I went to college at an evangelical Christian liberal-arts institution. When I was an undergraduate, there was no philosophy major at my school and no professional philosopher on the faculty (this situation has, gratefully, changed since then). In fact, there was only one introduction to philosophy course offered and it was taught by a theologian. My professor was incredible and I credit him, nearly entirely, with my own choice to become a philosopher.

Toward the end of the course, however, I told my professor that philosophy had hooked me and I wanted to go further in studying it. As we were finishing up our conversation that day, I asked him why the institution did not have a philosophy major since it seemed to be so deeply relevant to thinking well about religious life. He smiled and said: “Because the administration is scared of turning our students into atheists.”  Though I expect he was being ironic, his comment struck me deeply that day and it has continued to trouble me ever since…