September 2007 – Over the last three decades many evangelicals have come to view college and university faculty with suspicion. Professors are perceived to be diehard secularists, anti-religious and opposed to any and all expressions of Christianity on campus.

Are these perceptions true? Just what is the religious atmosphere of the typical faculty lounge? Current research has found the following:

▶ Not all professors are atheists and agnostics. It probably would not be a stretch to say that many evangelicals believe that faculties consist mainly of godless pagans.

“A common perception of the college or university professor is that she or he is an atheist who rejects religion in favor of science or critical inquiry,” said Neil Gross and Solon Simmons, assistant professors of sociology at Harvard University and George Mason University, respectively.

However, that stereotype doesn’t appear to be true. Gross and Simmons contacted thousands of professors in the spring of 2006, asking them to fill out a questionnaire related to their religious and ideological beliefs. This past February they released the results in a study titled Politics of the American Professoriate.

When asked to choose the statement that most closely expressed their views about God, only 10% selected, “I don’t believe in God.” Another 13.4% chose the statement, “I don’t know whether there is a God, and I don’t believe there is any way to find out.”

That means just under a quarter of professors (23.4%) are either atheists or agnostics – meaning that campuses are hardly a hotbed of anti-God unbelief.

Nevertheless, that percentage is higher than the figures for the general population. According to the General Social Survey, only 2.8% of Americans say they’re atheists, while 4.1% say they are agnostics.

▶ A majority claim to be “spiritual.” If most professors are neither atheists nor agnostics, then what are they? According to the Higher Education Research Institute (HERI) at the University of California Los Angeles, most consider themselves “spiritual.”

At the beginning of this year HERI released results of a survey titled Spirituality and the Professoriate. In that study 81% of college faculty said they considered themselves to be “a spiritual person.”

But just what is a “spiritual person?” The HERI study was unhelpful, because the “spirituality indicators” used by the researchers were as vague as the selected category itself. Spirituality was measured by such criteria as integrating spirituality into one’s life; engaging in self-reflection; developing a meaningful philosophy of life; and seeking opportunities to grow spiritually.

▶ A majority claim to be “religious.” When the subject turned to religion, college and university faculty did not seem averse to that term, either. 

In fact, the HERI study found that 64% of professors said they considered themselves to be “a religious person” either “to some extent” (29%) or “to a great extent” (35%). About one third (37%) of the faculty responded by saying that they are “not at all” religious.

The study did not specifically define what was meant by the term “religious.” However, the discussion by the researchers implied that, as opposed to a simple belief on the part of some professors that they were spiritual beings, the term “religious” indicated a more formalized expression of spirituality.

▶ Professors are less religious than the public. Despite the claims of religiosity, however, there still exists a gulf between the extent of religious belief among college and university professors and the general public.

Gross and Simmons said that, while “the professorial landscape” is not devoid of religion, it is also true that, “on the whole, professors are indeed less religious than other Americans.”

Moreover, the researchers found that members of college and university faculty are less likely to be religious traditionalists; more likely to view the Bible as “an ancient book of fables, legends, history, and moral precepts;” less likely to attend religious services on a regular basis; and more likely to be secularists.

▶ Most don’t think religion is important for students. So what does all this mean in practical terms? Strangely, college faculty appear also to believe that, when it comes to the lives of their students, religion is of little consequence.

The HERI study, for example, revealed that only 30% of faculty agreed with the statement that “colleges should be concerned with facilitating students’ spiritual development.” 

This squares with a separate HERI report on the spiritual lives of college students. Its 2003 student survey found that 62% of students said their professors never encouraged discussion of spiritual or religious matters.

How disheartening it is to see that, while most college and university professors claim that spirituality and even religion are important to them personally, they don’t believe the college should be facilitating such learning in the students they teach.

It gets worse. HERI also found that a majority of professors said they believe the following goals are “essential” or “very important” for students: enhancing self-understanding (60%), developing moral character (59%), and helping students develop personal values (53%).

This seems to indicate that a majority of professors think such things as self-understanding, moral character and values need no input from religion at all.

▶ Keep religion separate. That disconnect between religion and the practical matters of life – like education – may very well be a driving ideology among college professors, even among those who claim to be religious themselves.

That appeared to be the conclusion of two studies of college and university faculty conducted by the Institute for Jewish and Community Research (IJCR), an independent, non-partisan think tank. In Political Beliefs and Behavior, released last October, and Religious Beliefs and Behavior of College Faculty, published in May, the IJCR tried to gauge the political, ideological and religious views of college and university professors.

In Political Beliefs and Behavior, for example, the IJCR found similar results as other research when it came to the personal religious beliefs of professors. “While faculty are less religious than the public, they are not anti-religion, with a strong majority affirming a belief in God,” the group said.

However, the IJCR also found the same odd disconnect when it came to the public effects of religion. “Faculty do, however, advocate a strict segregation of church and state and regard with hostility those they believe inject too much religion into the public sector,” Political Beliefs and Behavior said.

In its follow-up study specifically on religion, the IJCR said: “The desire among faculty to keep religion separate from the public sphere may also spill over into a desire to keep religious activities separate from university life. Faculty may see their institutions as places where religion should be kept at bay, regardless of their own private beliefs and behaviors. While faculty may not be ‘anti-religious,’ they may very well value anti-religion as a key component of campus life.”

Thus professors appear to believe that religion can and should be compartmentalized – that is, kept private – even if it is personally quite important, either for themselves or students.

“The reputation of colleges and universities as ‘too secular’ may derive more from the way many schools deal with issues of religion and campus life than the levels of religious belief and behavior of the faculty,” according to Religious Beliefs and Behavior of College Faculty.

Making sense of bias
This might explain what is becoming very clear from anecdotal reports as well as research: that out of all religious groups, a majority of university faculty finger evangelicals as the one group they don’t like. (See AFA Journal, 8/07.) 

Why? Because perhaps more than any other group, evangelicals are perceived as being the religious folk that refuse to keep their beliefs private. Thus in Religious Beliefs and Behavior, 71% of all faculty said they believe the country “would be better off if Christian fundamentalists kept their religious beliefs out of politics.”

This dichotomy is not lost on those who published studies such as Religious Beliefs and Behavior. Following that report’s release, IJCR president Dr. Gary Tobin said in a press release: “What’s odd is that while a good number of faculty believe in a close, personal relationship with God and believe religion is essential to a child’s upbringing, many of those same people feel deeply unfavorable toward evangelicals.”

That dislike of evangelical Christianity seems to infect the entire college and university atmosphere. IJCR’s research indicated that “[t]he levels of faculty disapproval [toward evangelicals] are high enough to raise questions about the overall climate on campus.”

“How does this disapproval affect the intellectual, emotional, and social experiences of those who identify as evangelicals?” asked Religious Beliefs and Behavior. “As it was for Jews on campus two generations ago, maybe evangelical Christians do not want to talk openly about their identities and beliefs. 

“The prejudice against them stands out prominently in institutions dedicated to liberalism, tolerance and academic freedom,” the report said.

If, for the foreseeable future, a large chunk of college and university faculty remain ideologically hostile toward evangelical Christianity, parents might want to be extremely careful about where they send their kids to school.

It might mean the difference between an environment where young people can learn and grow spiritually and a place of indoctrination and intolerance.