In the fall of 2001 the secularist journal Philo carried an article by a leading atheist philosopher [Quentin Smith] lamenting what he called "the desecularization of academia that evolved in philosophy departments since the late 1960s." He writes:
Naturalists passively watched as realist versions of theism, most influenced by Plantinga's writings, began to sweep through the philosophical community, until today perhaps one-quarter or one-third of philosophy professors are theists, with most being orthodox Christians. . . . Theists in other fields tend to compartmentalize their theistic beliefs from their scholarly work; they rarely assume and never argue for theism in their scholarly work. If they did, they would be committing academic suicide or, more exactly, their articles would quickly be rejected. . . . But in philosophy, it became, almost overnight, "academically respectable" to argue for theism, making philosophy a favored field of entry for the most intelligent and talented theists entering academia today. [1]
He concludes, "God is not 'dead' in academia; he returned to life in the late 1960s and is now alive and well in his last academic stronghold, philosophy departments."
The above text is cited from Reasonable Faith: Christian Faith and Apologetics by William Lane Craig, 3rd edition published 2008 by Crossway Books.
[1] "The Metaphilosophy of Naturalism", Philo 4/2 (2201), Jan 01, 2001.
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