The University Gets Religion: Religious Studies in American Higher Education

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The University Gets Religion: Religious Studies in American Higher Education. By D.G. Hart. Baltimore, Md.: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999. 321 pp. $38.00 cloth.

This can be a puzzling book. Hart argues that religion, as a subject of study with its own department, may not belong in modern research universities. When he concludes that the exclusion of religious studies courses from university curricula might be a good thing, he might at first be interpreted as hostile to religion. He is not. In fact, he is a Reformed (Calvinist) evangelical, but not the kind who wants to see religion pervade as many aspects of American culture as possible. Rather, much like the subject …