated man.

To pursue our inquiry, then, it is necessary to turn to other departments at Yale, and to examine the attitudes which prevail where religion is in question. Our attention naturally turns to the social sciences, which year after year attract a majority of undergraduates, and do much to fix the general attitude of the University toward Christianity.

We are, naturally, most interested in those fields of study that treat most often with religion. It seems obvious that the views on Christianity held by a professor of physics are far less influential than those held by a professor of philosophy or of sociology, since, by the nature of their subjects, the latter must devote a great deal of their time to discussing religion.^VI

A word, first of all, about Economics and Government. The instructors in these departments often have occasion to refer to Christianity. But religious values, as such, are less central to these fields of study than to certain other sciences of human thought and behavior. In history courses there is opportunity to weigh both the validity and the personal value of religion, despite the large numbers of historians who are more prone to chronicle than to generalize. In the Yale History Department, for example, many students are affected by the religious inclinations of Professor Baumer, who teaches the Intellectual History of Europe. Mention ought also to be made of Professor Mack, a straightforward Christian whose attitudes become apparent in his lectures on Shakespeare.

But we narrow down our search primarily to an evaluation of the influences that stem out of the departments of Sociology, Philosophy, and Psychology. Most particularly, of course, we are here concerned with those teachers within these departments who actively disparage or encourage religion. We notice at once that teachers whose bias is conspicuously pro-Christian are not easy to find at Yale. For while they undoubtedly exist, they seem reluctant, perhaps in the interest of “objectivity,” to proclaim their convictions. We concentrate, therefore, on those instructors and those texts that are overtly or covertly hostile to religion, whether through the “silent treatment,” active opposition, or supercilious disparagement.

The History Department sponsors a course, as much sociology as history, called the Contemporary World. It is largely the dynamism and color of the instructor, Professor Ralph E. Turner, that bring to his classroom year after year twice as many undergraduates as attend the next largest courses in the History Department (American and European History). Mr. Turner is emphatically and vigorously atheistic. An able scholar, he is nevertheless a professional debunker, a dedicated iconoclast who has little mercy either on God, or on those who believe in Him, and little respect for the values that most undergraduates have been brought up to respect.

Many Yale students laugh off the influence of Mr. Turner and ultimately classify him as a gifted and colorful fanatic. Others, more impressionable, and hence those over whom there is cause to be concerned, are deeply disturbed by Mr. Turner’s bigoted atheism and finish the year they spend with him full of suspicions and doubts about religion that they may retain for a lifetime. I shall save until later a discussion of the utility of skepticism. It is enough for the present to acknowledge the presence of Mr. Turner, sponsored by Yale University and addressing a large number of Yale students every year in such fashion as to wean a number of them away from religion by relentless disparagement of the whole fabric of Christianity.

The Department of Sociology presents a special problem for our purposes. It is safe to say that a large majority of its personnel regard religion as nothing more than a cultural “phenomenon” caused by human ingenuity to serve as an opiate to make life seem more meaningful, and to promise—falsely, of course—an after-life.

It must be noted that one need...