WASHINGTON, April 13 (UPI) -- Most of America's future teachers are people of faith, a groundbreaking national study of college students shows.
The survey released by the Higher Education Research Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles, also associates better-than-expected grades with higher levels of religious involvement.
"This doesn't surprise me," commented Harold O.J. Brown, who teaches at the Reformed Theological Seminary in Charlotte, N.C. "Much of student life is dedicated to enjoyment. Serious Christians have a different engagement, and they are not the dumbest. So they do better than others."
Gerald R. McDermott, a professor at Roanoke College in Salem, Va., agreed, "It is our experience that students who are religiously active tend to get better grades.
"Their religious commitment is reflected in their academic commitment. They have meaning in their lives. It is easier to concentrate on your studies when you know what life is all about."
The UCLA study of 3,680 juniors at 46 colleges and universities defined religious involvement as reading sacred texts, going to church and engaging in religious singing or chanting.
Of juniors majoring in fine arts, 62 percent declared themselves religiously committed. Education and humanities majors showed similar levels of religiosity -- 59 percent and 57 percent, respectively.
"Where education is concerned, this makes sense," says theologian Robert Benne, author of a study of Christian colleges. According to Benne, "Kids who go into education are more at home at standard American culture, and with that goes religion. They are more mainstream than others."
"On the other hand, fine arts majors tend to be less committed to institutional religion," Benne continued, "they are more likely to be New Age."
Least engaged in spiritual quest are psychical science majors -- 19 percent. This result baffled prominent theologians engaged in the interface between science and theology.
In the hard sciences, physicists are usually seen as the scholars most open to intelligent design or theistic evolution -- concepts that suggest the work of a creator.
"There is a lot of awesomeness in physics," explained theologian Philip Hefner, director emeritus of Chicago's Zygon Center for Religion and Science. "It is this awe by contemporary physicists that allows for theories and worldviews that do not conflict with theology, Hefner said."
Ted Peters, a professor at San Francisco's Graduate Theological Union, expressed surprise at the survey's finding that physics (and computer science) majors experience the lowest level of spiritual growth.
"This does not square with my experiences. I find that lots of scientists have deep faith," he said. But then perhaps this aspect of the survey simply reflects an enormous intensity of study that does not allow for much religious reflection in the junior year.
Biology, on the other hand, is generally considered the one discipline most resistant to faith. The UCLA study confirms this: biology majors, like students of history and political science show low levels of religious commitment.
"Biologists are face-to-face with natural selection and the survival of the fittest. It is hard to reconcile these theories with God and the religious concern for love," said Hefner.
"Biologists have to deal with the nitty-gritty of the biological process, not with awe-inspiring things like the Big Bang," he added.
Thus, "biology instructors have a worldview that pretty much excludes a Higher Being," commented Harold G. Koenig, a professor of psychiatry at Duke University.
Koenig bemoaned the "narrow academic environment that healthcare professionals need to face." Hence it did not surprise him that students majoring in the health professions rank lowest in spiritual growth -- along with journalism and psychology majors.
Koenig, editor-in-chief of Science and Theology, a monthly publication, blamed the intensity of pre-med studies for this "tragic development."
"The curricula are so packed with nitty-gritty that the students find no time for ethics and philosophy," Koenig declared. In some cases, faith does indeed survive and will resurface when doctors or nurses go into clinical practice, he allowed.
But in many cases "doctors numbed themselves to their patients' suffering as a survival mechanism," he said. "They treat people like organ systems; they don't get too close."
This is not to say that these same physicians do not go to church just as often as their patients. "Many doctors simply keep these issues (religion and professional care) separate," according to Koenig.
At first glance, the Spirituality in Higher Education Study seems contradictory. For example, while religiously committed students tend to get better grades, "students on a spiritual quest are more likely to show rising levels of psychological distress during college," the survey states.
McDermott proposed that there could be a simple explanation: "If you are seeking meaning in life, this quest could show up as psychological distress. On the other hand, if you drink beer all the time, you might turn out to be psychologically disturbed."
At any rate, whether on a spiritual quest or drinking beer, whether highly committed to their faith or not -- an overwhelming 77 percent of the undergraduates surveyed agreed with UCLA's pollster's suggestion, "we are all spiritual beings." And just as many said they prayed.
