Mariam Shahsavarani | Student Life

The Danforth Center on Religion & Politics brought Professor Mark Jordan to give a lecture on his latest book. He discussed the rhetoric used by Christians to talk about sexuality to a full house.

Jordan’s lecture, held in the Ann W. Olin Women’s Building Formal Lounge, drew a large audience, with staff adding chairs at the last minute and students crammed against each other on long couches, windowsill ledges and the floor.

His presentation centered on the topics of his recently published book, “Recruiting Young Love: How Christians Talk about Homosexuality.”

Students attending the lecture found the topic particularly salient.

“I had previously written a paper or two in high school about Christianity and homosexuality, and one thing I found is there is very little discourse about Christianity that accepts gay people,” sophomore Wolf Smith said.

Jordan guided the audience through a sampling of sources illuminating the evolution of Christianity’s stance on homosexuality.

He said that many churches fear adolescent desire and do not see sexual desire as divine in any way.

According to Jordan, Christianity’s rejection of homosexuality has produced different results throughout history.

In 1964, a magazine shared the story of a gay 16-year-old named Zach. The boy, who consulted multiple pastors, ultimately concluded fearfully that “the church says…God thinks I’m a monster.” At this time, there were no Christian programs for boys like Zach.

Today, Jordan says, boys like Zach may be sent to programs run by groups like Love In Action, a self-described “Christian discipleship ministry” that aims to make homosexual people heterosexual.

He discussed how an analysis of relevant sources reveals how the religion’s view of homosexuality has evolved over time—how, over the past 50 years, clergymen like Troy Perry and John McNeill have carved a role for homosexuals within Christianity.

Both McNeill and Perry struggled to navigate the church as gay men, and both, Jordan said, came to evaluate and redefine traditional Christian notions of homosexuality.

Students thought that Jordan was effective in showing how homosexuality is not inherently incompatible with the Church.

“Jordan helped to clarify how being gay and acting on the impulses is not out of line with the Bible,” Smith said.

Jordan’s speech was part of a lecture series sponsored by Washington University’s John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics. The center hosts a speaker almost weekly.

The John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics, a relatively new addition to campus, was founded in 2010 with a $30 million gift from the Danforth Foundation. It’s intended to encourage intellectual discussions among diverse points of view.

In his speech, Suarez explored the effects that religion has on politics in American society.

His speech, titled “The Holy Vote: The Politics of Faith in America,” followed the subject matter of his 2006 book of the same title. The book, which is composed of a series of essays and anecdotes, investigates the connection between faith and the American political system.

He stressed the importance of understanding and appreciating the relationship between modern politics and religion.

According to Suarez, many political conflicts are grounded in religious norms.

“The economic crisis has taken focus off a lot of issues like abortion and school prayer…but there’s continuing speculation about Islam and America,” Suarez said. “We’re using our religious identity to try and work out ongoing social anxieties, and it’s going to continue.”

According to Suarez, it is important that people are able to respect the nation’s secularity and promote a live-and-let-live social standard, regardless of their personal religious fervor.

“I don’t need my faith to be affirmed or endorsed by having religious statues in public places,” Suarez said. “I don’t feel like America should use specific activities and venues that exclude people.”

Suarez said that the main argument in favor of creating a nationalized religious culture—that it engenders an intrinsic, guiding morality in individuals—is not necessarily true.

“We didn’t need Jehovah to tell Moses to tell us that murder was bad. Morality has a relationship to religion, but it might not be as intimate as religious people think,” Suarez said.

According to Suarez, political candidates should be considered based on their personal merit as opposed to their personal religious views.

Still, he says that personal values of politicians are influential and important for voters to consider.

Suarez cited President George W. Bush as one of the most publicly religious U. S. presidents ever, yet he left his presidency with one of the worst public approval ratings in history.

Ultimately, Suarez said that students should look past the personal dimensions of candidates and focus on the platforms they represent.

“All of this is more complicated than you’ve been told,” Suarez said. “It’s all part of the kind of discernment that you’re going to carry through your life.”

As director of the Center, Griffith will be in charge of recruiting staff, developing an intellectual community and implementing the Center’s programs.

Griffith was selected for her long-term experience with religious scholarship and social issues, as well as her openness to diverse opinions.

“The thing we’ve been most concerned with from the very start is finding leadership that can create a sense of an open community—that is to say, for a wide range of opinions are going to get expressed and treated seriously and respectfully,” said Wayne Fields, director of American Culture Studies and founding director of the Center. “She’s got a wide range both of personal and professional experience with groups across the spectrum of religion and politics.”

Griffith is currently the John A. Bartlett Professor of New England Church History at Harvard University, where she teaches in the divinity school. Prior to her time at Harvard, she was a professor at Princeton University.

University administrators have expressed excitement at Griffith’s arrival.

“I am delighted that Marie Griffith, one of the nation’s top scholars in areas of importance to the John C. Danforth Center on Religion & Politics, has agreed to take on this significant leadership position,” Chancellor Mark Wrighton said in a news release.

According to Fields, it was important for the selection committee to choose a director who would encourage open intellectual conversation.

The John C. Danforth Center for Religion & Politics was founded in 2010 with a $30 million endowment from the Danforth Foundation, a nonprofit organization that grants funds exclusively to the St. Louis region. The Center aims to encourage conversation about the connection between religion and politics by hosting visiting scholars and conferences, and by offering a minor in religion and public life for undergraduates at the University.

“The Danforth Center is unique as a place where scholars, civic and religious leaders and community members can engage in constructive dialogue about key issues related to the interplay of religion and politics in America,” Wrighton said. “Marie will lead the Danforth Center and shape the development of its programs.”

With Griffith on board, the Center will continue to seek faculty hires that complement her aspirations for the program.

“She has the ability to do her own work, but also to recognize the importance of other people doing theirs; and recognizing, too, that the University is connected to the larger culture and the larger society,” Fields said. “I think it’s an extraordinary thing we’re trying to do here.”

Griffith hopes to use the Center to explore the social implications of religion and politics.

“I am honored by this exciting opportunity to delve constructively into the political and religious divisions in our culture,” Griffith said in a press release. “I very much want to sponsor real dialogues and debates among people who hold disparate views but are willing to think deeply together about substantive issues, perhaps even overcome a few stereotypes of other people.”

Griffith is slated to begin the position on July 1.

The center aims to create a community that enables civil discussions on issues of politics and religion. It opened last January after the University received a $30 million endowment for the program from Senator John Danforth and the Danforth Foundation.

Currently, the center offers a course on Religion in the American Presidency, which is being taught by Wayne Fields, a professor of English and the founding director of the Danforth Center.

Its main objective is to encourage everyone, both inside and outside the Washington University community, to better understand one another’s ideas through discussions instead of avoiding these subjects.

Professor Fields said that the Danforth Center seeks to “turn Washington University into a national center for political discourses.” Fields also said that the center will need the support from the student body to achieve that goal.

The center is currently focused on confirming their infrastructure and new director, though the nominee for the director’s position is confidential.

One of the major programs the center will be hosting is the Danforth Dialogue, which will pit two people with opposing views against each other. Instead of butting heads, they will have a “civil discourse on the topic in American religion and politics,” according to Fields.

Another upcoming event will be the panel discussion on the outcome of the November election. The topic that will be discussed is the role of religion in the election.

Gerald Early, director of the Center for Humanities and the University’s Merle Kling Professor of Modern Letters will moderate the panel.

The following people have been scheduled to participate: Shaun Casey, Democratic political advisor, associate professor of Christian ethics at Wesley Theological Seminary and author of “The Making of a Catholic President”; Melissa Rogers, director of the Wake Forest University Divinity School’s Center for Religion and Public Affairs, former general counsel for the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, and former chair of President Obama’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships; Michael Cromartie, vice president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, and director of Evangelicals in Civic Life and Religion & the Media programs.

Another objective of the Center is the creation of the National Advisory Group to understand and shape the American public agenda.

The group will be composed of two members involved with politics, two members involved with religious organizations, two journalists, two academic scholars, the director of the Danforth Center and several others. Every year, the group will select and replace most of its members.

Other parts of the endowment will go toward programming and also toward a journal, which will be published mainly in the electronic form.

I’ve always shied away from politics. I like to stay informed, but I don’t like to argue with people about whether or not this senator is right or that proposition is wrong. With the recent passing of the health care bill, I’ve started to question whether or not a natural aversion to politics is good or bad.

No one cares how I was brought up, but I think you should know anyway. I was always told never to talk about two things at the dinner table: religion and politics. I really do think that lesson stuck with me. Whenever either is brought up, I quietly remove myself from the conversation. It’s not an aversion to debate. I’ll argue with anyone, even my dog. It’s possible that my distance from politics comes from an inherent doubt that my knowledge of current policy is comprehensive and well rounded, but then again I doubt that Glenn Beck cares whether what he’s saying has any relevance at all. Granted, I find it difficult to make time to sit down and sift through political issues, and happen to think much of what is argued about is arbitrary. Lack of knowledge doesn’t really apply to religion either, so I don’t think that’s at the heart of my distaste for these discussions. It probably stems from a basic inability to prove anything in these arguments, coupled with the strong likelihood that you will inevitably offend someone or piss them off.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels this way, so should we feel bad about our cowardice in the face of politics? I don’t think we should. An apolitical society, no doubt, would be chaotic; however, removing yourself from discussion, at least the verbal end doesn’t require you to remove yourself from the process.

Personally, I think one of the best moves you can make is to keep yourself informed, listen to the experts, formulate an opinion, vote and keep your mouth shut. I realize the irony of the “keep your mouth shut” advice, given that it’s coming from a columnist who asks you to care about what comes out of his mouth once a week, but forgive me for the hypocrisy.

Disinterest is most certainly a bad characteristic to have, and I’m not advocating for that at all. Nor do I think that political debate among friends should be banished either. It is often stimulating conversation, but it should be saved for appropriate times and for appropriate venues.

If you’re really starving for political deliberation, tune into any news channel. There are enough bloviating nut jobs on TV to satisfy even the most cavernous of political appetites. Then, you can scream at the TV; it’s often more satisfying than screaming at a real person. There’s none of that terrible guilt that comes after you realize you probably shouldn’t have called your friend a Rush Limbaugh-worshipping right-wing neo-Nazi sack of c—, or leftist hippy environmentalist know-nothing self-righteous d—. (See how I offended both sides there; I’m a politician in the making, equal insults for all!)

When all is said and done, there’s really no reason to foist your political opinion on anyone. If you don’t like to shout your party colors from the top of a mountain, then don’t, and don’t feel inadequate about it.

Charlie is a sophomore in Arts & Sciences. He can be reached via e-mail at chlow@wustl.edu.

Becky Zhao | Student Life

On the Sunday before Thanksgiving, some of my suitemates and I headed to the Gargoyle for what we thought was an interfaith dinner. Turns out it was a dinner for Intervarsity, an on-campus Christian fellowship…oops.

Nevertheless, the event organizers welcomed us and treated us to a nice, free dinner for which I was thankful, and my table managed to create good conversation about religion, giving thanks and the fractal dimension of cauliflower. But despite the good time, I left feeling a little uneasy because of comments made at the beginning of the event. The dinner’s primary organizer, a minister, spoke before the meal about prayer, and he acknowledged that several in attendance probably were not Christian. He encouraged them to nonetheless consider praying.

I respect the minister and his devotion to Christianity, but his suggestion that being non-Christian somehow means you don’t pray was absurd. Prayer is common to plenty of faiths. I personally have never been a Christian and might never become one, but I have prayed and will pray. True, it may have been just a slip of the tongue, and the minister likely meant to ask nonbelievers to consider praying. But what was said was said—and it bothered me because of the way it divided the audience. We weren’t students or friends, but rather Christians and non-Christians, alleged prayers and non-prayers.

Religious beliefs shouldn’t be used to separate or sequester. To admittedly oversimplify, I view religion as a bit like eye color. It is a significant characteristic that contributes to your identity but shouldn’t negatively affect your relations with others. Sadly, I find it sometimes does. In South Asia, we have Hindus against Muslims like whites against blacks. In the Middle East (and elsewhere), it’s Jews vs. Muslims vs. Christians. I would argue that religion today has become what skin color was and still is: divisive. In fact, I acknowledge that religion has historically divided humans (see: the Crusades). But is division really the goal of religion?

Religion is an individual perspective, a lens through which to view the world and its inscrutable quirks. Religion often functions as a means of tackling questions nature cannot answer—questions of morality, life after death, etc.—and different faiths usually come up with strikingly similar answers. For example, halal and kashrut—Islam’s and Judaism’s dietary laws—have much in common. When explaining my own faith of Zoroastrianism, I emphasize the parallels it has with other religions: one God and prophet, the importance of good words and deeds, and heaven and hell. And yes, Zoroastrians pray too. Clearly, common ground exists.

As students at one of the nation’s best universities, we probably spend more time considering strong coffee and finals than the Almighty and prayer. On top of this, I feel that the student body’s diversity—evident in the numerous religious backgrounds or lack thereof on campus—makes the state of religion at Wash. U. rather fuzzy. Yet regardless of your beliefs, I encourage you to appreciate religion and the role it may play in your life and identity, but not to allow it to become a barrier. That’s not what religion is about.

Pluralism Week will start off on Monday with a panel of rabbis to discuss Judaism and the differences between its sects. Tuesday will include an event hosted by the Catholic Student Center (CSC). In addition, Luke Timothy Johnson will give a lecture titled “The Creed: What Christians Believe and Why It Matters.” Wednesday will feature a talk on Islam. Idan Raichel, an Israeli music artist, will perform on Thursday.

This is the first year religious groups have come together for Pluralism Week. Sophomore Hannah Rabinowitz, the organizer of the week, plans to continue the concept into the future.

Rabinowitz started Pluralism Week to educate the University’s campus about different religions.

“The goal is to really educate Wash. U.’s campus in general but also people who are involved in specific religious culture and life on campus [and] to expose people to the cultures of other religions,” Rabinowitz said.

Sophomore Kelly Diabagate, the Muslim Student Association’s (MSA) coordinator of Pluralism Week, wants students to learn more about Islam.

“I want students to learn that Islam is not so different than other religions,” Diabagate said. “We hold the same values and especially when it comes to Judaism and Catholicism, we all have the same roots.”

Another aspect of Pluralism Week is that many different religious groups are working together on campus. According to participants, there have previously been few coordinated activities between the different groups. The planning for the week has involved the Jewish Student Union (JSU), Atma, MSA and the CSC.

More programs will be coordinated by JSU and MSA in the future after this week of activities, according to Rabinowitz.

Rabinowitz said she first wanted to start Pluralism Week to increase religious dialogue on campus.

“Hopefully it will create a more inclusive environment and an environment where there’s more understanding and where people are more comfortable talking about religious issues with one another,” Rabinowitz said.

Diabagate agreed with Rabinowitz.

“I also hope that students will learn that only through respecting each other can we ever achieve some type of peace in the world,” Diabagate said.

Other students said they think that the topic of religious pluralism is not as noticeable as it could be on campus.

“I wouldn’t say there’s not an open dialogue, but I definitely think there is not as much effort put into discussing religious diversity as racial or cultural diversity,” sophomore Catie Gainor said.

Gainor added that she believes students do not discuss their individual religions often.

“I don’t think anyone feels like they can’t talk about their religion, but I don’t think anyone feels especially encouraged to do so either,” Gainor said.

Sophomore Ingold Huang said he also felt that students do not spend much time creating an open religious dialogue on campus.

“It seems to me that…students at Wash. U. in general would be interested in an occasional discussion about religion, faith and philosophy about life, death and an afterlife, but most Wash. U. students are really busy with their studies…and tend to be more interested in finding their careers rather than pondering the mysteries of life and death,” Huang said.

Many students also mention that they know plenty about the monotheistic religions but are lacking knowledge about many polytheistic Eastern religions.

“I feel I know a bit about Judaism since Wash. U. has a populous Jewish community, but otherwise I do not really know that much about other religions,” sophomore Will Stock said.

Rabinowitz said she believes that Pluralism Week is already making a difference.

“[Since future coordinated programming has been discussed,] it’s already opening that dialogue a lot more than it was before we started organizing this event,” Rabinowitz said.

Pluralism Week will conclude with an Interfaith Shabbat Service, a trip to a Hindu temple and mass at the CSC over the weekend.

Though I grew up in a discourse that included them, these impositions of religion on political views have struck me as increasingly absurd in the course of my two-plus years at Wash. U. Rational, classically-liberal notions—the utilitarian benefits of stem-cell research, the Lockean justification for the separation of church and state—have by now been ingrained in my ethos to such a degree that I am frequently tempted to regard them as universally correct. I am now convinced that any rational person would arrive at the notion that the morality dictated by religion has no place in our legislative actions—that any subjective morality about which reasonable people can disagree should not be written into law.

The free exchange of rational ideas toward ideal ends is, by definition, what higher education consists of. We inhabit a classroom environment of pervasive rationality, a place where consensus based on reason drives our views of the world. We have the tendency, I think, to believe that this consensus is the consensus, that a University-driven view of the world is legitimized simply by the intelligence of its derivation.

The problem with this environment is that rational conceptions of the moral and political world are not, in fact, universal. We forget, living here, that people are sometimes driven by something other than reason—that emotion and religiously-derived morality are often viewed as valid means of establishing one’s political compass.

It takes engaging with those who do not inhabit academia to realize this. Two summers ago, I volunteered in a phone bank for Jay Nixon’s gubernatorial campaign. The task entailed calling a variety of districts across Missouri, and when asked whether they planned on voting Democrat in the upcoming election, more than a few people responded—in no uncertain terms—that they could not vote for a party that did not support their God.

Views such as those rarely enter into the classroom, and we suffer from keeping in mind only what is in sight. Recently, Saint Louis University disinvited controversial pundit David Horowitz from speaking at an event sponsored by their College Republicans. To me, SLU’s revoking of Horowitz’s invitation is a travesty, not because I support Horowitz’s accusations of Islamo-fascism nor because I want to get behind his contention that women’s studies is not valid as a discipline, but precisely because I disagree with him. Horowitz’s ethos is fundamentally distinct from my own, and his views—which I think can be safely termed “radical”—are a reminder that a careful, academic consideration of all sides and an attempted empirical objectivity in policymaking are not the go-to approaches of the world.

This becomes especially pertinent in light of last weekend’s W.I.L.D. and the crowd’s seemingly-uncontested support for the Right Side of History. Though the implications of a movement toward equal rights for LGBT individuals strike many of us as obviously positive, and the support for such a policy initiative comes easily on this campus, we must remember that this backing is not unequivocally felt across the state or the country. It is precisely within this rupture, this disconnect in ethos, that there is work for us as University students—residents of a rationality-saturated environment—to accomplish. To properly employ the lessons of the classroom, we must engage in dialogue with those whose considerations, backgrounds and motivations differ from our own.

On multiple occasions I have fielded the complaint that we who study the humanities and social sciences are in college at the absolute wrong time in our lives—that we would be better suited to analyze literature having lived the experiences of which it tells, that it would be more worthwhile to examine the political and economic world having already worked as cogs within it. I think that this is true, but I would like to expand the idea. I think sometimes the university environment itself leads us to believe that rationality exists outside of us and does not lie within us, that we need not yet critique the world around us.

To not make tangible use of the rationality that a university setting imparts to us is a travesty. To disavow our well-financed human capital—to stray away from developing the powers of persuasion that can convince others of our perspectives—is equally shameful. The lessons of academia are void if not applied, and we must venture outside of the bubble to apply them.

The Washington University League of Freethinkers (WULF), brought back last semester by now-seniors Eddy Lazzarin, Mark Povich and Laura Kelly, is gathering members and working toward official recognition as a Student Union group.

WULF’s reorganization reflects a rising number of secular humanist student groups on college campuses across the nation.

The Secular Student Alliance (SSA), a national organization that supports humanist student movements, announced in a recent press release an increase in secular student associations. The SSA cites a 2009 Labor Day count of 159 campus-affiliated groups—up from 100 last year and almost doubling the count from 2007, which consisted of 80 groups.

WULF was founded several years ago by University alumnus D.J. Grothe, now vice president and director of outreach programs for the secular nonprofit organization Center for Inquiry, which supports the new generation of WULF.

“When I was a freshman, there wasn’t really any place to discuss these things—except if you are actually religious and went to a religious group,” Kelly said.

Increased attention in the media recently has made secularism a more commonly discussed topic around campus, according to Kelly. Two years ago, another student group focused on the discussion of science and religion sprang up. This group inspired Kelly, Povich and Lazzarin to look into initiating a group of their own specifically geared toward secularism.

When the three heard on Grothe’s podcast “Point of Inquiry” that the Center for Inquiry offers support for student groups, they decided to contact the organization.

Aid came in the form of a box full of fliers and pamphlets. Soon enough, WULF began to hold meetings to gauge interest from the student body. The three founding members called on friends from the philosophy department who shared their interests, they and used Facebook as a tool to find potential members.

“I was Facebook friends with another freshman who was humanist and then Eddy must have heard about me and friended me,” said freshman Derek Sun, who just joined WULF for its first meeting this year. “I was looking for clubs that interested me. Eddy invited me way before school started and I decided, ‘I’ll give this a shot.’”

The number of students in attendance at the meetings has been growing since the group’s formation last year.

“Every meeting there have been more,” Lazzarin said. “The first meeting [last year] I’d say there were probably 15, second meeting there were like 20, third meeting about 25 people. And if we do the stuff that we want to do—go to Skepticon 2, do the community service that we want, get an opportunity to go tabling—it can’t do any more but grow.”

Last Wednesday, 21 students gathered in a philosophy classroom for the first WULF meeting of the semester to hash out plans for the group. Getting the group’s message out played a key role during the hour.

“I personally think there’s a lurking humanist population on campus,” Lazzarin said.

To bring WULF out of the woodwork, Lazzarin considered setting up a “de-baptism” table on campus. The table would call on doubting students to declare their skepticism of religious belief by being squirted with a water gun or—as one member suggested—dunked in an inflatable kiddie pool. Joking in response to the suggestion, Lazzarin said he didn’t “want this to be the Inquisition or anything.”

Another item on the meeting’s agenda was the idea that later in the year the group could adopt the theme “An Atheist Loves You,” with the aim of dispelling some of the stigmas that can surround atheists.

“It’s like that Woody Allen joke,” Lazzarin said. “He tells his mom he’s an atheist and his mom is like ‘Woody, an atheist? You don’t have to believe in God, but do you have to be an atheist?’”

While activism is a draw for many of WULF’s members, some are looking for a community similar to the kinds found in church or religious gatherings, Kelly said. Kelly cites secular fellowships as a growing trend among atheists nationally.

Sun said he believes the predominance in number of religious groups on campus calls for the formation of a group specifically for atheists and non-theists.

“[Atheists and non-theists] deserve a group of their own to voice their own concerns about the role religion has in our government and in education,” he said.

In Lazzarin’s opinion, students are joining WULF for a wide variety of reasons.

“What attracts people to the group can really range from downright frustration with religious dogmatism all the way to curiosity to meet people with the same beliefs,” he said. “I’d be lying if I didn’t say there were some people who were like, ‘My God, I’m sick of crazy religious people.’ I mean, there are definitely those.”

At the moment, the fact that WULF is not formally recognized by SU poses problems for the budding organization, such as difficulty in getting funds to attend conferences and bringing in guest lecturers. The Center for Inquiry, however, has offered to help contact and even fund speakers.

“It just makes it hard when you don’t have money or a space. Fortunately, thanks to the philosophy department, we have space,” Lazzarin said, laughing. “And thanks to my parents, we have money.”

Perhaps this rise has to do with the need we all have for guidance, for coaching in the often complicated and painful world of relationships—arguably the most important “school” at Wash. U. We at the CSC define our work at Wash. U. to be at the service of helping all students become more capable of giving and receiving love. That is for us the essence of God, the essence of life itself.

Campus ministry can be a place to go with your broken and blessed lives, to believe in something bigger than a me-centered life—some horizon against which every day can be lived out, a place where your own personal story and the Great Story can connect and lead to transformation. A place to help us remember we are not alone. And a place to honor the desire many feel to worship, to give thanks, to pray.

From my perch across Forsyth for the last 18 years, I have seen that being religious at Wash. U. can be a source of great consternation and great creativity, and my observations have given me great hope for the future of religion in the world. It is religious illiteracy that hurts people and can be dangerous to the common good. Campus ministries at Wash. U. work hard to encourage greater understanding of one another. Together, we seek to model the dialogue that will always lead to the truth, the truth I trust will set us free.

If religious groups are to succeed at Wash. U., it will be because they respect all students as they come, of any faith or none. It will be because our faiths are open and engaging and willing to be challenged, calling us beyond ourselves and our own agendas.

Can the practice of faith help us, then, during our years here? Clearly, yes. Because it will challenge all of us to be less selfish, because it will lead us to be better citizens of the world. It will encourage us to step back and ask the Big Questions like “What am I going to do with my life?” and “How can I contribute?” and “What is my personal and our civic morality?” and questions like “What is the relationship between wealth and success and happiness?” The practice of spirituality can, undoubtedly, invigorate our education.