The separation of reason from emotion and from action that generally characterizes institutions of higher learning reflects the lingering dualistic epistemology of the Enlightenment that presumes knowledge to be gained best by objectifying the world, viewing it as an externality, instead of attempting to appropriate it subjectively (or internally) through the counsels of feeling or through wisdom gained from direct action. While there have been significant philosophical challenges in the 20th century to this perspective, it certainly prevails in secular and church-related colleges and universities alike. Passion, trust, conviction, faith, and devotion are all subordinated to dispassionate statements about the facts or truths of a world viewed from outside. It is little wonder, then, that some have argued that scholarly approaches to religion contribute in subtle ways to the larger processes of secularization.

A second but related reason for believing that higher education is at odds with the sacred derives from the tension between what might be called creation, on the one hand, and discovery, on the other hand. Creation implies invention, novelty, the development of something new that in a deep sense reflects the talents and insights of the creator. Discovery, in contrast, implies paying close attention to the external world, grasping it as a given reality, so that what is new is only a description of what has always been there. Western religion has always distinguished the two by attributing creation to a divine being who is the author or originator of all reality, whereas discovery is more likely to be described as a human activity, such as learning to understand better the nature of created reality or gaining insight into the darker recesses of one's own nature.

Valuing discovery or invention?

At the dawn of the scientific revolution the work of scientists was well described as an act of discovery. Natural laws inscribed in the world by its creator were there for the finding, just as new continents had been there a century earlier for the explorers. Academic work was in fact likened to reading a text -- in one case the text might still be the written Bible; in other cases it was the word of God written in nature. Reportage of academic discoveries was thus largely a matter of communicating knowledge of a sacred realm that was already in place. This congruity between academic work and the sacred served well to legitimate the religious sponsorship of higher learning in church-related academies and the close connections that were drawn between moral philosophy and natural philosophy in secular institutions.

The present understanding of academic work, however, has shifted decidedly away from discovery toward creation itself. Artistic expression, in which a product is created that reflects the moods and interests of the artist, is perhaps the clearest model of this understanding. Increasingly, science imitates art in this respect, as measuring devices are known to alter the very realities they seek to measure, and as theoretical inventions are understood to alter the very possibilities of perceiving reality. The most highly valued academic work, therefore, is the creative process by which new ideas, new theories, or even new ways of expressing ideas are invented; by comparison, discovery is increasingly relegated to the realm of empiricism, fact-mongering, and technical specialization.

The limitation that this conception of academic work presents for the discussion of religion is that God remains fundamentally an entity to be discovered rather than one to be invented. Scriptural exegesis becomes a process of discovering insights within a closely circumscribed field of textual meanings and applying these insights to changing circumstances. Going beyond discovery to create an entirely new conception of God is, however, to move beyond the pale of most confessional traditions. The resultant strain between these two modes of understanding reveals itself, therefore, either as heterodoxy confronting orthodoxy or as more highly valued creative expressions confronting the less highly valued processes of textual interpretation.

The main consequence of these two limitations -- depersonalized reason and the devaluation of discovery -- for the public expression of religion through academic organizations is that academicians tend to talk about religion in ways that are seldom valued highly within their institutions themselves, while the most creative contributions to spirituality come largely from outside these institutions. What a typical layperson might read in the newspapers would thus be a report of an academic study of the religious beliefs of the American population, but this reader would not expect to learn that a fundamental new theory of God had been produced or that the authors of such a report had won a Nobel Prize for their efforts. Nor would this reader be likely to rely on such a report for guidance in his or her own attempts to seek God. Higher credence would be given to a playwright who wrote from the deep anguish of having been imprisoned by a totalitarian government, a recovering alcoholic who had struggled with the depths of personal pain, or in the rare instance an academic marginal to any specific department or discipline who wrote from personal reflection more than from systematic empirical inquiry.

Separating knowledge and moral discourse

Part of the reason why public discourse about the sacred would be shaped more deeply by nonacademics than by academics is that higher learning has erected a boundary not only between reason and emotion but also between knowledge and moral discourse. The public pronouncements of academicians are more likely to take the form of descriptive statements than that of normative prescriptions, in part because of the way in which the role of the academy has come to be understood in modern societies. This role involves a deliberate retreat from active engagement in public life to protect the purity of scholarship itself. It also grants ultimate authority for the manipulation of social structures to government organizations, taking only a detached advisory role in policy-making. The fact that government in democratic societies generally refrains from intruding on the private decisions of individuals, however, leaves a large realm untutored either by government or by the academy. This realm, often described as personal morality, has always been subject to the pronouncements of religious institutions, either at the level of congregations or hierarchies. When these organizations functioned with cultural authority and higher education consisted mainly of church-related organizations, a natural division of labor existed that allowed the academies to focus (in the best circumstances) on moral philosophy rather than on concrete moral prescriptions. With the erosion of the churches' authority over the lives of many people in modern societies, however, a gap has been created in moral discourse that seems to be filled by common sense, ad hoc and situational reasoning, television, and other purveyors of moral fiction more than by institutions of higher learning.

Instead of simply attributing this failure on the part of academicians to address moral issues to a lack of nerve or shortsightedness of vision, however, we must try to understand it in terms of the kind of authority modern culture confers on academicians. Their authority as culture producers inheres mainly in the special advantages assumed to derive from specialized, critical reflection. The point of academic institutions is, after all, to provide opportunities for such reflection, and the fact that resources flow to these institutions both reinforces and attests to the legitimacy such reflection has acquired. Scholars interested in religious and moral questions are thus most likely to be given credence for analytic and critical studies. Taking their cue from the natural sciences, they may try to understand how the sacred functions -- why it works or does not work -- but in analyzing the divine in this way, they are more likely to recognize that they are examining human assumptions about God instead of observing God directly. Their authority as dispassionate scholars is also likely to encourage critical orientations rather than the sort of celebrations of the divine one might expect from a liturgist or a poet.

Scholars' views of nature also suggest another limitation on the kind of authoritative knowledge they may be able to produce about the sacred. These views are heavily oriented toward technical mastery and manipulation. The rationale for much of the funding that goes toward applied research, and even for basic science, is that the knowledge gained will help us better control the physical environment. The prospect of government's being able to engage in social engineering has encouraged a similar technical orientation in the social sciences, and even in the humanities much of what passes for historical studies and literary criticism has a manipulative orientation either in the sense of better mastering the future by knowing the past or in discovering the techniques by which meaning can be created and deciphered in literature. At one time, of course, the shamans who preceded modern academicians concerned themselves largely with the technical manipulation of the gods, but in modern societies this technical orientation is largely in disrepute. Scholars may legitimately concern themselves with manipulating nature but not God. That function has thus been given over to the various television preachers, prayer warriors, and mediums who claim specialized talents in influencing the divine.

Symbolizing the navel of the world

One other limitation of the academy deserving mention is that the secular knowledge it produces is often shrouded in such sacred conceptions that this knowledge -- as well as its pursuit -- takes the place of religious conviction. Anyone familiar with the capital fund-raising drives and alumni relations of colleges and universities will immediately grasp this point. Institutions of higher learning symbolize a sacred space -- the navel of the world -- where truth is closer, where the mundane concerns of business and family can be bracketed from view, where athletic prowess and physical beauty are at their peak, and where the youthfulness even of aging professors and alumni can safely be preserved. If the pursuit of knowledge is in some way a sacred quest, it is all the more so because of the special places (we call them "hallowed halls") in which learning takes place. Religious congregations have an advantage over these institutions insofar as they are able to lay down the foundation values learned in early childhood, but higher education enjoys an enormous competitive advantage over congregations in being able to capture the full attention of young people just when they are questioning their childhood values and adopting the ideas they will carry into adulthood. When religious ideas are fully integrated into the formal and hidden curricula of the campus, this advantage can work to the benefit of public religion. Studies documenting negative relations between the attainment of higher education and the retention of religious convictions suggest a different pattern, however. Campuses may delegitimate religion by subjecting it to critical reason and sanctifying alternative values, such as relativism, the pursuit of secular knowledge for its own sake, or even raw careerism, narrow professionalism and crass materialism.

These limitations notwithstanding, the campus environment also enjoys certain features that contribute positively to the public expression of the sacred. One of the most important of these is the atmosphere of open, unrestrained intellectual inquiry that is often associated with higher education. Just how open this atmosphere actually is has been questioned in recent years, especially by critics who argue that higher education is dominated by a subtle, but powerful, liberal ideology that prevents genuine consideration of politically or religiously conservative perspectives. Compared with many other institutional settings, the academic environment has a relatively strong norm against imposing explicit ideological tests on the activities of those engaged in serious intellectual pursuits. The upshot is that students and faculty often find the academy a more conducive setting in which to engage in frank explorations of religious values than virtually anyplace else. In contrast, the same person may feel uncomfortable in the congregational setting because certain answers are assumed to be precluded from the outset or because clergy function not only as spiritual guides but as commandeers of volunteer labor and charitable donations. Secular campuses probably convey the image of being most open to exploring issues, including religious ones, from all angles with nothing other than genuine intellectual integrity at stake, although this image often does fall short of reality because of ingrained prejudices against the value of faith or the wisdom of religious traditions themselves. Church-related campuses may preclude some of the freedom to explore from all possible angles because of their loyalty to particular traditions, yet this limitation may be more than compensated for by the seriousness with which the religious life itself is taken.

In attempting to communicate the results of these explorations to the wider public, scholars in these various settings are also likely to experience similar advantages and disadvantages. The main advantage accruing to the scholar in a secular academic setting is that whatever conclusions the scholar chooses to publicize may be accorded the respect that comes with a presumably objective approach. The disadvantage is that a deeply impassioned plea framed in confessional language by such a scholar is likely to earn trouble for that person within the academy itself. For scholars at church-related colleges, the obverse is likely to pertain: Trust may be granted only by an audience sharing the same confessional tradition, but speaking passionately from this tradition is less likely to be regarded as a breech of academic norms.

The technical or applied knowledge mentioned earlier also gives institutions of higher learning some clear advantages in influencing the shape of religious institutions. Scholars may find it beyond their legitimate roles to invent new gods or manipulate existing gods, but they can produce knowledge that the leaders of religious hierarchies take seriously enough to influence the direction of these hierarchies. Studies of how the churches promoted anti-Semitism were at one point influential in encouraging church leaders to adopt different official policies toward Jews. Studies in more recent years documenting that congregations were able to accept women in clergy roles have been instrumental in encouraging denominational leaders to champion gender equality in the churches.

The academy's best roles

If we ask what kind of contribution colleges and universities can make to the public expression of religion, one obvious answer is that academic knowledge can play a valuable technical role. Such knowledge will probably not capture the imaginations and hearts of pious individuals, but it will be of interest to the leaders of institutions who shape the goals of churches or public policy toward the churches. Knowledge of this kind is unlikely to earn the high respect that more creative contributions in the natural sciences and the arts are likely to receive, but its social and cultural impact may be considerable. The reason for this is that conceptions of the sacred are very much a function of the institutions that produce them. These conceptions, in short, are cultural products and, unlike the weather or some feature of physical geography, are therefore subject to the shaping power of cultural institutions. Academic knowledge helps, in turn, to guide these institutions. It plays an archival role, if nothing else, preserving the past so that religious institutions can know more easily if they have strayed from or remained true to this past. Academic knowledge also functions as a mirror in which religious leaders can view themselves and their activities. It may not tell them what to do, but it can help them correct their course should they so desire.

The greatest challenge in public religion to which academic knowledge can respond positively is the growing level of religious and cultural pluralism in modern societies. Although pluralism has sometimes been thought to lead inevitably to greater secularity, the future of religion in pluralistic societies is probably more indeterminate than that view would suggest. Pluralism can stimulate competition among religious traditions, and it can be layered into deeper personal religious convictions as well. Academic knowledge has for several centuries advanced the cause of cultural pluralism, claiming to present a more enlightened vantage point than that available in any particular tradition and championing egalitarianism, mutual respect, and the search for shared values among pluralistic subcultures. Academic knowledge has continuously been put forth in universalistic terms said to be relevant and applicable in the wide variety of settings.

Arguments couched in universalistic language serve a vital function in public discourse about collective values. Indeed, it might be argued that the chief role academics can play in expressing public religion is that of arbiter or translator, framing arguments in detached, externalist terms so they can be understood and debated across a wide spectrum of confessional traditions. Congregations, denominational hierarchies, and religious special interest groups may also do this in their efforts to reach pluralistic audiences, but academies are in a better position to do so because they do not have to speak from the perspective of any particular religious tradition. Church-related colleges are of course somewhat more constrained in this than are secular institutions of higher learning, but many church- related colleges have been able to devise charters giving themselves sufficient autonomy from host denominations that faculty and students still have relatively wide latitude in exploring intellectual questions. Academicians in both types of settings have the cultural authority to raise critical questions and to pose religious issues in broader -- historical, cross- cultural, and cross-confessional -- terms so that these issues can genuinely become part of the wider public culture. Being able to speak about religious language, instead of having to speak in religious language itself, is of special value when competing religious arguments are at issue.

On balance, then, the view that colleges and universities necessarily are subject to, and contributors to, a secularized public culture seems mistaken, as does the view that colleges and universities must tighten their ties to sponsoring religious bodies if they are going to resist these secularizing pressures. Secularization misconstrues the question because it suggests a linear trend away from something definably religious toward something patently nonreligious. A more compelling view of the changes taking place in modern societies is one that recognizes the simultaneous interplay of the sacred and the secular. Colleges and universities have contributed significantly -- and will continue to contribute -- to this interplay. They are among the chief producers of secular knowledge, but they also provide valuable enclaves in which special types of religious knowledge can be produced and preserved.

Robert Wuthnow is Andlinger Professor of Sociology and Director of the Center for the Study of Religion at Princeton University. This piece is an edited excerpt from Producing the Sacred: An Essay on Public Religion (University of Illinois Press, copyright 1994 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois). Used with permission of the University of Illinois Press.