Earlier this year a prime specialist theology and philosophy institution in the UK, Heythrop College, closed its doors after 400 years of teaching.

Founded in 1614 by the Society of Jesus, and part of the University of London since 1970, Heythrop had a mission to provide ‘an education marked by intelligence, scholarship and generosity of spirit'.

In recent years the college struggled to recruit students, and this, along with increasing administrative pressures, forced its closure in January.

This was gloomy news, but not surprising.

As the British Academy has shown this week, student numbers for theology and religious studies have fallen by almost half since 2012 - 6,500 fewer students on theology and religious studies degree courses in 2017-18 than six years before - and the decline has led to the closure or reduction in size of several theology departments in the UK.

There are many reasons for this - chief among them the trebling of university tuition fees in 2012.

Prospective students now face an enormous financial burden from tuition fees and living costs, greatly affecting the decisions they make, not only about what to study, but whether to study at all.

Hardest hit will be those wishing to return to education later in life or to study part-time.

Yet causes are less alarming than consequences: theology and religious studies risk disappearing from our universities just at the time when we need them most.

Despite two centuries of apparent secularisation in the West, religion has an all-pervasive role on the world stage.

From the persecution of Myanmar Rohingya in a surge of Buddhist nationalism, to revived power struggles between Sunni and Shia Muslims, the electoral appeal of Narendra Modi to many Hindus or Donald Trump's popularity among US Evangelicals, we can't hope to understand the swirl of current events - or tackle their challenges - without first understanding religion in all its forms.

In these embittered and increasingly turbulent times, public debates have become more polarised, not least through the deliberate misuse of social media.

There is a widespread scorn for debating in good faith or respecting one's opponent, and a preference for viciously assertive arguments in a call-out culture.

It is no longer enough simply to disagree with your opponents; they can never be more than hypocrites, liars, or idiots.

This is an age of pitchforks and pithy putdowns - ugly and cynical, a poison for sane society.

Theology and religious studies offer antidotes to this increasingly adversarial culture.

Given the chance to study analytically the belief systems, morality, art, philosophy and history of varying faiths and cultures, graduates in these disciplines leave university with an unrivalled understanding of humanity in all its glorious untidy complexity.

How could such degree courses fail to nurture the empathy and curiosity of those who study them?

Yet the value of theology and religious studies degrees extends beyond this.

The Destination of Leavers from Higher Education (DLHE) survey shows how theology and religious studies graduates are ideally placed to enjoy rich and rewarding careers in non-religious sectors, including international development, journalism, welfare, social care, teaching, and policymaking.

In fact, theology and religious studies students graduating in 2016/17 were more likely to be employed than graduates across historical and philosophical studies as a whole.

Nearly two-thirds of those employed were in professional occupations or associate professions and technical occupations - the so-called ‘highly-skilled graduate jobs' - within six months of completing their degree.

The British Academy's report - and, for that matter, the closure of Heythrop College - must serve as a wake-up call. Theology and religious studies need to confront significant challenges if they are to survive the era of high fees. Continue reading

• Diarmaid MacCulloch, Professor of the History of the Church at Oxford University, is a Vice-President of the British Academy.
• Image: YouTube

In his review Listener columnist David Larsen said, "So what is the point of the religion, exactly? 'To give us a sense of proportion and humility, not to be obsessed with our own salvation. We need to balance ourselves by turning from ourselves.' This atheist came away deeply impressed.

He says, we see almost daily, evidence that the Catholic is too big for the last two old men to manage, and indeed that it's too big for a younger man to manage.

MacCulloch says significant change is needed, and in particular the suggests the Church should not fear decentralisation.

"There's no where to hide anymore" he says, and for the last thirty years at least, two pope's in succession have denied that the Church needed to change at all, Benedict even pushed liturgy and worship backwards.

Denying change for so long, living, as it were one's life with a "paper bag over your head", can only go on for so long, MacCulloch says.

Watch the interview, and see how Professor MaCulloch argues the need for change and the change he is suggesting.

"Christianity, the world's largest religion, is rapidly expanding — by all indications, its future is very bright," said MacCulloch, 60, professor of church history at Oxford University and an Anglican deacon. His latest book, "Silence in Christian History," will be published in the fall by Penguin.

MacCulloch said in an interview that "there are also many conflicts" within Christianity, "and these are particularly serious in the Roman Catholic church, which seems on the verge of a very great split over the Vatican's failure to listen to European Catholics." He predicted that Catholicism faces a division over attempts by popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI to "rewrite the story" of the 1962-1965 Second Vatican Council by portraying it as a "minor adjustment" in church governance, rather than as a "radical move to change the way authority is expressed." Read more

Sources

• The Washington Post
• Image: The Eponymous Flower

Mark Vernon considers that "The lectures present a lively history of silence in the church, and left me with a clear sense that this is a history that affects us all today".

According to Vernon, "Noisy Christianity is alive and kicking. For individuals who feel the allure of silence, it is off-putting and irrelevant. They might never know that there are profound, useful meditative traditions in Christianity too".

• Read Mark Vernon's article
• Image: Fields of Silence

Mark Vernon is a writer and journalist. His latest book is called How To Be An Agnostic.