Religious Instruction at Harvard - A Reasoned Choice

A committee at Harvard has recommended that the university require incoming students to take a course in religion and reason. The rationale is that religion, in all of its forms, remains perhaps the biggest mover and shaker not only in individual lives, but global policies and relations. Therefore, so the argument goes, given the gravity of religion and its importance in many aspects of global life, it only makes sense for Harvard to mandate instruction in this area for those whom the university claims it is equipping to thoughtfully engage the world for the better. Like many, I applaud this recommendation and believe it is long overdue.

I applaud this recommendation even though I am not naive. The content of this instruction will likely have nothing to do with religious apologizing, and will almost certainly avoid all hints of favoritism between religions. The instruction will not be anyone's idea of Christian education. Christianity will, at best, be considered on equal footing as other religions. So why do I applaud the recommendation? Well, it really represents a startling admission, and rebuke. Harvard, like many universities, has long celebrated its deliberate and strong-willed secularism. For many in the Academy who are holdovers from the 60s, it wasn't that religious instruction was useless per se - it was that religion itself was useless. For them, religion was not a legitimate academic discipline because religion was little more than mythology - and often dangerous mythology at that. So while Harvard and other universities continued to maintain religion departments for those who had not yet seen the light of reasoned secularism, the notion that religious instruction should be mainstreamed by being included in a broad liberal arts curriculum was downright insulting because it took hours away from legitimate academic topics. This recommendation is a rebuke of this mentality, because it suggests that religion is not only a legitimate academic topic, but it is so relevant to the world that Harvard graduates will enter that it is simply imperative to get their feet wet in these areas if they are to be well-rounded graduates. Moreover, by recommending that religious instruction be related to 'reason', the committee is acknowledging that the two are not mutually exclusive, as so many ardent secularists believe. Again, the goal of this instruction is not to apologetically demonstrate that religion is reasonable. The goal is to reason together about religion, its impact, its importance, and yes, its legitimacy. The goal is clearly to promote tolerance and reduce religious radicalism in all (or at least most) of its forms. But the fact that a Harvard committee has gone even this far is a significant censure of previous academic thinking regarding the legitimacy of religion and its role in global affairs. Bravo to this committee for finally beginning to see the obvious. Maybe others will too.