Education: God at Harvard (Contd.)

Harvard students, said President Nathan Pusey in a baccalaureate address, should have “the ability to speak the word God without reserve or embarrassment.” Some clues to what the unembarrassed Harvardman may have in mind were offered last week in a special supplement to the commencement edition of the Harvard Crimson, the results of an 82-question survey of Harvard and Radcliffe undergraduates. Notable items:

¶Twenty-one percent of the Roman Catholics and 25% of the Jews surveyed reported that they had “apostasized.” Of the “middleground” Protestants, 39% said they had fallen away.

¶Forty percent of those who had abandoned religion said that they planned to raise their children in the faith they themselves had left.

¶Of the Protestants, only 31% (as against 74% of the Catholics) believed in immortality. Only 45% regard Jesus Christ as “divine”; 40% consider him “only as a very great prophet or teacher.”

¶Eighteen percent of all those answering the questionnaire said they believed in an “infinitely wise, omnipotent, three-person God who created the universe and who maintains an active concern for human affairs.” The largest group of respondents —24%—believed in “a God about whom nothing definite can be affirmed.” Only 4% flatly denied God’s existence.

¶In answer to the question, “Of which of the following sexual practices do you disapprove because of your religious beliefs?”, 38% disapproved of extramarital intercourse, 21% premarital intercourse, 21% homosexuality, 18% legalized abortion, 14% divorce, 7% birth control.