Losing my religion

David Marchesani left his native Houston three years ago to study computer engineering at SMU. Like any college student, he has taken advantage of opportunities to try new things in this first real step away from the home and family he was raised in, a step that has taken him into unanticipated territory.

Raised Catholic, Marchesani participated in Christian faith since coming to college, experimenting with different forms of Protestantism in Dallas. While he still considers himself Catholic, he does not make it to Mass every Sunday, saying he can sleep in on occasion and still feel a connection to God.

“I don’t think being a good Catholic, good Christian, good person or whatever has a requirement of going to church,” he said. “I try to go to Mass whenever possible, but sometimes I, like a lot of people, don’t make it. But I can still pray and try to be a good Catholic. I can still be a spiritual person.”

Marchesani is like a lot of college students today who find themselves more open to spiritual concepts they were not raised in or who feel less of an attachment to the ritual of their own faith.

Other students, instead of checking their parents’ religion at the university’s front door, simply pursue those same basic beliefs with less structure. Sometimes they do this by simply praying on their own and attempting to conduct themselves by their beliefs. Occasionally, they will visit other faith groups on campus and participate in their functions, believing that it’s all pretty much the same.

A seeker’s market

“When you’re from Talco, Texas you don’t meet a lot of Jews,” said senior computer engineering major Jeremy Jones. “In the dorms there were all kinds of people. I never had anything against people of other faiths but I also didn’t know a lot about them.”

Being exposed to a more diverse group of people at college can be a major reason for students having a more liberal outlook on faiths other than their own. SMU has more than 30 student religious organizations on campus that are open to any member of the university community.

When the Presbyterians offer a free homecooked dinner to students on Sunday nights, it can be a very strong draw to a Methodist freshman who has had one too many undercooked pieces of mystery meat at the cafeteria.

This is not to say that groups are actively competing with each other for members. However, it is truly a seeker’s market and students have the opportunity to worship God, in one form or another, if and as they wish.

Given the university setting, many student groups emphasize the fellowship, food and fun aspects of worship to attract students who have many options when spending their time.

“I went to RUF [the Presbyterian Reformed University Fellowship] a couple of times because this chick I was dating was really into it,” Marchesani said. “It was pretty cool. It was a great place to meet girls.”

Marchesani is also not alone in his focus on the social aspect of worship. Campus religious leaders freely admit that their most important task is to get people in the door, no matter their motivation.

“We have dinner after Mass every Sunday night for whoever comes,” said Ed Heatter, a student leader in Campus Catholic Ministries. “The most important thing is that students come to the Catholic center, whether they’re Catholic or not. We won’t try to brainwash them to join or anything, but getting students into this environment can make a lot of difference.”

Not a recent movement

In 1999, when school officials wouldn’t let him light candles in his dorm as part of his worship practice, Louis Florez organized Pursuers of All Things Sacred, a group intended to give Pagan students a community and to serve as a place where they could lobby as one voice.

He no longer attends SMU, but said that his departure had nothing to do with how his beliefs were received on campus. Florez stays in contact with people who helped him get the process started that year.

“I talk to them often,” he said. “They’re a small group, and even though candles are still taboo, they have been accepted on this campus.”

Since Sept. 11, there has been an increased focus in the media concerning spiritual matters. According to what seemed to be conventional wisdom at the time, the tragedies caused many people to look inside themselves for a deeper meaning. But according to “A Generation of Wounded Healers: Glimpses of Student Spiritual Development in the New Millennium,” a paper recently presented to the National Clearinghouse for Leadership Programs at the University of Maryland by SMU chaplain Will Finnin, this trend began long before last fall.

He writes that he and his colleagues in university settings around the country have noticed a groundswell of interest in “things spiritual” in recent years. This movement began before Sept. 11.

“Students bring to campus an interest, more defined than in past generations, in religious expressions outside their own cultural experience,” he wrote.

In his view, many students have a heightened awareness of general spirituality while others still cling strongly to the faith in which they were raised.

This is not solely a college trend. In a February issue of The Chronicle Review, Alan Wolfe wrote an article called “Faith and Diversity in American Religion.” In it, he cited Bradley University professor Robert C. Fuller’s book Spiritual, but Not Religious: Understanding Unchurched America. He wrote that according to Fuller, many of America’s “unchurched” have avoided denominational membership and Sunday worship not because they are atheists, but because their religious beliefs do not take traditionally organized forms. Fuller estimates that roughly 20 percent of Americans today hold such views.

Fuller writes that Americans have long made a distinction between religion and spirituality. The viewed difference is between a bureaucratic and formal method of worship versus an inspiring and individual one, an outlook he says dates back to colonial times with Puritan influences and the spiritual alternatives that developed like transcendentalism.

If Fuller’s 20 percent estimate is true, Wolfe writes that this would make “spiritually inclined” one of America’s largest religious faiths.

Getting back to normal

“On [Sept. 11] I went to the campus prayer vigil like everyone else did and saw a lot of people I hadn’t seen since freshman year,” said Talco-native Jones. “It was nice to see such a variety of people come together like that. I remember seeing a few people I knew praying and thinking that it had probably been a long time for them. But the impression I’ve gotten from friends who are pretty active in their church groups is that that prayer circle was kind of a one time thing for a lot of the people in attendance.”

The college campus is not an isolated example of Sept. 11 not having a lasting effect on spirituality. America has for the most part returned to a level of religious activity familiar to a pre-9/11 world.

According to Barna Research Online, a polling firm that tracks cultural trends and the Christian Church, after the Sept. 11 attacks, religious activity surged. Within two months, however, virtually every spiritual indicator available suggested that things were back to pre-attack levels. The Gallup Poll released similar findings earlier this year, with 57 percent of adults saying that religion was important in their lives, a figure identical to May 2001.

This means that any increased religious activity on the college campus is most likely the effect of a student’s curiosity or openness, not a result of events outside a person’s normal sphere of influence. It can also be cited as an example of established clergy failing to capitalize on whatever feelings might have been brought out by the threat of terrorist attacks.

“I just don’t see that religious groups have done such a great job in helpi
ng society or even keeping their message straight,” said Mark Floyd, a junior business major who considers himself a Christian but hesitates to pin down a specific denomination. “I think that people are often best left to themselves when it comes to worship. When too many people get together with the same idea, especially with religion, things can get carried away.”

According to “A Generation of Wounded Healers,” the desire for structure, or the lack of it, tends to change over the course of an undergraduate’s life.

“Ideology and theology often take back seat priority to issues of affectivity and comfortable ambiance in late adolescence,” Finnin writes.

But as students and their faith outlook mature, they tend to migrate away from group-focused activity in pursuit of more intimate settings. While students are reluctant to identify with a formal religion, they usually do find a way to express their feelings directly and indirectly.

Finding the method of expression that fits each student best ultimately comes down to the individual student. While college is often seen as an opportunity for people to “find themselves,” fluctuating levels of religious activity suggest that the search for faith continues long after graduation.