Related articles and links |  1 of 6

Sixty years ago, there were about as many serious evangelical scholars as there were stars on the American flag. Today, there are nearly as many societies of Christian scholars who represent a wide spectrum of academic disciplines. Sixty years ago, it would have been difficult to find an evangelical Christian who was a full professor at a major university. Today there are dozens. Back in the 1940s, not even Sherlock Holmes could have found evangelical fingerprints on any field of academic endeavor. Today several academic fields—most notably, sociology of religion, history of Christianity, and several areas of philosophy—are well-developed because of top-drawer scholarship by evangelicals.

How did this happen among evangelicals, who 60 years ago were intensely distrustful of—and unwelcome in—the academic world? The answer is complex, involving rising education levels among all Americans, shifts of attitude toward learning among evangelicals, and the spread of evangelical Christianity through the American population. But an important part of the story comes down to money. It takes a fair chunk of change to support sabbaticals, travel, and research—and evangelical scholars have received a goodly share of such funds in the last few decades. So, who helped fund the resurgence of evangelical scholarship—and why?

America's 50,000 foundations annually give away over $22 billion. This is only 7 percent of all philanthropy—individuals, living and dead, do 88 percent of America's charitable giving. Still, $22 billion is a lot of money, and when doled out in relatively large portions, it has a major influence on the direction of nonprofit organizations. Evangelical scholarship began receiving help from the Lilly Endowment and the Pew Charitable Trusts in the early '80s.

Few other foundations have joined them in encouraging the work of Christian scholars. Evangelical philanthropists have often shied away from scholarship, favoring evangelism, foreign missions, and youth work. Evangelicalism has long been the last place to look for scholars. The story of how this changed begins with drug money and a "conspiracy" among historians.

In 1876 Colonel Eli Lilly started a small pharmaceutical lab in Indianapolis. His son Josiah and grandson Eli, with exclusive marketing rights to penicillin and later insulin, turned the company into a billion-dollar-a-year corporation. Josiah and Eli, now the wealthiest people in Indianapolis, followed the American socioeconomic script of the day and became Episcopalians. Eli the younger also became the family philanthropist, and in 1936 pushed for creation of the family foundation called the Lilly Endowment.

He was serious about Christianity but mainly for its utilitarian role in helping form better character. He was fond of books that repackaged the ethical teachings of Jesus in the psychological ideas of the day. Eli's other interest was archaeology. He supported both scholars writing about character development and archaeologists digging into Indiana's deep past.

Today, the Lilly Endowment's wealth depends largely on the fortunes of the pharmaceutical company. These soared after 1988 when its biochemists invented Prozac, and ever since then, Americans feeling bad have made Endowment officials feel pretty good. By 1997 Lilly supplanted Ford as the richest foundation in the nation (though it was passed by the Gates Foundation in 2002). This meant that the endowment's Religion Division had a lot of money to spend. In order to fulfill their mandate to marshal religious resources to make society more humane, directors Robert Lynn and Craig Dykstra developed a strategy of underwriting scholarship, mainly in theology and in the sociology and history of American religion. Because many evangelical scholars work on these topics, several received support.

next page... |  1 of 6

July 8 2002, Vol. 46, No. 8