ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Has the decline of religion in American higher education produced greater intellectual freedom—or simply replaced one set of orthodoxies with another?
Historian Molly Worthen of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill joins Beth L’Arrivée on Tocqueville Talks to explore the relationship between Christianity, higher education, political polarization, and the search for meaning in modern America.
Beginning with Furman University's separation from its Baptist roots, Worthen examines the transformation of the Southern Baptist Convention, the tensions between religious identity and academic culture, and the rise of the secular university. She challenges the assumption that secularization necessarily produces greater intellectual freedom, arguing that universities have developed ideological blind spots of their own.
The conversation then turns to the declining influence of organized religion and the growing tendency to invest political disagreements with existential significance. Why has politics become a substitute for religion for some Americans? And why do so many college students seem exhausted by the ideological conflicts and expectations of contemporary life?
Drawing on Alexis de Tocqueville's observations about democracy, authority, and voluntary associations, Worthen and L’Arrivée consider how the decline of religious and civic communities has affected public discourse—and whether rebuilding meaningful relationships might offer a way forward.
A wide-ranging conversation about religion and politics, the crisis of higher education, intellectual freedom, and the human search for meaning.
