Last year, I was born again.
Even though I grew up attending church four times a week in my Anglican middle and high schools, I was not a believer nor a Christian until I came to Claremont. My path to faith was not linear. I am still continuing my journey with Christ while identifying as a non-denominational Christian, attending church and participating in campus-organized Christian groups.
One of the things that I came to realize after my transition into faith is the sharp and concerning disconnect of viewpoints between religious and secular students, especially within the classroom.
Just this semester, during a discussion in my government class on a book about a Christian community in the United States, I was struck by how differently I interpreted the author’s findings compared to my classmates.
Secular students made points about how people joined the church because they sought out community, spiritual and moral guidance and advice on fixing relationships. From my perspective as a Christian, I was surprised because I believed that those same people joined the church not because they were seeking out guidance first, but because they began believing in God, who guided them towards spiritual awakening.
My class was receptive to my views, and their interpretation of the text was not incorrect or a fault of theirs. But the divide in understanding based on our religious standpoints highlighted an issue that is more prevalent in our colleges than we may think.
If our colleges, especially my home institution of Claremont McKenna College, wants to uphold its mission of shaping “responsible leaders,” then our classes ought to bridge the gaps of understanding between the upper class, secular, liberal spaces of our campuses with the rest of the country.
I am not arguing that our colleges or classroom spaces should become religiously affiliated. Only that religious views, not limited to just Christianity, should be respected, valued and explored within the classroom. You do not have to agree with these views or believe in God, but you should care about understanding those who do.
Although our colleges, and the United States as a country, hold no religious affiliations, the majority of America is still overwhelmingly Christian, with the Pew Research Center reporting that 71 percent of American adults identify as Christian. Our campuses do not reflect this religious makeup, with the Princeton Review ranking Pitzer College, Claremont McKenna College and Scripps College as the 10th, 17th and 21st colleges with the least religiously affiliated students in the U.S., respectively.
In many of my other classes during my college career, especially in the humanities, standpoints based on social identities and their influence on one’s epistemic condition have been an accepted concept.
Take, for example, the context of different feminist standpoints based on one’s social position. The experiences of Black women are different from the experiences of white women, and thus, their views on and experiences of feminism will differ because of their lived experiences in light of their race. The same goes for gender, social class and sexual orientation identities. The experiences of different social groups shape their views, which ultimately influence their political and social decisions and actions.
But what about religious identity?
One may argue that religion is a choice, not a biological attribute that cannot be controlled. This view exactly underscores my argument for religious standpoints: It is impossible for secular people to have access to the same experiences as those of believers of God. True faith and commitment to God was not a choice for me; rather it was an undeniable realization that God cannot not exist.
Sure, this was not a genetic quality that I was born with, but what about people who choose to be parents? I think that we can all agree that it is impossible for a person who does not occupy the position of a parent to fully understand what it means to be a parent, and how this identity changes their views and decisions. So social positions and their influence in changing our epistemic conditions do not solely depend on biological factors, but also on different social, familial and religious experiences.
I empathize with non-religious people that this is a difficult concept to understand in light of our experiential and social differences. However, if we have any hope of repairing the politically polarized state of the U.S., then we must try to understand the behaviors and motivators of religious communities, as their experiences through faith are essential to our political and cultural discourse.
To achieve this goal of viewpoint diversity, faculty must ensure that they create a space for students to exercise their right to free speech and create an atmosphere where religious students can share their experiences without judgment.
Professors, secular or religious, also have the responsibility of directing the conversation toward questions of religious views when appropriate and prompting students to consider cultural and political questions through the lens of religion. As occupiers of this social position, we have insider insight and experiential knowledge of how religious beliefs shape social and political behavior, and these experiences hold value in the classroom.
Secondly, non-religious students should take more initiative to understand their religiously affiliated peers and be charitable towards them. You may not agree with their views and have every right to refute them — but respect and tolerance must come first.
Religious people are not a monolith, just like any other social group, and deducting our political views from our religious beliefs is not only incorrect but also a contributor to polarization on campus and in the country as a whole. Instead, why not approach these communities and views that may be foreign to you through a spirit of curiosity? Come to worship with us, visit our Bible study groups, go to a Shabbat dinner, visit the McAlister Center. Just talk to us. I’m sure that any of the religious groups on campus would be delighted to see you.
We all have a responsibility to work to understand views outside of our own. Otherwise, we risk being stuck in an epistemic chamber and losing touch with the very real world outside of Claremont. Introducing and emphasizing religious standpoints in the classroom is not only an important step towards cultural and social diversity on our campuses but also the responsibility of our institutions to prepare their students for life after college. Whatever occupation you may have after graduation, you are bound to interact with religious people who make up the majority of the country that we live in. It is in your interest to understand their viewpoints.
We must work to bridge the gap between our classroom discussions and their application in the real world — and religion has to be a part of this conversation.
Elizaveta (Lisa) Gorelik CM ’25 is from Moscow, Russia. She is hoping that more 5C students, secular or religious, will join her and the Christian group in attending church on Sunday morning.
Facebook Comments