ON GOING TO A CHRISTIAN COLLEGE

As I mentioned earlier in the week, I went to a "Christian" college, naively thinking I would be surrounded by Christians and that I would grow deeply in faith, sheltered from the worldly influences I would find at a "state" school. After all, there would be no drinking, no wild parties, only Bible Studies and church gatherings, right? Well, maybe not so much. Upon my arrival on campus, I found that two of the guys who lived in my quad were on the baseball team, and I'm sure that the Word of God was the farthest thing from their minds. Drinking and women, but not the formation of discipleship.

There was a group of my fellow students who got together each week for what we called "The Bell Ministry". There was a Bell in the center of campus, and we would gather around the bell once a week for Bible Study & Prayer. It was not an official college–sponsored group, but did draw a great many students to it, not only freshmen, but also upperclassmen as well. It was a niche for all of us to bond and fellowship, but in some ways could just have easily been viewed as just another clique. I was involved with the Bell ministry my freshman year, I'm not really sure what happened to it after that.

So, I went on through my college career, going in as a good, devout Southern Baptist. I attended church each Sunday. I attended chapel every Monday, as required by the college. I tried diligently to have my daily "quiet time", to pray, to find God. Yet, along the way, I came to accept the fact that I am gay. I wasn't in the most accepting environment for such a discovery. After all, the student handbook even stated that I could be asked to leave for being a homosexual. Fortunately, while it later became a rather well-known fact that I am gay on campus, the rule was never enforced. I would later learn that I was not the only one on campus struggling with such a self-realization.

Fast forward to four years after my arrival on campus. I've attended Baptist Student Union meetings, Campus Crusade for Christ Meetings, Fellowship of Christian Athletes meetings, various church meetings, conventions, convocations, campus revivals. I had been a member of a touring Contemporary Christian singing group representing the college's admissions office. You name it, in the name of God, I probably did it. I began to notice a shift in my faith. I began to question my beliefs. I was no longer buying into the faith my "Christian college" was trying to spoon feed me. I could no longer reconcile my particular faith with the faith of those seemingly well-meaning Southern Baptists with which I was being surrounded. A week after coming out to my mother, I would leave the Southern Baptist church for good. I chose a large United Methodist church in downtown Knoxville, Tennessee. It was an hour's drive from campus, as well as from my parents' home in a small East Tennessee town, but it was, to me, worth the drive. My spirit was finally being filled. I had been doing so many things to understand who I was, and none of the campus Christian groups or private prayer times or listening to Contemporary Christian Music were able to fill. But now, I was home. I was having a deep and personal connection with God for perhaps the very first time in my life.

I came to discover that I was not the only person experiencing a crisis of faith. We had all come to receive a quality education in what we assumed to be a safe environment, a place that would stimulate our spiritual lives. Instead, for many of us, it was quite the different experience. My roommate and best friend, who was a Music major and religion minor, changed his vantage point entirely. He came in with the aspiration of being a missionary and witness to Mormons. He walked away with a very different ideal of God, and would no longer refer to himself as a Christian. He left with a bitter taste in his mouth for organized religion. He was not alone. Many of our classmates had changed their views to one extreme or another. It seems, from my experience, that the majority of people who go to a Christian college fall into one extreme or another after the experience. They either want nothing whatsoever to do with Christianity or they go completely to the other side of the spectrum and are "Jesus Freaks" who interpret every single passage of scripture as literal and every other word they speak has something to do with Jesus. I believe I've been fortunate in that I have fallen into some sort of middle ground. My five years at the Christian college did, indeed change my faith, and I am closer today to God than I ever was. I began my journey as a Southern Baptist, was a United Methodist in the middle of my journey and finally made the transition to the Roman Catholic church eight years ago.

Here's my confession: My college experience was very much like the movie "Saved". Everything was so much about Jesus that it was as though we were living in a bubble. Once the bubble was shattered, we were able to see through the cracks in theories and form our own faith. It was somewhat like our college experience was an exile from the world at large. I would not trade those experiences for anything in the world, because I think they have helped to form me in the spiritual person I am today. I have, however, wondered, how differently my experience might have been had I gone to a "state" school, or a school not affiliated with a religious group. How would my faith be different today?

My religious views today are very liberal. I feel as though my spiritual life is a tapestry of the traditions of which I've been a part. Having been a Southern Baptist gives me great insight into the scriptures, having been a United Methodist prepared me a love of the liturgy I have come to love and appreciate in Catholicism. As a Southern Baptist, I felt a great degree of self-loathing because of the truths I discovered about myself. However, as a Catholic, I have only heard messages of God's love. I hang on the belief that Christ came to liberate the oppressed, not oppress the liberated. That's what gets me through each day. To me, it's not about debating doctrinal matters or spiritual traditions. I know that God is Love. That is the greatest commandment and message. And nothing else really matters.