Well, that depends on what you mean. If open theism is a liberal religious idea, then many of the Christians in philosophy are doing that. But if you mean departures from the classic creeds, then I don’t think that’s remotely true. There are very few philosophers who are religious but not Christian, and the ones who are Christian tend to be orthodox in the sense of endorsing the creeds of something very close to them. There are a lot of theologically liberal academics, but hardly any of them are in philosophy, at least analytic philosophy (which is mainly what the article was focusing on). Take a look through an issue of Faith and Philosophy to see the kinds of views being defended. Most of them are traditional, Christian views and are in-house among theological moderates to conservatives and not debates with theological liberals. That journal is the main gathering place for theistic philosophy.

Continental philosophers of religion in the U.S. tend not to be in philosophy departments anyway. Syracuse has one of the top figures in continental philosophy of religion, John Caputo, but he was hired by the religion department and just teaches one class a year listed as philosophy, at his own insistence.

As for Notre Dame, it’s #13 on the list of top philosophy departments. You have to be really good to get a job there. Peter van Inwagen is one of the top three or four philosophers in the areas he works on, which is a relatively narrow area of topics in metaphysics but ones that are included in my specialty, and his name comes up all the time. So it doesn’t matter that it’s Catholic. Being Christian is not a requirement for teaching there, and their hiring standards are almost as high as Princeton’s. It’s very hard to get a job there.

I do think Craig over-exaggerates on this. Christians in the field are more aware of it than anyone else is. It’s not as if they all feel as if Christians are invading philosophy (although graduate students in certain departments may think their department is being invaded). Quentin Smith is rare in thinking that (and he’s trying to wake the rest of them up to it). It’s also not as if they’re much more inclined toward theism than they otherwise would have been. But they do have to recognize that very smart people who are very good philosophers can maintain a theistic worldview despite knowing all the philosophy that convinced them to be atheists. That’s the significance of this.

Richard Swinburne is retired, but Brian Leftow has replaced him, and John Hawthorne is now there also. Both of them have endowed chairs. Robert Adams is also there (now having retired from Yale).

Alex Pruss is at Baylor now, which isn’t a sign that a Baptist university is just hiring its own. Alex is a devout Catholic (although his views on providence are the kind of Catholic view that sounds more like Calvin). For what amounts to a Southern-Baptist university in most respects, that’s unusual.

For the sake of naming some more names, there’s Keith DeRose and John Hare at Yale (and Marilyn Adams is still there part-time in retirement) and Scott MacDonald at Cornell. There are several others at Notre Dame besides those named, but I don’t know which ones, because I think several of the people I might be inclined to guess at might be just friendly to Christian views. I know UT-Austin has at least one, and I might be two, but I’m also fuzzy on those to be sure enough to name names.

http://www.philosophicalgourmet.com/overall.asp

BTW, does anyone know of a comprehensive list of Christian philosophers and the institutions they teach at anywhere on the net? The Society of Christian Philosophers doesn’t name that many.

Seriously, you have a point Tom about what is written being more important than where, and with tenured positions in academia being so hard to get these days, I’m sure excellent scholars end up in not-so-excellent schools. That said, I still think the leading schools are producing more liberal religious ideas than conservative ones.

Dallas Willard is at USC. 27
Alvin Plantinga is at Notre Dame. 19
Richard Swinburne is at Oxford.
Alexander Pruss is at Georgetown. 23
Nicholas Wolterstorff is at Yale. 2
Timothy O’Connor is at Indiana. 75
Robert Koons is at the University of Texas. 44
Tom Crisp is at Florida State. 112
William Alston is professor emeritus at Syracuse University. 50
Timothy McGrew is at Western Michigan University.

Peter Kreeft is at Boston College 35
Thomas Flint is at University of Notre Dame 19
Peter van Inwagen is also at Notre Dame 19

Location is only partly relevant, anyway. It’s an indicator of stature and reputation, to be sure, but the real question at hand is not “where do you work?” but “who is paying attention to your work?”

I believe Alvin Plantinga was still at tiny, Christian conservative Calvin College when he wrote the above-mentioned God and Other Minds, and also God, Freedom, and Evil, which very many philosophers agree settled the logical problem of evil. Other scholars noticed, because of the quality of the work, not the name of the institution.

Edited at 8:50 am

Not just that, but if they were all preaching to the choir, Quentin Smith would hardly have raised an alarm.