Creating Discursive Space for Religion and Spirituality in Universities: A Review Essay

Abstract

students find purpose: The campus guide to meaning-making. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. ISBN 978-0-470-40814-8, 320 pages. C. John Sommerville. (2009). Religious ideas for secular universities. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. ISBN 978-0-8026-6442-0, 189 pages.The secularization of higher education has created a complicated context for discourse about religion and spirituality in most public and some private universities (Marsden, 1994;Taylor, 2007). Yet the growing orientation toward spirituality and faith among undergraduates calls for a renewed openness to matters of beliefs and values in college classrooms, a topic these three books address, providing insights into why it is important to create open discursive space for dialogue about values in higher education and ways institutions are moving toward this aim. We review these three new contributions and reflect on some of the issues they raise. John Sommerville's new book, Religious Ideas for Secular Universities, provides a framework for understanding the complexities of discussing faith in this new age of globalization. Sommerville is an emeritus professor of history at the University of Florida who is still engaged in the discourse on faith in higher education. This book combines insights from his recent books with other topics about which he has lectured and written.The four chapters in part 1 consider why secularization has become a problem in relation to the emergence of the corporate university in the global period. Sommerville is at his most