Religion: Ministers in Foxholes?

New York’s Union Theological Seminary had a housing problem. Faced with an unexpected influx of 60-odd returned veterans next semester (two-thirds of them married, some with children) Henry Pitney Van Dusen’s interdenominational residence halls were stumped. Union’s housing problem spotlighted a broader and more interesting question: has the war turned more young men than usual to the service of God?

Some thought it had. Religious News Service talked about the “large number of applications pouring into seminaries and theological schools from servicemen” as “one of the war’s most striking aftermaths.” But the American Association of Theological Schools found no change in overall enrollments, and ten of twelve leading seminaries queried by TIME reported last week no significant upturn.

Only one of Union’s veteran-students said that his presence at the seminary was definitely the result of his war experience. Elsewhere the evidence was conflicting. At Princeton Theological Seminary, Cleo Buxton, who fought through Italy as a captain with the 34th Division, said: “The war definitely turned me to the ministry. . . . I know of many who will become ministers who had no plans to do so before.” But many more echoed the views of Captain Eugene Liggitt, an Army chaplain at Princeton. Said Chaplain Liggitt: “I do not think the war turned many men to the ministry . . . for the most part I believe men came out of the war about the same as they went in, only more so.”

Princeton Seminary’s Dean of Students Edward H. Roberts cocked a canny eye at the current rise. Said he: “There are, I think, four main reasons: 1) many men who planned to enter before the war postponed entrance and enlisted; 2) some who were students at the Seminary went to war and are now coming back, 3) the provisions of the G.I. Bill have made it possible for some who before thought vaguely of the ministry . . . to do something about it; 4) war experiences caused some men to feel that the ministry is the field they can best exercise those values in.”

Conclusion: modern war’s effect on man’s religious leanings is that of catalyst rather than converter.