Diverse religious schooling vital
The Charlotte Observer, June 02, 2007

By Tammy Williams & J. Kameron Carter

Professors Williams and Carter are associate professors of Black Church Studies at Duke University Divinity School

With commencement ceremonies fresh in our minds, so too are some age-old questions: Are our graduates prepared to navigate what awaits them? What kind of world will they encounter?

The terms "globalized" and "digitized" describe complex shifts that have shaped the world during the past generation. At a more fundamental level, we can describe the world from a different view: profoundly religious. For too long, our world's religious character has been attended to unthoughtfully or outright ignored -- with dire consequences.

To insist that religion really matters in our world is not just an academic claim. It's an observation that takes seriously the life experiences of ordinary people worldwide. Whether one points to religious differences among Muslims in warring Iraq, moral issues related to stem cell research or coalition-building by people of faith to oppose environmental degradation, we must engage religion and religious questions if we are to confront the vital issues that affect us all.

But is the Class of 2007, sufficiently skilled to navigate these murky religious waters? Stephen Prothero, author of the recent book "Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know -- and Doesn't," answers with a resounding "no." He laments the lack of religious knowledge among this country's college graduates. He observes that religious illiteracy has important consequences in a profoundly religious world. For ignorance of the religious narratives that have shaped our nation's history -- and indeed that have shaped the very birth and formation of the modern world -- undermines our capacity to participate as competent citizens.

How can this situation be changed?

The modern college and university itself must reflect the world it analyzes. This requires continued diversification of faculties and the formation of scholars from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups. One-third of theological schools today don't have a single person of color on their faculties. One study found that nearly 90 percent of faculty in graduate religion and theology programs nationwide are Caucasian. But diversity in religious scholarship and faculties cannot be minimized to matters of diversity for diversity's sake. What is at stake is our ability to envision a world in which all can flourish, a world that religious ignorance undermines.

More than ever, we need the guidance of diverse perspectives in distinguishing the often blurred lines between religious history and belief and the unvarnished propagandizing of religious history and belief.

This matter will be addressed at Duke University Divinity School as rising African-American scholars gather this weekend. The Fund for Theological Education has awarded fellowships to 30 top African-American doctoral students from academic programs nationwide. The purpose of the fellowships is to accelerate the completion of doctoral degrees and provide a network of support. And it works; more than half of the religion and theology students receiving the fund's support go on to secure faculty appointments.

It is just a first step among many. But as faculty who are navigating this path ourselves, we seek to challenge the world views of future graduating classes, even as we are challenged by our students, communities of faith and the wider society. By accepting the challenges of teaching in the 21st century, we and our colleagues hope to overcome the religious illiteracy plaguing a culture that otherwise prizes religion.