The decades-long decline of single-sex higher education In 1960, a college-bound female eager to attend a single-sex school enjoyed a selection of 200 all-women’s colleges from which to choose. Fifty years later, the same applicant would find only 60 such schools, even as the number of colleges in America has grown exponentially. The decline in … Read more
The struggle over curricular reform, at Harvard and beyond What is the purpose of a college education? Over the past decade, Harvard and other American colleges have grappled with various curricular reforms, which at their core which reflect different answers to this question. The humanities, thought to be impractical for professional careers and incompatible with … Read more
Failure to pass the DREAM Act highlights partisan gridlock In the polarized world of American politics, bipartisan support is hard to come by. So when the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act came to the Senate floor in mid-September, one might have expected the bill to pass overwhelmingly. After all, the measure … Read more
Young evangelicals shift left, change focus. “I’m a Christian, a conservative, and a Republican, in that order.” With this declaration, Congressman Mike Pence (R-IN) summed up the philosophy with which white evangelical Christians have long identified. Yet the ordering has sometimes seemed the reverse of Pence’s. Since 1980, born-again Christians have been among the Republican … Read more
American faith-based organizations and the politics of belief In February, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) awarded some $50 million in funds for disaster relief and long-term rebuilding efforts following the earthquake in Haiti. Although the grants themselves were uncontroversial, their recipients were less so. Eschewing the private sector, USAID chose to distribute … Read more
Muslims in America remain separated by race. Islam is the fourth-largest religion in the United States, and one of the fastest-growing. It also has a complicated history in this country. Although the number of American Muslims has increased substantially over the past few decades, the faith is divided along racial lines. The tension between African-American … Read more
Compromise, innovation, and tradition define American religion. One might assume that the divide in American Christianity is simply between liberal and conservative theologies. But such a framework would be misleading. As Christians consider social services and sexual purity, universal salvation and individual redemption, they are often forced to straddle theological and political divides. Religious pluralism … Read more
Future looks bright for those “Good Without God.” According to the American Religious Identification Survey, the percentage of Americans affiliating with no religion has climbed from 8% in 1990, to 15% to 2008. In part, this growth is no doubt due to increased organizational efforts among the religiously unaffiliated. Although factions like atheists, agnostics, and … Read more
America has long had a complex, almost schizophrenic attitude towards religion. As the popular narrative goes, the country was founded by those fleeing religious persecution in England, who sought to establish their own society free from the tyranny of state-imposed faith. But the actual history is more complex. For every Pennsylvania, where different faiths flourished … Read more
A New Heyday for American Secularism On April 10, 2009, the Harvard Secular Society took over Harvard’s Memorial Church to present Joss Whedon, the TV producer and director, with the Outstanding Lifetime Achievement Award in Cultural Humanism. Whedon began his acceptance speech by reminding his audience of “nonbelievers” that President Obama had given them “a … Read more