Divinity Students Attack Official Religious Policy

Officers of the Divinity School Student Association last night charged that the University's religious policies will cause a loss of the scholarship for which the school has been noted in the past.

John M. Coffee, Jr. 4Dv., editor of the Association's official publication, the "Scribe," deplored the University's substitution of theology for the traditional historical approach of the Divinity School and the recent religious discussions at Phillips Brooks House.

Coffee charged that replacing historical studies with an emphasis on theology will undermine the school's scholarly reputation.

His statements are in direct contrast with stated University policy and the John Lord O'Brian report on the Divinity School made several years ago. The latter said, "The tendency to stress the historical rather than the constructive aspects of theology is in itself a symptom of theological decline."

Drop Church History 4

A new school of thought which "denies to man the ability to work out his own destiny" is, according to Coffee, gradually taking over the Divinity School. This process, he says, is indicated by the dropping of Church History 4 from the school's curriculum, and by the addition to the faculty of "brilliant minds who devote their brilliance to the resuscitation of the 13th century, and to the attacking of Positivism and everything it stands for."

Defending the ideas and ideals of the 19th century and Positivism against this onslaught, Coffee voiced fears that the University's aim to make the Divinity School and active leader of organized Protestant religion is not worth the "loss of America's last stronghold of historical religious scholarship."

"One of the things which has disturbed the editors of this periodical most," according to Coffee, "has been the increasing ease with which so many moulders of University opinion have deprecated the 19th century." President Pusey last year at a Divinity School address criticized former President Eliot's 19th century views on religion.

Coffee feared that the "neo-Thomism" of several of the new professors would help drive out historical scholarship.

Many Divinity students, according to Coffee, fear that the elimination of Church History 4, "once the very center of academic life," from the curriculum, will leave the Divinity student unprepared for his general examinations.

Referring to efforts last week to bring organized religious groups into Phillips Brooks House, Divinity students said "There is more religion in PBH right now than can be found in all the religious organizations.