by Martin Davie, Christian Today
On 14 August a letter organised by the Christian think tank Theos was published in Times Higher Education. The letter expressed concern about the steep decline in the number of Theology and Religious studies courses on offer in Higher Education institutions in England and Wales.
This letter, which has achieved a fair amount of publicity and can be read in full here, has seventy-five signatories, representing different academic institutions and different religious faiths. The most prominent of the signatories is the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams.
I have spent the whole of my life since I first went up to Oxford as an undergraduate in 1981 studying, teaching and writing theology, and I share the signatories’ concern about the decline in the availability of courses in theology. However, If I had been asked to sign the open letter I would have declined to do so. In this article I shall explain why this is the case.
The basic thrust of this letter is that theology and religious studies have a twofold social benefit. First, courses in theology and religious studies equip ‘the citizens of tomorrow’ with the tools needed to navigate a future which looks ‘increasingly complex, diverse and pluralistic’ and in which people will need to be able to ‘wrestle with moral, ethical and spiritual challenges and ideas well.’ Secondly, courses in theology and religious studies equip students with skills for both ‘service-oriented careers’ and other forms of employment.
The reason I would have declined to sign this letter is because it seems to me that there are two serious problems with the argument which it puts forward.