June 28, 2002 == FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
When it comes to young evangelicals it turns out that reports of the demise of
their faith may have been greatly exaggerated. So say Calvin professors James
Penning and Corwin Smidt.
The duo has a book due this summer called "Evangelicalism: The Next
Generation," written in answer to questions posed by a groundbreaking and widely
cited 1987 book by James D. Hunter called "Evangelicalism: The Coming
Generation."
Hunter's book was troubling to many in the evangelical world, suggesting that
students attending evangelical colleges were becoming increasingly secularized
and abandoning their orthodox faith commitment. In other words the colleges
were doing the opposite of their intent. Hunter's assertion was that this was
both a natural product of growing secularization that resulted from increased
cultural pluralism and higher education (which usually weakens, he said, the
grip of religious conviction on a person's life). According to Hunter there was
nothing distinctive about Christian higher education that would make it
different in this regard from other kinds of higher education and his book
suggested that this growth in secularization among evangelical college students
would continue.
Penning and Smidt, long-time colleagues in Calvin's political science
department, decided to revisit the territory of Hunter's book. They knew from
the start that Hunter's work had shortcomings. But they also knew that, despite
those shortcomings, his study is one of the few in-depth analyses of students
attending evangelical colleges.
"It remains," says Smidt, "an important study worthy of attention."
Penning and Smidt arranged to survey students at the same nine colleges
(Bethel, George Fox, Gordon, Houghton, Messiah, Seattle Pacific, Taylor,
Westmont and Wheaton) as Hunter had done and, in fact, basically replicated
Hunter's 1982 survey instrument. They sent 5,000 surveys and received about
2,500 back. They also compared the attitudes of the college students with adult
evangelicals, using existing databases from a variety of surveys. This allowed
them to compare today's students with not only the students from Hunter's 1982
survey, but also with adults both in the past and today.
The survey looked at student attitudes in four main areas: theology, politics,
social theology (the role of the church in the world) and moral boundaries.
Penning and Smidt found that today's students are not less orthodox in their
religious beliefs. Nor have they abandoned their faith commitment as Hunter had
said was likely to happen. Instead today's students score similar to their
counterparts of the early 1980s and in some cases are more orthodox or
traditional than students in the 1980s. Today's students also tend to be highly
observant in terms of religious practices: things such as prayer, church
attendance and daily Bible reading.
Says Penning: "Our study shows that there has not been an erosion of religious
orthodoxy at these nine colleges. There has been more continuity than change.
In fact, there seems to be a move toward more conservative positions in some
areas."
The bottom line say the two political scientists is that Hunter's "dire
prognosis" for the future of the evangelical movement was not warranted. And,
they add, contrary to Hunter's original assertion, evangelical colleges, and
higher education, did not erode religious conviction. Their survey shows, in
fact, that education strengthens religious belief.
"This is an important finding," says Penning. "Christian colleges in
particular were very hard hit by (Hunter's) book."
Penning and Smidt's new book is scheduled to be released in July 2002 from
Baker Book House. They will speak on the book and the survey at Calvin on
September 25 at 3:30 p.m. in the Meeter Center Lecture Hall.
Contact James Penning at 957-6232 or Corwin Smidt at 616-957-6233
For info on the book from the Baker Book House website, see
http://www.bakerbooks.com/ROFM.acgi?_action=GET&_header=get&_database=CatalogFileweb.fp5&_field=combineallweb&AmazonISBN=080102434X
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