Chapman University had a perfectly good chapel. But officials here wanted a new one. What they came up with shares more with a Frank Lloyd Wright house than with a typical church.
Though Chapman is affiliated with the Disciples of Christ, a mainline Protestant denomination, college leaders wanted a place of worship free of the trappings of Christianity. Over time, the proportion of students who are Disciples of Christ had shrunk. And the campus culture called for a place where students, the staff, and community members of all faiths could worship and learn about one another’s beliefs.
The Fish Interfaith Center — a modern structure with almost no right angles — opened in 2004. It lies at the heart of the campus, unlike the old, off-campus chapel, and is open to anyone, day or night. “We have students from many different backgrounds, different spiritual journeys,” says Jim Doti, the university’s president.
Since the 1960s, denominational colleges have seen a smaller portion of their students come from members of the founding church, and a smaller portion of their money, too, says Harold V. Hartley III, senior vice president of the Council of Independent Colleges and a former college chaplain.
Yet in the last 15 years, he says, college students have become more interested in integrating spirituality with campus life. In response, Mr. Hartley says, “colleges have found a way to affirm their heritage without being exclusive.”
Preserving Faith
At Chapman, that heritage is still important. Some of the money raised in congregations is given to Disciples colleges, Chapman included, though it is not a major source of funds. Chapman offers special scholarships for Disciples students, and its office of church relations has significant office space in the new interfaith center.
Only 2.5 percent of Chapman students identify themselves as Disciples of Christ, but faith remains important to the university. It tries to embody what it calls the four pillars of education: intellectual, physical, social, and spiritual. To adhere to its mission, Chapman has had to expand what it means for the campus to be a place where students develop spiritually.
That idea comes fairly naturally to Disciples, says the Rev. Nancy E. Brink, the new director of church relations. “We are fundamentally ecumenical,” she says. “What I have seen in my 30 years of working with Disciples is we’re expanding beyond that to a vision of interfaith learning, cooperation, and respect.”
Many students are attracted to those sorts of values, even if they don’t go out of their way to attend a college connected to a particular church, says Robert A. Sevier, senior vice president for strategy at the higher-education-marketing company Stamats. “The crux of the issue is, how does a college preserve its faith but still be welcoming to other faiths or no faith?”
It is a challenge that is met differently by various religiously affiliated colleges. Michael Galligan-Stierle, vice president of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities, says he has seen Roman Catholic institutions offer ecumenical services, which combine elements from different Christian traditions, in their chapels in addition to Mass. Some also pass out information about other places of worship in the area, or provide a room where Muslim students can pray. That said, a Catholic college would probably not scrap its chapel for an interfaith one, Mr. Galligan-Stierle says. Catholic institutions are supposed to be welcoming of all people but also distinctively Catholic, he says, and that distinctiveness won’t be going away.
Welcoming Symbols
The Disciples of Christ mostly supported Chapman’s vision for its interfaith center, Mr. Doti says. Some board members, who were Christian but not necessarily members of the denomination, felt strongly that the building should display a cross, something Mr. Doti thought would ruin the whole spirit of the enterprise. “We fought that battle,” he says, “and in the end prevailed.”
Mr. Doti thinks most of those people’s minds have since changed. Some members of the Disciples, mostly from more-conservative Southern churches, were opposed to the whole idea of the interfaith center, he says. And some local Christians worried that by building the center, Chapman would erase its Christian heritage. It is an argument Mr. Doti doesn’t buy: “I think we have to be responsible to our students, not to a historical connection that is no longer relevant.”
Worshiping in the old chapel, with its obvious Christian symbols, was uncomfortable for student groups of other faiths, Mr. Doti says.
Kitty R. Porter didn’t even know Chapman had a church affiliation when she applied. She got to know the interfaith center in her senior year, during a research project for a class this past fall. She met the Rev. Ronald L. Farmer, dean of Wallace All Faiths Chapel, which is housed in the center, while working on the project. He suggested that Ms. Porter start a student group for Wiccan students like herself, and she did. Now Ms. Porter sits on the interfaith council, attends meetings of Bahai and Christian students, and is planning Wiccan rituals in which other students can participate.
Amelia N. Zandi, a sophomore, has had a similar experience with the center. She started a Bahai group, though the only other Bahai student she knows of has since graduated. Even so, Ms. Zandi holds a monthly devotional that students of other faiths attend. Mr. Farmer also put her in touch with a local Bahai group that supports her activities on the campus.
Students like Ms. Porter and Ms. Zandi are also free to bring objects important to their faiths into the center’s two chapels. Mr. Doti compares the space to another university project in the works: a plaza that will display different countries’ flags. Seeing their home country’s flag on campus will make international students feel more welcome, he says. And such symbols are even more important when it comes to religion.
The Fish center’s architecture is based on four “universal” elements of the sacred: water, light, nature, and features that bring a person up or bring the heavens down. The building is almost devoid of religious symbols. The smaller chapel has a cross, but the top beam is removable and can be interchanged with a crescent or a Star of David. A table beside it is decorated with a pattern based on the chalice that serves as the symbol of the Disciples of Christ, but it is covered with a white cloth during Shabbat services. The rest of the center’s imagery either mingles elements from different religions’ traditions or has no direct connection to any of them.
Like the building, the dean of the chapel has multiple roles: Mr. Farmer, who came to Chapman in 1997, runs the interfaith center and teaches in the religious-studies department.
At the interfaith center, he regularly interacts with about a dozen student groups representing different faiths. All are free to meet in the center, on the condition that their meetings are open to anyone who wants to attend. Most groups are comfortable with the policy, although Mr. Farmer says it’s a bit hard for conservative Christian groups to accept.
When students first come to the campus, some of them think “interfaith” means blending all of the different religious traditions together, but that is not the center’s goal. “We help them see that pluralism, the way we understand it, is a person can be deeply rooted in their own spiritual tradition and yet be open to learning from people outside their own faith tradition,” Mr. Farmer says. “It’s not a threat to expose yourself and to participate in worship; it may actually strengthen your faith.”
Broadening Perspectives
Unlike most of her classmates, Angie Wilhite grew up in a Disciples of Christ church. And when it came time to choose a college, Chapman’s church affiliation was a selling point. A junior, she is thinking about pursuing a master’s in divinity after college, and she wants to work for the church or another nonprofit.
For Ms. Wilhite, a Disciples of Christ affiliation “means a university that really fosters, encourages, a student to find what makes them passionate, find what interests them.” Because of her denomination’s focus on interchurch and interreligious work, she strongly supports the Fish center, where she is a student docent.
Ms. Wilhite’s biggest frustration is with students, or more often, community members who don’t share the vision of the Disciples. “A lot of times,” she says, “I find myself really kind of frustrated with other Christian groups that have a more literal view of the Bible and a very exclusive view of what it means to be a moral person of faith.”
For many students, college is their first real exposure to other religions, Mr. Farmer says. And it is a good time for them to have it — just at the age when they are being confronted with the limits of their own understanding, or what Mr. Farmer calls “the peril of partial perspectives.”
Some students grew up a little skeptical that their own tradition had all the answers, and for them, exposure to other traditions can be “incredibly liberating,” he says. That was his own experience. But not all students embrace interfaith work. They “may find it very threatening, if they’ve only come from one viewpoint and are very concerned about having absolutes in their life.”
Some students will go to panels where representatives of different groups discuss their views on a topic, but no to other groups’ worship services. Others are happy to go to other groups’ services while maintaining their own traditions.
By now the interfaith center is familiar to Chapman’s students and broader community, but Mr. Farmer has a new cadre of freshmen to explain it to each fall. “What we’re not trying to do is just as important to share as what we are,” he says. “Because there were some who were just assuming that what we meant was, ‘All religions say the same thing.’ So we had to say, ‘No, no, no — each religion is different.’”
Each campus, too, is different. And while many religiously affiliated colleges are re-examining what it means to nurture a broad spectrum of students spiritually, Mr. Galligan-Stierle thinks few will take it as far as Chapman has. Any changes will depend on both an institution’s demographics and its leadership, he says.
At Chapman, the new center is accomplishing its purpose. Buddhist, Bahai, Catholic, Jewish, Latter-day Saints, and Muslim groups will meet there this semester, and special events are scheduled for religious holidays like Purim, but also for Founders’ Day, Take Back the Night, and a conference on religion and animals.
As for the old chapel? It has been given a new life: Chapman sold it to a group that uses it exclusively for weddings.
http://chronicle.com Section: Students Volume 55, Issue 27, Page A22
