From precept to prayer: Religion in the classroom

While religious tolerance is the norm at the University, religious students find that their personal beliefs are sometimes at odds with the secular challenges of the classroom. However, several religious students said that having their faiths challenged in an academic context, whether in a course on Christianity or a lecture on evolution, actually enables them to reexamine — and often reaffirm — their beliefs and the important role they play in academic discourse.

Rahul Subramaniam ’11, a Hindu politics major, said he has found that “many people dismiss religion as being irrational, something that is not befitting a precept.”

He explained that many of his moral beliefs are based on an understanding that certain central ethical ideals, such as the proper treatment of women, are “just right.”

But this ready acceptance of ideals is incompatible with the academic world, where everything must have a concrete justification, he said.

“It seems like in academia, there must be an instrument to something,” he noted. “We sometimes shy away from the direct, obvious reason.”

Despite potential challenges, several students who are actively religious said that discussion of faith in an academic setting was a welcome challenge.

Addie Darling ’12, a comparative literature major and a practicing Catholic, said that she was once assigned to read several articles authored by former Catholics who were critical of their former faith. However, she explained, “That’s a sign of a good, comprehensive education — that you’re questioned on the tenets you hold.”

Sohaib Sultan, the Muslim chaplain on campus, said he believes the academic study of religion is “actually a very necessary approach for students.

“To also be able to get religion through a historical lens, and to be able to think about it more critically, can potentially help in the process of being a more faithful individual,” he explained.

When economics major Jahnabi Barooah ’11 encountered discussions about religion in her classes, she approached them as opportunities to learn more about how other faiths structure their belief systems.

“I don’t want to say that my academia and my religious beliefs are separate,” said Barooah, who is Hindu. “I’m definitely coming across ways of understanding critical moral issues in a very different light, but I’m hoping to learn from it.”

Some echoed Barooah’s point, noting that their religious and intellectual beliefs are so intricately tied that there is little room for distinction between the two.

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“From a Catholic perspective, there’s a unity of truth — faith being compatible with reason,” Brian Stephan ’11 said.

Fellow Catholic Mark Grobaker ’11 agreed, and both remarked that Catholicism places a strong emphasis on intellectual explanations for moral beliefs.

“I could justify [my beliefs] ideally using nonreligious terms,” Stephan said.

Yet religion can also have a more implicit impact on academics.

While Subramaniam said he personally respects what he called “the Western academic emphasis,” he also said that the idea of intellectual property can be hard to understand for some Hindu students who believe that “nobody owns any knowledge — it’s a gift.”

“Yes, you have to generally cite [sources], but it’s hard to be as nitpicky about citations,” he explained.

Hyunmoon Kim ’13, a Christian, said he believed that religion’s influence on academic material is not always acknowledged.

Referring to his experience in PHI 202: Introduction to Moral Philosophy, Kim said, “I think a lot of the ideas that are out there originally came from religion, except only very few of the readings relate to religion.”

He said he wished that classes would discuss religion more pointedly, explaining that “even the ones that do, I don’t feel like address properly the issue.”

Sultan explained that there is a difference between studying religion “in the Sunday-school setting and in the vigorous academic setting,” where religion is studied analytically rather than through narrative.

The study of religion can be addressed outside the classroom as well, Sultan said. “Almost on a daily basis I get inquiries from students [of] other faiths who would like to learn about Islam,” such as “advice about a good book to read or how to approach the Koran,” he explained.

But in cases in which religion and academics do intersect, students said that the overlap did not have a prominent impact at the University.

“Nothing’s ever demanded that I get into a debate or argument or outright disagree with the professor,” said Alex Hwang ’11, president of Princeton Evangelical Fellowship.

Stephen Pollard ’12, a physics major and a member of PEF, voiced similar feelings, relating an experience he had during a genetics discussion in an integrated science course.

“We were talking about how transcription factors in these things ended up working properly, and one of the professors was like, ‘Well, it’s evolution, or whatever you think, but put it together and it works,’ ” Pollard noted.

This is not to say that there have never been controversies over the intersection of religion and academia, one of the most heated being the national debate between evolution and creationism. Despite the prevalence of this conflict, however, Pollard maintained that his science professors have never made religion an issue in class.

For Qin Zhi Lau ’11, that controversy is a non-issue. As a Buddhist, “you don’t care about evolution and stuff like that,” he said.

“Buddha specifically said don’t care about that,” he added, laughing.

In the view of Thomas Carlson GS, a Ph.D. student in the history department, the tension between academia and religion is more prominent among graduate students than it is among undergraduates.

“I have encountered some faculty members and more graduate students who are hostile to religion of any kind, or to Christianity in particular,” he said in an e-mail, contrasting this to the “curious sociological phenomenon” that more undergraduates are involved in religious activities at the University.

“The greatest difficulty for the religious climate on campus is the assumption by certain professors and graduate students that a sufficiently intelligent individual must also be nonreligious, an assumption that is not confirmed by history or present experience,” Carlson said.

But molecular biology and Wilson School professor Lee Silver rejected the idea that students’ religious views affect the way their intellectual capabilities are perceived.

Each year, Silver teaches WWS 320: Human Genetics, Reproduction and Public Policy, which covers material that could be considered religiously controversial.

“We have a day where we cover abortion from a policy perspective,” Silver noted as an example. “People have different views, and some of those views are religiously informed.”

He emphasized, though, that students who enroll in the class do so by choice. “People who take my course know what they’re getting into,” he said. “No one has to take my course.”

Silver maintained that students’ religious views make no difference in his classroom.

“There are students in my course who are religious; there’s no question about that. It’s up to them whether they want to have their faith challenged,” Silver explained. “If someone’s religious, they study the material, they have a certain point of view, it’s not going to have any effect on their grade.”

Though religion may not be a factor in academic performance, students must still find a way to bridge the gulf between their academics and their core beliefs.

Lau, an East Asian studies major who has taken many classes in the religion department, said he has struggled at times to reconcile this divide.

“When you see something as sacred, and you have to approach it from a secular point of view,” he said, “there is inherently going to be a contradiction.”

Despite this conflict, some said that the divide between religion and science is more nuanced.

“It’s very tempting, of course, with the incredible success of physics, [to think] that physics can account for everything,” noted Bobby Marsland ’11, who is a physics major and liturgy chair of the Aquinas Institute, a Catholic group on campus. Yet, he continued, something is “lost” with this viewpoint.

“You’re either claiming that these equations completely describe all of our behavior, or thinking that there’s some Descartes-like solution,” Marsland said. “Your body is made of chemicals, but there’s a soul that drives things.”

This is the last in a three-part series on religious life on campus.