Michael Roth, president of Wesleyan University, has an interesting piece up about talking about religion in the classroom.  

Here's what I take to be the key passage stating the problem:

As a teacher, I find remarkable resistance to bringing religious ideas and experiences into class discussions. When I ask what a philosopher had in mind in writing about salvation, or the immortality of the soul, my normally talkative undergraduates suddenly stare down at their notes. If I ask them a factual theological question about the Protestant Reformation, they are ready with answers: predestination; “faith, not works”; and so on. But if I go on to ask students how one knows in one’s heart that one is saved, they turn back to their laptops. They look anywhere but at me—for fear that I might ask them about feeling the love of God or about having a heart filled with faith. In my cultural-history classes, we talk about sexuality and identity, violence and revolution, art and obscenity, and the students are generally eager to weigh in. But when I bring up the topic of religious feeling or practice, an awkward silence always ensues.

Now, I read this with a bit of skepticism.  It's not at all clear that his students are feeling the awkwardness about talking about religion that Roth imputes to them.  It may be instead that they are feeling like they don't want to talk about it with him.  I very well remember when I realized that sometimes my students wanted to talk about something, but not with me.  

Furthermore, I think Roth's particular location may be skewing his sample here.  Liberal arts colleges, especially wealthy liberal arts colleges, are probably among the most vehemently liberal places in America.  And vehement liberals are statistically more likely to be vehement secularists.  Combine that with the just-out-of-high-school cohort's attitude towards what they see as their parents' practices (if their parents had a religious practice), and you get a context that is pretty unfriendly to religion.  I say this because, here at UVA, at least in religious studies, we don't have the problem of getting people to talk about their religion, or lack thereof.  Our problem is the subsequent one--getting them to talk about those issues well.  

I think Roth agrees with me.  Here's what I take to be his key aspirational passage:

What my students ultimately believe is none of my business. But they, like all other college students, need to understand what it’s like to be absorbed in robust traditions, including religious ones. They—and I—should refuse to hide behind narrow versions of critical thinking that keep them from engaging with people whose lives are energized by compassion and forgiveness. Becoming more aware of the multiplicity of traditions and practices will make all of us more curious about and more empathetic toward others’ beliefs—and more humble with respect to our own.

This hope isn't far from the kingdom, for me.  I too wish our students would find ways to talk intelligently, openly and non-defensively, about their own views and those of others.  It's a huge lift, however, and we should not deceive ourselves that it is reasonably accomplished in the four years of undergraduate education.  That said, if we could find a way to model such conversation--such virtues of dialogue--it would be among the most important contributions we could possibly make to our current civic life. 

Don't you agree?