Introduction

Unlike schools, universities seem at first glance to have broken off their relationship with religion and belief, largely appearing to have expelled them from both curricula and operations. Many fancy themselves secular. Yet, the medieval universities were an essentially Christian settlement, organised monastically, in which the primary subjects read were theology and medicine. In them, it was the nature of God that was questioned, not God's existence. In many ways, universities continue to reflect their Christian medieval roots (directly or by pastiche), hanging on to the gowns and hoods, titles, and roles of a Christian age. This legacy is deep in the contemporary higher education landscape.

This acts out a tension for religion and belief in universities because things have changed. In 1700, there were seven universities in Britain (just two in England). In 2019, there are 133 members of Universities UK, the main representative body for higher education institutions (HEIs). The relationship between British universities and religion changed dramatically over that period too. It was not until 1871 that religious tests were fully abolished at Oxford and Cambridge, and the Victorian expansion of the university sector was, in part, motivated by the goal of establishing countermanding secular centres of higher learning that would be open to everyone, notably, University College London (UCL), the first consciously secular university (Gilliat-Ray, 2000: 22; Rüegg, 2004: 61– 4; Graham, 2005: 7– 9). Anglican chaplaincies remain a strong feature of higher education in this milieu. Up until the 1950s, there was a widespread view that the primary reason for making most chaplaincy appointments was to serve the interests of the Anglican Church (Gilliat-Ray, 2000: 29). This model of chaplaincy has since given way to one in which chaplains are understood to serve the whole university and frequently define themselves as ‘multi-faith’.

In teaching and learning too, there has been considerable change. In all the British Commonwealth countries, the presence of theology courses reduced by 60 per cent between 1915 and 1995. However, in some contexts, they underwent revival from the 1980s on, though this time in new forms focusing especially on Islam, or the intersection between religion and public life (Frank and Gabler, 2006: 92– 116).