From an issue of Student Life this fall:
Is there a place for religion at Washington University? Not officially, because the Charter prohibits supporting any particular religion. Some would say not at all, most assuredly. Yet, how account for the growing number of religious groups over the last decade or the extraordinary growth of groups like the Catholic Student Center over those same years. The CSC alone has grown from about 45 registered students 18 years ago to about 800 now. And retreats have gone from about 22 that year to up to 300 now. And Mass attendance has necessitated 3 expansions of our Chapel, which includes students of all faiths and none on any given Sunday. Indeed, religion at WU is on the rise, and is frequently an object of reflection and study and debate.
Is it a search for identity when so many students experience themselves (especially in the classroom) as a minority and find their faith responded to by peer and faculty alike with hostility or indifference. A survey release 2 years ago—titled ‘How Religious Are America’s College and University professors?’—concluded that classroom attitudes are by-and-large anti-religious. Professors, while they believed in at least the possibility of God’s existence, were more than twice as likely to be skeptics or atheists as the general population. At the same time, this administration has been quite supportive of our presence for students.
Is it a student’s desire to belong or perhaps a search for meaning to their choices and to their lives? While the University does a remarkable job at educating and caring for students, campus ministries can provide what the University cannot.
Perhaps it has to do with the need we all have for guidance, for coaching, in the often complicated and painful world of relationships, arguably the most important “school” at WU. We at the CSC define our work at WU to be at the service of helping all students become more capable of giving and receiving love. That is for us the essence of God, the essence of life itself. Amo, ergo sum. (I love, therefore I exist.)
Campus ministry can be a place to go with your broken and blessed lives, to believe in something bigger than a me-centered life—something worth your young life, some horizon against which every day can be lived out and where your own personal story and the Great Story can connect and lead to transformation. A place to help us remember we are not alone. And a place to honor the desire many feel to worship, to give thanks, to pray.
From my perch across Forsyth for the last 18 years, being religious at WU can be a source of great consternation and great creativity, and it gives me great hope for the future of religion in the world. The latter because it is religious illiteracy that hurts people and can be dangerous to the common good. Ignorance imperils our public life. Campus ministries at WU work hard to encourage greater understanding of one another. Honest and sometimes difficult exchange about our religious traditions can bring us ever more deeply into the experience of being human together at this time and in this place. We seek to model the dialogue that will always lead to the truth, the truth I trust will set us free.
If religious groups are to succeed at WU, it will be because they respect ALL students as they are, of any faith or none. No proselytizing here, no coercion here, our covenant commits. It will be because it is open and engaging and willing to be challenged and inclusive and calls us beyond ourselves and our own agendas.
Is the practice of faith a value-add then, during these years? Clearly, yes. Because it will challenge us to be less selfish, because it will lead us to be a better citizen of the world, it will encourage us to step back and ask the Big Questions like ‘what am I going to do with my life?’ and ‘how can I contribute?’ and ‘what is my personal and our civic morality?’ and questions like ‘what is the relationship between wealth and success and happiness?’ Studies confirm that students who engage religious rituals every week studied longer and reported higher grade point averages, and had greater satisfaction with the institution than their peers. It can undoubtedly invigorate our education. Honest and sometimes difficult exchange about our religious traditions can bring us ever more deeply into the experience of being human together at this time and in this place.
Religion at WU is an experience worth exploring. Many have.
