Thus it is surely no accident that the rise in systematics has gone with a corresponding decline in study of worship and preaching, with liturgy now almost unknown as an academic discipline in British universities, though the history of spirituality fares somewhat less badly. Where the situation has changed for the better in both British and American universities is in an increasing interest in the arts, with a number of centres focusing sometimes on the arts in general but, more commonly, on one or another in particular (for example, literature, film or the visual arts).
