As early as 1921, Protestant denominations and the YMCA proposed a Chair of Religious Education at UT. In 1926 excuses from compulsory UT chapel were given to students who attended the Bible study courses taught by Dr. Harvey C. Brown, associate pastor of Church Street Methodist Church. In 1928 ministers and laymen from 10 Protestant churches in Knoxville established the Tennessee School of Religion. Chartered by the State of Tennessee in 1928, the school was a cooperative effort of eight Protestant churches that sought to “give religion its proper educational place in a state school of higher education.” It operated under a state charter separate from the university but was closely allied with the institution. Elective university credit was given for the courses of the school, space was provided, and the school’s courses went through the university’s usual approval processes. But its classes were taught by local pastors (required to have a master’s degree or equivalent amount of postgraduate work) who had no faculty rank or standing and were not paid. Up to 18 hours of instruction in the school were allowed to count toward degrees at the university. There was no charge for enrollment in the classes.
In 1958 the school revised its constitution and invited a Catholic priest and a Jewish rabbi to become faculty members, but its principal thrust continued to be Protestant Christian. The first director of the school was Dr. H. C. Brown, student pastor at Church Street United Methodist Church. In response to faculty concerns about the intellectual rigor of student and faculty performance in the school and questions of constitutionality, a group of faculty, chaired by chemistry professor Calvin Buehler, was appointed in 1963 to study the School of Religion’s operation and make recommendations. Its final report, in April 1965, recommended that the ties with the Tennessee School of Religion be severed and a Department of Religious Studies be created within the College of Liberal Arts (now Arts and Sciences). The UT Board of Trustees unanimously approved the establishment of a Religious Studies Department on June 17, 1965, and Academic Vice President Herman Spivey initiated a search for funds and faculty.
A grant from the Danforth Foundation enabled UT to appoint Dr. Ralph Norman as professor and head of the Religious Studies Department in 1966. By the fall of 1968, the university had withdrawn credit for all the Tennessee School of Religion’s courses. The school instituted teaching correspondence courses with no connection to UT. The final vestige of UT participation with the school was distribution by the UT News Bureau of a weekly Sunday school lesson provided by the school as a service to the school. That practice was discontinued in 1973, when it was challenged by the ACLU.