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This article was downloaded by: [UQ Library] On: 10 November 2014, At: 18:27 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Religious Education: The official journal of the Religious Education Association Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/urea20 The Theism of Teachers in ChurchRelated Colleges R. H. Edwin Espy a a Executive Secretary of the National Council of the Y.M.C.A. Published online: 28 Jul 2006. To cite this article: R. H. Edwin Espy (1950) The Theism of Teachers in ChurchRelated Colleges, Religious Education: The official journal of the Religious Education Association, 45:5, 301-306, DOI: 10.1080/0034408500450508 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0034408500450508 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content. This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-

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This article was downloaded by: [UQ Library]On: 10 November 2014, At: 18:27Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Religious Education: The officialjournal of the Religious EducationAssociationPublication details, including instructions for authors andsubscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/urea20

The Theism of Teachers inChurch‐Related CollegesR. H. Edwin Espy aa Executive Secretary of the National Council of theY.M.C.A.Published online: 28 Jul 2006.

To cite this article: R. H. Edwin Espy (1950) The Theism of Teachers in Church‐RelatedColleges, Religious Education: The official journal of the Religious Education Association,45:5, 301-306, DOI: 10.1080/0034408500450508

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0034408500450508

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information(the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor& Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warrantieswhatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purposeof the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are theopinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed byTaylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon andshould be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor andFrancis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands,costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever causedarising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of theuse of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes.Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-

Page 2: The Theism of Teachers in Church‐Related Colleges

licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expresslyforbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

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The Theism of TeachersIN CHURCH-RELATED COLLEGES

R. H. EDWIN ESPYExecutive Secretary of the National Council of the Y.M.C.A.

HOW DO TEACHERS in the church-related colleges of the United States

conceive their role, if any, as mediators of aChristian philosophy of life? In particular,what are their views of God and what bear-ing do these views have upon other beliefsand teaching practices?

The editor of Religious Education hasrequested a description of a study recentlyconducted by the writer in an area embracingthese questions.1 He has also asked for anexcerpt from the findings. We shall out-line the method of the inquiry and present asegment of the disclosures concerning theteachers' theistic positions.

The Nature of the Study

The survey was confined to undergraduate,four-year colleges of Protestant connection.It included no teachers of religion, seekingrather a cross-section profile of the views andactivities of teachers in other subject matterfields. Depending upon the teacher, thesefields might or might not be construed ashaving a religious bearing.

To provide a sampling from the threemajor areas of the humanities, the physicalsciences and the social sciences, question-naires were distributed to teachers of English,physics, and sociology-economics. The lasttwo subjects were bracketed together as one,because many teachers in the smaller institu-tions are related to both. In the analysis ofthe replies, the teachers were regarded asrepresenting four fields, and there were sig-

1The Religion of College Teachers: A Studyof the Beliefs and Practices of Faculty Members inProtestant Church-Related Colleges. A disserta-tion submitted in candidacy for the degree of Doc-tor of Philosophy at Yale University, May, 1950.

This article is an excerpt from a forthcomingbook, The Religion of College Teachers, to be pub-lished late in 1950 by The Association Press.Available through all book stores.

nificant differences according to subjectswhich the present statement can not explore.

The study did not attempt, however, toanalyze issues concerning the relation of reli-gion to a particular subject matter per se.It examines, rather, the teacher's broad phi-losophy and practice regarding the relationof his religion to his professional responsi-bility. It deals both with his teaching, in-cluding its many attendant tasks, and withhis extracurricular relationships to studentsand to the life of the institution as a whole.

Generalizations concerning the religiousviews of college teachers are, of course, fre-quently voiced. So also are philosophical ortheological formulations of what these viewsought to be in the interest of sound Christianhigher education. It was considered that thedistinctive contribution of the present studyshould be the securing of specific first-handevidence from the expressions of the teachersthemselves. After considering a number ofplans, the method agreed upon was the cir-culation of an extensive questionnaire.

The limitations of the questionnaire ap-proach for an opinion survey were fullyfaced. By means which we need not detailhere, an effort was made to offset these limi-tations. The number and the thoroughnessof the response were such as to vindicate theplanning, and no supplementary measuresfor amplification of the answers were foundnecessary. It can not be questioned, of course,that interviews or other follow-up wouldhave been useful if they had been feasible,but the data were sufficiently clear so thatadditional insights resulting from a furtherprocess would have been chiefly in the realmof nuances.

Three objectives were paramount in thecirculation of the instrument. The first was

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302 RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

to reach a maximum number of teachers inthe four subject fields. The second was toreduce to a minimum the possibility of dis-crimination or favoritism in selecting theteachers. The third was to present thequestionnaires in a way that would create adesire to cooperate in the project.

All of these objectives were met in so faras possible by a single process, namely byenlisting the participation of the president.After selection of eighty-one colleges, on arandom sampling basis, the desideration ofmaximum coverage was achieved by discover-ing the number of teachers of the four sub-jects in each institution and requesting thepresident to distribute a questionnaire toeach teacher, This accomplished also thesecond aim of objectivity, as it eliminatedthe possibility of individual selection. It metthe third problem by providing the explicit orimplicit sponsorship of the president. Apilot study had indicated that the supportof the president would be an important stimu-lus to response.

The interest of the presidents was securedin various ways, including the announcementof the project as an official Yale study, spon-sorship by the National Protestant Councilon Higher Education and the National Coun-cil on Religion in Higher Education, lettersof support from the secretaries of theBoards of Education of most of the denomi-nations involved, and extensive personal con-tacts. Only one administration indicated itsunreadiness to cooperate, and completed ques-tionnaires were received from seventy-sevenof the eighty-one institutions.

Sixty per cent of the teachers who receivedquestionnaires filled out and returned them.Of this number, four hundred forty wereadjudged valid for inclusion in the study.They represented seventy-three colleges andtwenty-nine denominations, only one de-nomination on the original list was not in-cluded. The colleges were well distributedas to geography, size, race, coeducation, typeof accreditation and other criteria. The in-dividual teachers were well distributed as tosubjects taught, faculty status, academic de-grees, denominational affiliation, sex, andtype of undergraduate institution from which

they had graduated.The replies were summarized in extensive

one-dimensional appendices providing simplenumerical results, and in seventy-nine in-terpretive tables, showing correlations orother information. In accordance with thecharacter of the particular statistics, the testsof Chi-square and or Critical Ratio wereapplied to the most important tables. The.05 level of significance was used (P=.O5)i.e., the results obtained could have occurredby chance less than five times in one hundred.A critical ratio figure of 1.96 corresponds tothe .05 level of significance. Generally, 1.96was used as the index of significancethroughout the interpretation.

This is not to be considered, however, asprimarily a statistical study. The field ofopinion does not lend itself readily to exactstatistical formulation where the subject mat-ter is as elusive as is that of religious belief.This study is an interpretive survey whichhas used statistics in so far as they could beused responsibly. It has attempted to avoidgeneralizations and to draw only such widerinferences from the data as the evidence jus-tifies.

Views of GodIt may be of interest that the four hundred

forty teachers providing the data for the studyare divided denominationally in the follow-ing percentages:

18 Baptist, National 213 Brethren, Evan-9 gelical United 27 Evangelical and7 Reformed 26 Friends 2

Nazarene 26 No affiliation 55 All others 7

MethodistLutheranPresbyterian, U.S.A. _DisciplesProtestant Episcopal-Baptist, SouthernCongregational-

ChristianBaptist, NorthernPresbyterian, U.S.Reformed 3 Total 100

In the main, the number of individualteachers of a particular denomination cor-responds broadly to the total number ofteachers from the colleges of that denomina-tion. The only significant exception is theEpiscopalians, the number of Episcopalteachers being double the total number ofteachers from Episcopal institutions. Thedistribution of teachers to institutions oftheir own denominations also shows a gen-

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THEISM OF TEACHERS 303

erally uniform trend, fifty-six per cent ofthe teachers serving in institutions of the sameaffiliation as their own. The only groupsdiverging significantly from this norm arethe Presbyterians, U.S.A., (CR=2.57; P =.01) whose teachers are widely spread amongschools of all denominations; and the Re-formed (CR=2.10; P=.O4) and Lutherans(CR=1.96; P=.O5), who diverge from thenorm in the opposition direction.

Ninety-four per cent of the teachers, in-cluding seventy per cent of those who indi-cate no church affiliation, regard themselvesas Christians, "interpreting the meaning ofChristian in their own terms," while onlytwo per cent do not so regard themselves.The remainder are uncertain or do notanswer. There are many correlations andmany striking absences of correlation be-tween particular church affiliations andanswers to numerous questions. These cannot be examined here.

The theistic views of the teachers are re-flected in the following table. The letters atthe left of the proffered definitions indicatethe order in which they appeared on thequestionnaire.

CHOICES OF DEFINITIONS OF GODNo. of % of

Teachersh. God is the Father of our Lord

Jesus Christ, and of all mankind:Maker of heaven and earth; untowhom all hearts are open, all de-sires known; and from whom nosecrets are hid; whom to know isperfect peace. 216 49

g. God is a sovereign, righteous Be-ing, Creator of the universe andof natural laws, who through hislaws rules the universe. In aspecial sense man is his creature,and Jesus is the supreme exampleof how man may know and serveGod aright. The protection andfavor of God can be supplicatedthrough worship and prayer. 96 22

d. God is the Power making for in-crease of meaning and value. 42 10

f. God is the omnipotent Creator ofthe universe and of natural laws,and rules the universe throughthese laws. It is possible that hemay be accessible to man andmay be subject to man's suppli-cations. 28 6

b. God is a projection. of humanideals and desires. : 18 4

e. God is Absolute Mind. 8 2

c. God is another name for naturallaw 6 1

a. I do not believe in God at all. 3 1i. Other more adequate view (spe-

cified) 15 3Uncertain or unspecified 8 2

Totals 440 100

The heavy concentration of 71 per centon the first two formulations reflects a generalconformity to the prevailing Christian con-cepts of divinity. While both are clearlywithin the Christian tradition, the "h" groupmay be considered the more "orthodox" be-cause of its pronounced Christocentric posi-tion, couched broadly in the terms of theApostles' Creed. The second definitionprobably was selected by the more "liberal,"but still traditional, Christians, whose Chris-tology is either less exacting or less conven-tional. It corresponds broadly to the Pelagianposition.

The "d" definition of God as the Powermaking for the increase of meaning andvalue may be variously catalogued, but thecomments of a number of the respondeeschecking this option would suggest that theyare theistic naturalists. One of them men-tions Henry Nelson Wieman by name. Theposition of "f", describing God as omnipo-tent Creator, with elaborations, may bebroadly termed as deistic. There may beroom for argument as to whether this shouldbe regarded as within the Christian tradition.

We observe the small number who takepsychological projection view (b), and thesmall number of out-and-out naturalists, (c),absolute idealists, (e), and atheists, (a) . The3 per cent whom we have classed as "Other"embrace those who made comments butwhose statements can not be classifield. Pre-vailingly they adopt various rationalist posi-tions which would not qualify within any ofthe definitions provided, but which we maybroadly term "philosophical." The 2 percent whom we call "uncertain or unspeci-fied" include those who indicate that theydo not know what their views are, or whoprefer not to state them.

It should be stated that 11 per cent withinthe "h" category, 1 per cent in the "g" cate-gory, and 1 per cent in the "d" categoryrepresent persons who did not simply check

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the indicated captions but either combinedtwo or more or furnished new or modifieddefinitions. That this was done in so manycases results from the fact that many of thestated formulations are not mutually exclu-sive. The largest number of mergers were"g" and "h," in which cases the answer hasbeen counted as "h," representing the morespecific and hence the more distinguishingof the two positions. The majority of theteachers making their own comments pro-pose further precision, not subtraction oremasculation, of the various definitions of-fered.

Theistic Concepts In Relation toOther Beliefs

Adopting a broad classification, consistentwith the teachers' own conception of them-selves as Christians, we may consider at leastthe first four categories, totalling 87 percent, as within the orbit of Christian theism.It is interesting that this is somewhat lessthan the 94 per cent who, as we have seen,regard themselves as Christians. We foundelsewhere in the study that not only thegroup representing this discrepancy, but thegreat majority of the teachers, consider othercriteria as more important than theistic orrelated intellectual concepts in determiningwhether a man is a Christian. (Thus, 73per cent of them largely agree, and only 10per cent definitely disagree, with the state-ment that "what makes a man a Christian isneither his intellectual acceptance of certainideas nor his conformity to a certain rule,but his possession of a certain spirit and hisparticipation in a certain life.")2

Also, it is apparent that lack of church af-filiation does not mean atheism. Among the5 per cent who are not members of churches,only two teachers do not believe in God. Oneof the three professed atheists is a memberof a church, while another who is not a mem-ber of a church regards himself as a Christian.

The views of God correspond in a strikingdegree to denominational affiliations. Notingfrom the answers certain broad trends ac-cording to church groupings, we found the

2J. H. Oldham, from a quotation in the Metho-dist Student Bulletin, January, 1949. p. 8.

Southern Baptists, the various Lutherangroups, the Presbyterians U.S., the Reformedand the smaller Evangelical denominationsto be prevailingly conservative in theirtheism, while the Congregational-Christians,Methodists, Episcopalians, Negro groups andteachers of no affiliation were prevailinglyliberal. In between were the Northern Bap-tists, Disciples, Friends and PresbyteriansU.S.A. We grouped the teachers in thesethree sets of denominations, and groupedthe "b," "c," "a," "i," and "uncertain or un-specified" views of God into a single categorywhich we shall call "other" or "philosophical."This provided marginal totals under eachgrouping sufficiently large to be statisticallymeaningful. On a Chi-square test of thesecombinations, we found the deviations ac-cording to the indicated denominationalgroupings to be highly significant. (X2=53--22; P=.0001).

The study reveals great variation in theextent to which theistic conceptions have abearing on other concepts and practices. Letus see the teachers' views on some importantreligious beliefs, and then compare themwith their views of God. The followingtable presents the distribution of answers toa number of indicative questions.

THE TEACHERS' VIEWS ON CERTAINRELIGIOUS QUESTIONS

(The identifying numerical captions referto the Questionnaire, Part D)

% % %Un-Yes No certain,

Qualifiedor noAnswer

9a. Do you consider the Bibleto be religiously authori-ative? 69 14 17

10a. Do you regard churchmembership to be a neces-sary part of the Christianlife? 54 36 10

lla. Do you regard prayer asnecessary to the Christianlife? 77 13 10

12a. Do you derive your con-cept, whatever it may be,of the worthfulness of hu-man life and the brother-hood of man from yourview of God? 75 10 15

13a. Do you agree largely withthe following statement:"Man is fundamentallygood and his inherent

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THEISM OF TEACHERS 305

goodness is indicated inhis increasing capacity, byusing his intelligence, tosolve the problems thatconfront him"? 42 35 23

13e. Do you believe that allmen stand in need of di-vine salvation throughChrist, in whatever wayyou understand this con-cept? 72 14 14

We note the wide spread of these ques-tions. They embrace the character of scrip-tural authority, the conception of the distinc-tive Christian community, the importance ofcommunion with the divine, the understand-ing of the nature of man as a creature of God,the issue of man's goodness or depravity, andthe problem of salvation. Taken togetherwith the view of God, we have in these dataa good general index to the teachers' religiousbeliefs. With two exceptions which we shallpresently note, these replies confirm the im-pression of broad conformity to tradition inthe area of concepts.

Analysis of the answers of individualteachers discloses a close correlation betweenview of God and other strictly religious con-cepts. The proportion of negative repliescorresponds to the degree of nonconformityin the view of God. Thus the persons whocheck the "h" view of God average only 4per cent in their negative answers to thequestions above except 10a and 13a, thosewith the "g" view show 5 per cent for thesame questions, those with the "b" view show13 per cent, those with the "d" view show 32per cent, and those in the "philosophcial"categories average 44 per cent.

The two exceptions to which we havereferred concern Questions 10a on churchmembership and 13a on the nature of man.On the former the differences of Christiantheology are so great that the disagreementamong our teachers may be taken as a fairreflection of the disagreement among theo-logians. The ministers of the churches towhich the teachers belong probably representthe same diversity of opinion.

However, the views concerning churchmembership again correspond broadly tothe views of God. In view of the wide spliton this question between "yes" and "no"answers, we examined them all, and found

highly significant correlations. The teachersholding the "d" view and the "philosophical"view of God deviate to an important degreetoward negative answers on the necessity ofchurch membership, the teachers of the "f"and "g" views conform closely to the averagefor all teachers, and the teachers of the "h"view deviate significantly toward positiveanswers. These divergences are reflected inthe following critical ratios, omitting the "a"view because of its small marginal total:

CRP

"D"View

-4.79.000001

"F"View

_

"G" "H" "View View

- +4.05.00003

'Philosophical"Views

+4.59.000002

The question regarding the goodness ofman calls for special analysis. The quota-tion cited is taken from Arnold S. Nash'scritique of what he characterizes as the pre-vailing "liberalism" of contemporary uni-versity thought.3 He considers this mentaloutlook to be in part a child of the purelyscientific approach to truth, glorifying thepowers of the intellect, and in part a Christianheresy, denying the true character of man asboth good and evil.

We desired to discover whether this ap-praisal is valid for faculty members in church-related colleges. The fact that most of theteachers are fairly evenly divided on thisquestion, and that 23 per cent are too un-certain to return a definite answer, is a clearintimation that the group we are studyingdepart from the pattern Nash has described.This is not a commentary on Nash's appraisalof the mental outlook, or "dogma," as hecalls it, of the university world as a whole,as we do not possess the evidence to make anevaluation of the total situation. But in anymeasure that he is correct, the faculties ofchurch-related colleges would appear to pre-sent a departure from the norm of relievedoptimism.

Not only do a large proportion of theteachers disavow the "liberal" definition ofman, but 183 of them, representing 83 percent of the respondees who do not accept theview, provide their own modifications of or

"Arnold S. Nash, the University and the Mod-ern World, New York: The Macmillan Company,1944, p. 30.

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substitutions for the proffered statement.None of the teachers repudiate intelligence,but all of them who mention it feel that italone is inadequate. Beyond the strictlytheological issues, 12 per cent of the teacherspoint out that if man is solving his problemsby intelligence, he is doing a very poor jobof it.

The patterns of teacher response on thisissue show no significant correlation betweendoctrine of man (if so formal a term maybe applied) and view of God (CR=.86).Thus, of the 216 teachers with the most or-thodox theistic view, 41 per cent agree withthe statement, while 40 per cent disagree.The "g" group, whom we have broadly classedas Pelagian, show 46 per cent agreeing and33 per cent disagreeing. The "f" group are39 per cent for, 25 per cent against, with the"d" group dividing 36 per cent and 33 percent. The three atheists are split at two forand one against, while the teachers in othercategories divide 43 per cent for and 31 percent against. Part of the reason for the widediversity of view and for an apparent lackof correspondence between view of man andview of God is undoubtedly that so manyother factors than theistic concepts enter intothis question. It tends to suggest what isfurther documented elsewhere in the study —that the farther one gets from areas which theteachers consider to be religious, the less arethey influenced by their particular view ofGod.

This last, indeed, is one of the strikingfindings of this inquiry. Comparisons oftheistic concepts with other concepts andpractices on thirty-one questions frequentlydisclose a deep-lying dichotomy betweenreligious beliefs and beliefs in other areas.Applied especially to issues having a bear-ing on the teacher's life work, the bifurcation

obtains in relation to his own views andpractices of religious nurture, his philosophyof education, his conception of his subjectmatter from the perspective of an inclusiveWeltanschauung, his approach to social is-sues, his classroom teaching practices, hisparticipation in student life and his relationto the life of the college. It is also notablethat on many questions the teachers are re-luctant to disclose to their students such in-tegration on these areas as they have achieved.

A large portion of the study is devoted toan analysis of these comparisons, and of thebackground and training factors which ap-pear to account for the teacher's religiousbeliefs and practices in their particular bear-ing upon his vocation as a teacher. It is notthe object of the inquiry to offer solutions,but to gather and interpret facts in a waythat may help clarify some of the issues towhich leaders in Christian higher educationmust address themselves. The foregoingexcerpts are a sample of these facts.

The main residual questions are these:granted on the basis of the evidence thatthere is at present no assured carry-over fromparticular theistic concepts to particularconcepts and practices as teachers, what is thedesirable integration, if any, between a col-lege teacher's Christian philosophy and hiseducational philosophy? what are the meansto help develop such integration as may bedesirable? and to what extent should theteacher reflect this integration in his profes-sional work?

These are questions which the progressivepolicy-makers in Christian higher educationand a growing number of teachers recognizeas basic. The data in the present study areoffered in the hope that they may help thediscussion of the issues to be based on theactualities of the teachers' thinking.

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