Lutherology 10: Luther Losing it’s religion?

Flashback to the day you visited Luther College for the first time. Remember having to wake up at 5:30 a.m. for morning bell so you could make it to mandatory chapel by 6:00 a.m. and again at 8:30 p.m.? You don’t remember? Well if you enrolled at Luther in its early years, that would be the norm. However, after over 150 years of operation, Luther College has become significantly more secular.

Welcome to Lutherology, where we analyze Luther College using the sociological imagination and bring some data to bear on important questions about our community. Secularization at Luther is part of a larger societal trend: modernization. Modernization describes the evolution of small, traditional, homogeneous, tight-knit communities to large, diverse, complex, industrial, loosely-connected societies. The secularization thesis states that as societies “progress,” religion becomes less prominent in daily life, replaced with increased value placed on rational skepticism and individual choice.

Analysis of the Luther College mission statements over time clearly illustrates the above process of secularization. The founding mission statement (1861) affirms the “chief aim” of the college as providing “a liberal and thorough education for young men who intend later to enter the ministry.” Sixty years later (1924), the college’s mission statement welcomes those who are not preparing for ministry, but clearly professes Christian faith as the foundation of all knowledge by asserting that the “fear of the the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” and “mental training without Christian faith and love [possesses] but a doubtful value.”

A significant shift toward secularism is evident in the late 1980s mission statement, which places “God’s truth in dialogue with the human quest for truth.” Today the mission statement declares that “Luther College affirms the liberating power of faith and learning,” placing faith and education as apparent equals.

The secularization of Luther College can be found in every part of the college:

* Chapel and devotions are no longer mandatory.

* Students study a wide variety of mostly secular disciplines, and most do not plan to enter the ministry.

* Paideia II no longer requires addressing “the Christian tradition” (or having a religion professor).

* The college president is not required to be a Lutheran pastor.

* 1/2 the student body is not Lutheran.

* Being Lutheran is no longer a requirement of the faculty, and many faculty are not even religious.

* Luther celebrates “diversity” and “people of all backgrounds,” illustrating the modern value of tolerance over the traditional desire for homogeneity.

Even the expectations of religion classes have changed since Luther’s founding.

Students are taught to read the Bible critically, with the same academic mind as they read any other ancient manuscript. This style of rationalization, using logic and reason instead of intuition or tradition, is a staple of all academic investigation. But this “rational” approach is relatively new to the “Bible” courses.

For the first 100 years of Luther College, religious courses examined the Bible from a believer’s perspective. It wasn’t until Robert Jenson began teaching in 1955 that things began to change. Jensen’s critical-historical perspective to teaching the Bible created conflict with his colleagues, especially Gerhard Belgum, who believed that “Jenson was insensitive to how tender and fragile faith is in the minds of the ordinary, run-of-the-mill students.”

In 1961, when the Dean refused to fire Jenson, most of the Religion and Biology professors at Luther resigned in protest, opening the door to more “modern” professors.

During that same year, professors voted to lift the ban on social dancing (previously banned for being an “invitation to sin”). Lifting this ban illustrated a shift in thinking about responsibility on campus from a group-oriented accountability to each individual being responsible for their own actions: evidence of the rise of individualism, which is another aspect of modernization.

Secularization at Luther should not be overstated, though. Many Christian values are still celebrated on campus: daily Chapel time, College Ministries as head of campus clubs, Luther’s description as a “college of the church” in its current mission statement, devotionals before faculty meetings, worship services at convocation and graduation. Nearly 1/2 of all students still identify as “Lutheran.”

But what will be the place of religion at Luther in 2061? In the early 1900s, the pre-eminent sociologist Max Weber saw the “rationalization of society” as an unstoppable force that inevitably led to “disenchantment of the world,” where supernatural occurrences are explained away by observable and predictable causes.

On the other hand, sociologist George Ritzer argues that our society’s move toward secularization could be cyclical, in that it might create a counter-movement of people interested in “re-enchanting the world.” This could be manifested in increased interest in religion or spiritually-infused notions of the natural world.

Luther, like all institutions, is evolving. As the sesquicentennial approaches, it is important to look back on our history to understand how it is shaping our future. Whether the year 2061 ushers in a new wave of secularism or revitalized religiosity is impossible to predict. However, as the evidence has shown, Luther’s path will likely be in step with the larger society.