Word: polling
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...belong to any of the local religious fellowships--Hillel, Newman Club, Canterbury, etc. This fact, along with the high percentage of those who attend church more at home than at Harvard, give further indication of the individual nature of religion among at least those responding to this poll. There is a divergence here between religious thought and religious practice, where church attendance is regarded as secondary to theological speculation. This physical separation from the centers of religious gathering encourages eclecticism and free choice among religious doctrines, and is considered by most observers, local ministers included, to be rather a good...
What is the cause of this phenomenon, especially marked along the "middle-of-the-road" Protestants, such as Methodists, Congregationalists, Baptists, or Presbyterians? For in this group nearly 40 per cent of the students covered by the CRIMSON poll apostasized. Raised in the Protestant tradition, they have since denied their former affiliation; some even deny the existence...
...very large degree, each Protestant Harvard student develops his own personal religion. He may accept many of his denomination's teachings, but chances are that he will temper this belief with "important reservations." Three out of every five Protestants in the poll who maintain their affiliation take religious teachings with several grains of salt...
...doctrine questioned extensively by Harvard Protestants in the necessity of faith. "After a few years at Harvard," one student wrote in a poll conducted at a Sunday evening fellowship, "faith becomes irrelevant." Faith, however, is one of the most necessary components of Protestant belief, for, as Santayana points out, faith alone justifies religion. Only a Protestant with strong religious beliefs can usually continue to hold the ideas inculcated in Sunday School, especially in the skeptical Harvard community...
Harvard's main effect upon Protestantism and individual Protestants seems to be one of "reshaping." Less than one-third of the Protestants questioned by the CRIMSON poll felt themselves in "substantial" agreement with the tenets of their faith; the others continued in their religious tradition only with reservations or else rejected it completely...