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JOURNAL FOR THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF RELIGION
one way it does so is through the "privatization" of religion, that is, the demarcationof the public from the private spheres of life (Berger, 1969, Roof, 1978; Luckmann, 1967).This structural situation allows an "anti-modern" religious viewpoint to reign in people'spersonal realms while, at the same time, allowing participation in a "modem" way in therealms of production, exchange, politics, etc. By this "privatizing" method, the historicallyimportant response of geographic isolation by religiously deviant groups is thus madeunnecessary as people with "deviant" religious sentiments are encouraged to keep themunobtrusive except in carefully boundaried situations. At best, however, the privatizationof evangelical religionin contemporary America can only allow a solution to occur; byitself it cannot solve the dilemma. Children must still be taught, for example, and arenasfor the display and sharing of evangelical beliefshehaviors must still be provided. In otherwords, privatization cannot become narcissism, else the social nature of religion wouldbe destroyed, and thus, by most definitions at least, religion itself would disappear.Even if religion can be allowed to lose relevance in the public sphere, its plausibilitymust still be maintained
in
the private sphere. In the case of evangelicalism in the 20thcentury America, this maintenance has been attempted through the development of alarge and complex network of "private" parallel institutions including colleges, seminaries,publishing houses, mission organization, and the like (Sandeen, 1970; Hunter, 1983~56-58).Evangelical education is one of the centerpieces of this elaborate sub-cultural network.In addition to the thousands of private Evangelical primary and secondary schoolsaffiliated with the National Association of Christian Schools, and several hundred moreBible colleges and seminaries, there are approximately one hundred private Evangelicalliberal arts colleges and universities (most of these are affilitated with the Christian CollegeCoalition),.' A significant percentage of Evangelicals are trained in these settings. At anyone time, 67,000 students attend colleges in the Coalition. However, not all Evangelicalswho receive college training are educated in this context. Many pursue higher educationin pi~blic nd private (non-sectarian) settings.The question now arises: Are the dynamics of maintaining the Evangelical world viewthe same or different depending on the type of setting? Do Evangelicals in different socialsurroundings maintain their worlds in a divergent or like manner? In view of the sociologyof knowledge dictum that ideation reflects social structure, one could predict at least somedifferences. Establishing those differences is the task at hand.
SAMPLE
The data on which this paper is based come from a research initiative entitled theEvangelical Academy project.' The centerpiece of this project is a survey of attitudesof students attending a national sample of distinctly evangelical colleges and universities.
1. For a more elaborate discussion of the nature and extent of Evangelical higher education
in
the United States,see Hunter. 1983a.
2.
The Evangelical Academy Project for which J.D. Hunter was principal investigator was funded in part bythe Society for the Scientific Study of Religion. Additional funds for the data processing of the public universitysample were provided by the University of California
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Santa Barbara. The focus of this project was to explorethe values and attitudes of a college-aged cohort of Evangelicals and by doing so, to explore the cultural andpolitical temperament of the coming generation of Evangelicals.
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