Harvard Protestants Lose Faith Under Rational Impact of College

For 323 years, Protestantism has supposedly been the traditional religion of Harvard. The only church in the Yard was consecrated in the Protestant tradition, and until recent years any course on religion taught in the College emphasized Protestant Christianity. Yet the religious attitude at Harvard actually seems detrimental to Protestantism, since over 26 per cent of the students born in this religion have since rejected it.

What is the cause of this phenomenon, especially marked along the "middle-of-the-road" Protestants, such as Methodists, Congregationalists, Baptists, or Presbyterians? For in this group nearly 40 per cent of the students covered by the CRIMSON poll apostasized. Raised in the Protestant tradition, they have since denied their former affiliation; some even deny the existence of God.

To a very large degree, each Protestant Harvard student develops his own personal religion. He may accept many of his denomination's teachings, but chances are that he will temper this belief with "important reservations." Three out of every five Protestants in the poll who maintain their affiliation take religious teachings with several grains of salt.

One Harvard Square minister characterized student belief as "a general drift of thinking in all, but including a great deal of individual variation." Certainly most Protestants do not exhibit orthodoxy in their religious thinking--they are not afraid to question their beliefs and to abandon many that seem untenable in the face of the rationalism and intellectualism of the College community.

Liberality in doctrinal interpretation is well illustrated by the canon of immortality Nearly every one of the 68 Protestant denominations in this country preaches external existence, but only 31.5 per cent of the Harvard Protestants accept this doctrine. On the other hand, nearly 75 per cent of the Harvard Catholics polled living in the same pragmatic, rational atmosphere retain their belief in immortality.

One doctrine questioned extensively by Harvard Protestants in the necessity of faith. "After a few years at Harvard," one student wrote in a poll conducted at a Sunday evening fellowship, "faith becomes irrelevant." Faith, however, is one of the most necessary components of Protestant belief, for, as Santayana points out, faith alone justifies religion. Only a Protestant with strong religious beliefs can usually continue to hold the ideas inculcated in Sunday School, especially in the skeptical Harvard community.

No one can say that four years at college fails to stimulate thought on the Big Questions--after-life, the meaning of existence, man's role in the universe. The College, however, does not attempt to answer these Questions; teachers, in Raphael Demos's phrase, may lead students into the wood and leave them to find their own way out. Classroom discussion and reading, plus contact with other faiths, definitely bolster religious questioning. For many Protestants, the result may be temporary agnosticism, but for others it may bring renewed understanding built on a previously existing basis of faith.

Harvard's main effect upon Protestantism and individual Protestants seems to be one of "reshaping." Less than one-third of the Protestants questioned by the CRIMSON poll felt themselves in "substantial" agreement with the tenets of their faith; the others continued in their religious tradition only with reservations or else rejected it completely.

This reshaping may take many different forms. One of the most common is the emphasis upon the irrational, elemental parts of Protestant worship as parts of group psychology. Many Harvard Square ministers call this the "Soc. Rel." approach to religion--students will become interested in Protestantism as an illustration of father images, sublimation, or mass delusion. One can question, however, whether such a study of religion ever explains satisfactorily the continuance of religion in a rational community.

Another common alteration of traditional Protestant belief also results from the intellectual atmosphere of the College. This approach to Protestantism steps lightly over the rational incongruities of many doctrines and concentrates instead of upon their "symbolic" aspects. Modelled upon Tillich's conception of Christian myth and symbol, this approach views Protestant theology as a convenient device to teach moral lessons. Such intellectual Protestants, certainly the majority at Harvard, reject transubstantiation, physical resurrection, or even the divinity of Christ, concntrating instead upon the symbolic significance of these beliefs. Intellectualism, however, leaves out the element of faith, a thread inextricably woven in the fabric of Protestantism.

Reshaping of religious beliefs at Harvard usually follows the second approach, the path of intellectualism. Even though many Protestant doctrines cannot be justified rationally, students still make the effort to square irrational dogma with a pragmatic Harvard education.

Religious questioning actually leads, as many ministers point out, to a type of humanism--Christian sentiment not necessarily entailing belief in God or organized religion. This feeling, most evident among those who attend church infrequently, results from the leaven of the pragmatic, liberal Harvard education intensifying pre-existent doubts. Doubting, for 55 per cent of Harvard Protestants, started in secondary school. Under the influence of the College atmosphere doubting grows into agnosticism or into humanism. "I personally feel this humanism is much better than drabby churchiosity," a very prominent minister commented.

Attendance at Sunday morning services does not accurately indicate the extent of religious interest among Harvard Protestants. Only 29 per cent of them attend church weekly, and a mere 20 per cent deemed "active connection" with a denomination essential to religious life. "One can be religious without organized religion," according to one minister.

The "religious revival" that has attracted so much national attention thus does not represent an upsurge of religious feeling in the traditional sense--i.e. increased church attendance, greater number of baptisms, or greater religious fervor. The current change in feeling actually represents a renewal of interest in religion. This heightened interest is reflected more in campus discussion than in church attendance figures--although more students than ever before have attended Memorial Church in the last five years.

Student interest in Protestantism has taken two divergent paths, one of lessened concern, another of increased concern. The "organizational" aspect of Protestantism has suffered greatly under the surge of religious renewal. Students simply have little interest in the "speaker-games-refreshments" routine of many Sunday evening groups, scoring such undertakings as "trivial," "mundane," "unworthy of a religious person's interest." Slightly over six per cent of the Protestants covered by the CRIMSON poll participated regularly in fellowship activities.

But if interest in the organizational part has fallen, renewed and expanded discussion of theological questions has more than made up the deficit. Harvard Protestants have great epistemological concern, and do not hesitate to fire searching inquiries at their ministers--or at themselves.

The "Protestant tradition" which received so much emphasis in last year's religious discussions actually seems to be fast disappearing at Harvard--if it exists now at all. A Harvard education is more destructive to Protestantism than to Catholicism or Judaism. While only 21 per cent of the Catholics and 25 per cent of the Jews in the survey apostasized, fully 40 per cent of the middle-ground Protestants dropped their denominational affiliation.

Memorial Church, dedicated to Protestantism, represents only a small fraction of Protestant religious thought. Its Unitarian-style service lacks many traditional sections, such as the General Confessional or the Gloria Patri. Its high-quality intellectual sermons are often not designed to inspire irrational faith, but to direct rational inquiry.

Harvard has also lost much of its Protestant heritage through the more enlightened and enlarged admissions policy of recent decades. No longer a training ground for the Congregational ministry, Harvard has discarded its pro-New England bias. One hundred years ago the largest single religious group was Unitarian; today the largest segment is Jewish.

To a very large extent, however, the rejection of Protestantism may mark a part of individual maturation. Many students, not currently affiliated with any Protestant denomination, said they would rejoin after marriage. A full 95 per cent of the Protestants polled also indicated they would raise their children in their own religious tradition. Thus under the impact of college-age skepticism, many2