CULTURE WARS - INSIGHTS FROM ETHNOGRAPHIES OF 2 PROTESTANT SEMINARIES

Late- or post-modernity has fostered competing religious and moral vis ions in American society. Two recent and widely discussed works, Rober t Wuthnow's The restructuring of American religion (1988) and James Da vison Hunter's Culture wars (1991), discuss these competing visions. A mong the important issues involved are questions of the sources of tru th and interpretive authority. In this paper, we present case studies, based on extensive ethnographic research over a three year period, of the culture of two U.S. theological schools. In these schools, one li beral Protestant and the other conservative Protestant, questions of t ruth and interpretive authority are articulated and negotiated in stri kingly different ways. Indeed, since these are institutions that educa te religious elites, the cases offer important insights into broader c ultural dynamics.