“A standard-issue elite university with the otherwise stultifying homogeneity of the dominant secular and progressive mentality moderated by New York City, where anything can be found, including intellectually serious forms of Christianity and Judaism. Students involved in Catholic organizations or the Campus Crusade for Christ are more likely to draw a shrug than a cold shoulder. As one student reports, ‘I became more religious during my time [here].’ An opportunity for an excellent education in an urban culture too busy to harass students with serious convictions.”—“Degrees of Faith: A First Things Survey of America’s Colleges and Universities,” First Things, November 2010
Reading the first half of the first sentence, I chuckled at what appeared to be another reflexive bashing of liberals at First Things, a monthly ecumenical journal of “religion and public life.“ It was founded by the late Catholic convert, Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, and though its contributors include Orthodox, Jewish and Protestant viewpoints, it still often reads as a sort of Catholic counterpart to Commentary. Too heavy a dose of this and I start reaching for a copy of the reliably liberal (or, to use the word preferred by adherents, “progressive”) America or Commonweal; then, after awhile, I go back to First Things for relief, then repeat the cycle. (It's always good for the left hand to know what the right one is doing, and vice versa.)
But as I finished this excerpt from this magazine's survey of “the place of religion—or lack thereof—on American college campuses today,” I felt a distinct sense of déjà vu. I was glad to see that not much had changed at my alma mater.
I went through 12 years of Catholic elementary and secondary schools, but my knowledge not merely of religion but also of my own faith deepened while attending Columbia University some three decades ago. The in-depth immersion in the foundation texts of Christianity, as part of the required Contemporary Civilization and Literature Humanities requirements, made me feel, like the anonymous student quoted here, more rather than less religious—certainly an unexpected outcome in this seriously secular institution.
Reading Genesis, Exodus, and the Gospels of Mark and John from end to end, rather than in the short excerpts heard at Mass on Sundays, brought me face to face, as I never had been before, with the unexpected connections—and the surprising differences—among these works. Moreover, the treatment by my professors—close, respectful, but without advocating one faith or another (or, indeed, atheism)—also convinced me that there is a way to educate students about these works without resort to proselytizing.
In this same First Things survey, Columbia places sixth among institutions “least unfriendly to faith among the top secular schools." That sounds like damning with faint praise, but—at least in my time at the school—it was accurate.
Elsewhere in this November issue, Columbia is mentioned again—or, rather, its interdenominational chapel, St. Paul’s, is, in Joseph Bottum’s essay “Mandatory Chapel.” St. Paul’s is listed, along with similar institutions such as Syracuse’s Hendricks Chapel and Pittsburgh’s Heinz Chapel, as being reminiscent of “Jefferson’s Monticello meets the Pantheon, by way, probably, of Latrobe’s 1806 cathedral for Baltimore.” That sounds snarkier than it really is, about a beautiful little spiritual oasis amid a big city and a smaller—but still significant—admittedly secular institution.
Reading the first half of the first sentence, I chuckled at what appeared to be another reflexive bashing of liberals at First Things, a monthly ecumenical journal of “religion and public life.“ It was founded by the late Catholic convert, Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, and though its contributors include Orthodox, Jewish and Protestant viewpoints, it still often reads as a sort of Catholic counterpart to Commentary. Too heavy a dose of this and I start reaching for a copy of the reliably liberal (or, to use the word preferred by adherents, “progressive”) America or Commonweal; then, after awhile, I go back to First Things for relief, then repeat the cycle. (It's always good for the left hand to know what the right one is doing, and vice versa.)
But as I finished this excerpt from this magazine's survey of “the place of religion—or lack thereof—on American college campuses today,” I felt a distinct sense of déjà vu. I was glad to see that not much had changed at my alma mater.
I went through 12 years of Catholic elementary and secondary schools, but my knowledge not merely of religion but also of my own faith deepened while attending Columbia University some three decades ago. The in-depth immersion in the foundation texts of Christianity, as part of the required Contemporary Civilization and Literature Humanities requirements, made me feel, like the anonymous student quoted here, more rather than less religious—certainly an unexpected outcome in this seriously secular institution.
Reading Genesis, Exodus, and the Gospels of Mark and John from end to end, rather than in the short excerpts heard at Mass on Sundays, brought me face to face, as I never had been before, with the unexpected connections—and the surprising differences—among these works. Moreover, the treatment by my professors—close, respectful, but without advocating one faith or another (or, indeed, atheism)—also convinced me that there is a way to educate students about these works without resort to proselytizing.
In this same First Things survey, Columbia places sixth among institutions “least unfriendly to faith among the top secular schools." That sounds like damning with faint praise, but—at least in my time at the school—it was accurate.
Elsewhere in this November issue, Columbia is mentioned again—or, rather, its interdenominational chapel, St. Paul’s, is, in Joseph Bottum’s essay “Mandatory Chapel.” St. Paul’s is listed, along with similar institutions such as Syracuse’s Hendricks Chapel and Pittsburgh’s Heinz Chapel, as being reminiscent of “Jefferson’s Monticello meets the Pantheon, by way, probably, of Latrobe’s 1806 cathedral for Baltimore.” That sounds snarkier than it really is, about a beautiful little spiritual oasis amid a big city and a smaller—but still significant—admittedly secular institution.
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