Religion at Rice
"They basically told me that Catholics are not in good shape for getting to heaven," he said. "I was really surprised, but fortunately I had some friends there who were able to come to my rescue and refute what I was being told." Since then, Alejano has become president of the Catholic Student Association and attends Mass regularly. Putting the incident into perspective, he considers that early experience his worst and feels that Rice is a "fairly tolerant" campus.
GOING OFF TO COLLEGE
Soon after arrival at Rice, most students find themselves morally and philosophically challenged in some way. Away from the shelter of home and the time-worn rationales for the evil and unexplainable in the world, questions inevitably arise over just how valid the old explanations are in this new environment. Some, sober for eighteen years, take up drinking. Others who once hoarded high grade point averages, apathetically watch their college averages slip. Students who adopt these new habits change, but the degree and direction of that change can take many forms.
And what about religion? The very existence of challenges such as the one Alejano faced suggests that it is an important issue at Rice. There are at least 15 religious organizations and many more informal Bible study and religious interest groups on campus. The interdenominational Campus Crusade for Christ, the largest of these groups, boasts 120 active members and well-attended meetings, and debates on issues like club fliers bring strong opinions about religion to the fore.
"Twenty years ago there was a presumption that religion didn't belong on a college campus," said Frank Schubert, Kenedy Lecturer in religious studies and professor of Atheism and Its Critics . "Today we see renewed interest. This generation of students has not been as strongly socialized into religion, and therefore there is a sense of open-endedness to the question."
CAMPUS PRACTICE
According to a survey carried out by Brown sophomore Jenna Christensen, roughly 39 percent of Rice students profess no religious faith while the remaining 61 percent describe themselves as members of an organized religion. Despite the this high percentage, membership in many of the registered religious clubs on campus runs notably low. The Muslim Student Association, which now has only eight or nine members, had to cancel its scheduled afternoon prayers last year for lack of attendance. The Rice University Unitarian Universalists have a mailing list of at least 30 people but have remained largely inactive this year.
"We've had success with monthly meetings in the past," said club president Corrie Lisk, a Lovett junior. "But this year I think we've just had bad luck with organization."
Rice's perennial apathy is often blamed for low participation levels, but flashes of intense interest in the face of issues like Intervarsity Christian Fellowship's (ICF) fliers suggest that apathy does not explain the situation completely. "A lot of people think no one cares, but I think it's more that religion isn't going to just pop up in everyday conversation. If someone is doing something unusual for religion, like not eating meat on Friday during Lent or not eating meat at all if they're Hindu, then people might ask. But otherwise it just doesn't come up," explained Jones junior Gabriel Ferrer, vice-president of the Catholic Student Association.
Another explanation offered by religious students is that in the face of moral dilemmas encountered in college, many students postpone thinking about religion in a specific sense, even though they were raised in one tradition or another. "A lot of times people won't deal with these questions out of fear that they may come to a decision that conflicts with a lifestyle they enjoy. They'd rather continue to do those things without having guilty feelings about them," said Will Rice senior Meg Simmons.
Allison Werner, vice-president of the Lutheran Campus Ministry, agrees that many students are thinking about religion and remain quiet because they have yet to come to a decision. Though they may stop attending services or refrain from joining religious organizations, personal questions and religious issues remain important to them. "This is the time when you begin to question what your parents raised you on. People want to decide for themselves what religion to believe in. I think it's a very conscious decision and not an apathy at all," said the Will Rice junior.
Even some Rice students who remain comfortable with the religion they were raised in find the manner in which campus organizations practice faith to be too different. Baptist Clay Gustafson, a Brown sophomore, receives mail from the Baptist Student Union but does not consider himself a member of the club. "I don't go to their meetings, first, because I'm not generally active in religion while I'm at school and second, the pressure is kind of high sometimes. They can be pushy about certain things, like spreading the word. I think it's important to be religious and it's important to spread the word, but it's better to do it by example or address it if it comes up in casual conversation," he said. "I don't agree with the way they go about it."
DIVERGENT PATHS
For Simmons, the college experience has resulted in a reaffirmation of her evangelical Christian faith. Simmons is vice president of ICF, an organization that recently caused controversy with its strongly-worded fliers promoting Christianity as the way to salvation, and she feels that the organization's attitude, which some label intolerance, is instead conviction, a strong faith compounded with the belief that it alone provides total truth.
"At Rice people are intolerant of intolerance without understanding the reasons behind it. But what they see as intolerance is just part of what Christianity is. They're denying us part of our faith," said Simmons.
William Martin, sociology department chair and author of A Prophet with Honor , a history of the Billy Graham movement, came to the defense of evangelical students like Simmons. "They sincerely want to convert those who do not share their beliefs. They believe that those not converted face a terrible fate," he said. He added that these students often feel marked off from other students. "The main difference is that they've made a conscious effort to live a disciplined Christian life," said Martin.
Gordon Ebert, a Will Rice senior and member of Campus Crusade, agrees that there is misunderstanding. However he feels that individual members exonerate the evangelical club's image. "People who know our members at the college level realize that they are normal people and that they care about others. If you want to evaluate the organization, you should look at the people involved," he said.
Simmons felt that on an individual level other students, even those of different beliefs, have been tolerant and even supportive of her. And she considers herself an open-minded person. "My desire would be for everyone to recognize Christ as their savior, but I've traveled a lot, and in the process I've learned to tolerate people and their beliefs," she explained.
Like Simmons, Brown sophomore Rob Lavinsky's beliefs have been strengthened at Rice. But in contrast, it is Lavinsky's atheism that has grown stronger. Raised Jewish, in elementary school he came to the conclusion that religious faith of any kind could not be justified intellectually. Now he is a member of the American Atheists Organization.
Though he considers Rice students tolerant of his beliefs, he takes offense at fundamentalist Christians on campus. In addition, he considers most religion to bring about stifling intolerance. "By saying, `I'm right and you're wrong and will go to hell,' you foster intolerance. You can be friends with someone with that attitude, but you can't discuss religion with them because they haven't thought about it. They haven't had to; they just think their way is what is," he said.
"I've been called close-minded. And I can understand the views on the other side because I used to believe it. But I think I'm the open-minded one for having thought about religion and then eschewing it because I couldn't agree with it rationally."
MACROSCOPE / MICROSCOPE
The last presidential campaign clearly witnessed a re-injection of religion into the political debate, bringing with it the kind of polarization and inflated rhetoric detailed by James Davison Hunter in his book Culture Wars: the Struggle to Define America . Using the labels "orthodox" and "progressive," Hunter describes a fundamental split which cuts across faiths, denominations, and sectors of society, a rift which manifests itself around such issues as abortion, gay and lesbian rights, and family values. Often the two factions come from completely different and mutually exclusive mindsets, so that their arguments fail to carry any weight with the other side, and debate descends into a battle for power.
"People are coming from such different perspectives that it is hard for real dialogue and constructive interchange to occur," said Martin. At Rice, these two groups can come to understand one another through classes like Martin's and Schubert's. "Students who have not had much interchange with religious groups come to have a much higher respect for organizations like Crusade," said Martin.
Finding a surprising amount of common ground among his students, Schubert notes, however, that even common ideas can yield radically different interpretations. "The element of surprise comes in the atheist realizing that evangelicals can follow the same line of reasoning and come to different conclusions" and vice versa, he said. Schubert finds in his students a "willingness to hear the best argument of the opposing side and to thoughtfully respond to opposing views - that's why the class works." Such mutual respect is often lacking both on campus and in the national political arena, and while disagreement on this issue is not going to vanish anytime soon, Hunter would agree that political debate and social relations could "work" a little better if both camps were willing to engage in such a dialogue.
This item appeared in the Features section of the April 16, 1992 issue.
Copyright © 1996 The Rice Thresher. All Rights
Reserved.
This document may be distributed
electronically, provided that it is distributed in its
entirety and includes this notice. However, it cannot be reprinted
without the express written permission of:
The Rice Thresher, Rice University, 6100 Main, Houston, TX 77005-1892, USA.
The Thresher Online Project -- ethresh@listserv.rice.edu