COLUMN: George Whitefield's Penn

From Andrew Exum's, "Perilous Orthodoxy," Fall '99 From Andrew Exum's, "Perilous Orthodoxy," Fall '99Five years ago, the Religious Studies Department at Penn barely avoided extinction. Members of the College administration decided that other departments could do the job Religious Studies was doing. Also, a university rooted in secular thinking had little use for a department so interested in the spiritual side of things. Starting with Harvard's founding in 1636, every school of higher learning erected in America was either a minister's college or possessed of some sort of religious slant. But from the start in 1749, the University of Pennsylvania, then called the Academy of Philadelphia, was supposed to be different. And the man who gets the credit for Penn's secular outlook is, of course, Benjamin Franklin. Today, the University of Pennsylvania continues on in Franklin's secular vision. Try and find the campus chapel at Penn. Go ahead and look. Every other Ivy League school may have one, but although Penn has a campus chaplain, we don't have a chapel. For better or for worse, every attempt to inject some religion into our fair university has been met with fierce resistance. Perhaps in keeping with that tradition, Penn's Religious Studies Department has been under constant fire over the years. Why, critics ask, do we need a separate department to help teach the philosophy of religion? I posed this question to a few professors in the Religious Studies Department last week and got a surprising answer from them. In theory, they said, we really shouldn't need a Religious Studies Department. The Philosophy Department should teach the philosophy of religion, the History Department should teach the history of the world's religions and other departments like Classical Studies could split up classes like those on the origins of religion. Currently, professors only teach religion if a little religious background is necessary to explain the Crusades, themes of Chaucer or the Sistine Chapel. The Philosophy Department teaches a class on the philosophy of religion once every two years. That's inexcusable. Think religion isn't significant enough to warrant more attention? Religion is a wholly unique phenomenon within human experience. Wars have been fought, borders redrawn, literature inspired and great works of art created all because of religion. Like it or not, religion is the single biggest influence in the lives of human beings. How does all that fit into Franklin's vision of a secular university? Well, get ready, boys and girls, because I'm about to let you in on a little secret -- the first "university" in America wasn't actually founded by Benjamin Franklin. Don't believe me? Check the dates. The University claims the school was founded in 1740, which is important because it makes us older than archrival Princeton. But Franklin didn't get involved with the school until 1749. So where, oh where, does the University get the year 1740 from? The answer lies with a lively and influential Anglican preacher by the name of George Whitefield. Whitefield, an Oxford-educated pastor almost as famous as Franklin at the time, established the Charity School of Philadelphia in 1740. Two hundred and fifty nine years later the Charity School has come to be known as Penn. History books tell us that Whitefield was a fiery preacher who brought a new brand of sermon to the Americas. Whitefield gained the admiration of secularists and religious types alike. Skeptic David Hume, while racing off at 5:00 one morning to hear Whitefield preach, was asked if he believed what Whitefield had to say. "No," Hume replied excitedly, "but he sure does!" Franklin himself said of the minister's influence on Philadelphia that "it was wonderful to see the change made by his preaching in the manners of the inhabitants of Philadelphia. From being thoughtless or indifferent about religion, it seemed as if the whole world were growing religious." So it's both curious and unfortunate that the University does so little to honor its "other" founder. Thankfully, more professors are starting to realize that if they want to teach students about the environment Shakespeare worked in or why Copernicus was controversial, they better give religion its fair share of classroom time. But while the environment is improving, its still a long way off from recognizing that while you don't have to -- and shouldn't -- support a particular religion in the classroom, you should still teach the way that religion has affected history, astronomy, literature and all the other subject throughout the ages. Until professors and departments begin to do that, we will continue to need a Religious Studies Department, regardless of who you say founded the school.