Christianity Sees Shifting Place

When Charles M. Stang ’97, now an assistant professor of early Christian thought at Harvard Divinity School, was at the College, he was “not at all” religious.

But through the course of his undergraduate career as a philosophy concentrator living in Kirkland House, he says he became increasingly spiritual, so much so that he says he “felt called to the life of studying and teaching about religion” by the time he graduated.

And 11 years after finishing college, he joined the HDS faculty and is now teaching up-and-coming ministers and academics about Christian tradition during the third to fifth centuries.

Harvard today plays host to students at both ends of Stang’s own spectrum of religious experience, having departed substantially from its original role as a training ground for Christian clergy to become a place for students to explore religion, or not.

‘GODLESS HARVARD’?

In 1636, Harvard was founded by the Massachusetts Bay Colony “to advance learning and perpetuate it to posterity; dreading to leave an illiterate ministry to the churches, when our present ministers shall lie in the dust.”

Although the University was never formally affiliated with any religious denomination, its original motto was “Veritas Christo et Ecclesiae,” or “Truth for Christ and the Church.” And its 1646 statutes decreed that “every one shall consider the main End of his life and studies, to know God and Jesus Christ which is Eternal Life.”

In this vein, many of Harvard’s early graduates went on to become clergymen in Puritan churches.

“Massachusetts was founded by religious people,” says Jonathan C. Page ’02, the Epps fellow and assistant chaplain at Memorial Church. “Back then, theology was queen of scientists. Therefore anyone who went to Harvard was a leading citizen of the colony—a good theologian.”

But over the course of the next century, Enlightenment ideals, which posed strong critiques against religion, found substantial intellectual support at Harvard, so much so that Puritan minister Cotton Mather, class of 1678, described the school as “godless Harvard.”

In 1886, Harvard became the first college in the United States to remove compulsory morning prayers and chapel under President Charles W. Eliot. And throughout the 19th century, Harvard consistently produced the fewest ministers compared to peer institutions, Page says.

As separate seminary programs began to arise, the role of religion in the undergraduate curriculum became nebulous, and the University began to offer courses in Christianity for college graduates, eventually sparking the creation of the Divinity School in 1816 to encourage a “serious, impartial, and unbiased investigation of Christian truth,” according to its constitution.

MULTI-THEISTIC

Just as the University expanded from its mission of training ministers over the years, so too has the Divinity School broadened its scope.

By the late 20th century, a liberal Christian interpretation had taken hold at the Divinity School, dominating its pedagogy and culture, Stang says.

But now, he says the school has seen an influx of students of the evangelical tradition, diversifying this liberal Christian bent.

“Other Christians have filled in,” he says. “HDS is no longer what it once was. It’s more diverse in its Christianity.”

Moreover, until recently, HDS has placed other faiths “on the fringe,” says Gordon D. Kaufman, a professor emeritus who taught theology from 1963 to 1995.

But while Christianity remains the subject of choice for an overwhelming proportion of the faculty, it is no longer the sole focus of the School, says Professor Janet Gyatso, who teaches Buddhism at HDS.

“I think the mission has been changed, and that it still has a focus,” she says. “The Divinity School is about religion. It’s not necessarily about Christianity.”

She says that non-Western faiths have found a larger place at the school, encouraging a more general study of religion.

“We started to have a critical mass in non-Western religion, as a result of which in the last 10 years, we have changed our curricular structure,” Gyatso says.

“We’re now integrating non-Western religion, and it’s not just because of a greater number of non-Western courses. The whole understanding of religion and how we study it has shifted.”

And in addition to training some students to be Christian ministers—a program that was one of Harvard’s original goals—Gyatso says that the Divinity School is developing a Buddhist ministry curriculum to complement its Christian counterpart.

‘NO CONSENSUS ON HOW TO ORGANIZE RELIGION’

While there does not seem to be an organized place at the College for religion, Memorial Church Minister Peter J. Gomes says it is by no means obsolete.

“Students are more curious now. A girl who sings in Radcliffe chorus who doesn’t know what [a religious song she is singing] means will inquire about it,” Gomes says. “She might take a course, talk to people and pursue it in one way or another.”

But Gomes recognizes that Harvard has evolved religiously from where it started.

“Harvard is a much more diverse place now,” Gomes says. “There is no consensus on how to organize religion.”

And students say that while religion may play a role in students’ lives, it doesn’t tend to govern the day-to-day.

Danni Xie ’12, an economics concentrator and a self-described agnostic, says she doesn’t “think religion plays a large role in your interactions with other people.”

“I have friends who are in religious groups, and in the groups they find people who are similar to them and get the support they need,” she says.

“Though they don’t talk about it, people are religious here, though they keep it personal. They keep it on the low,” says Alexander E. Johnson ’10, a licensed minister and member of SoulFood ministries on campus.

“You have a large variety of people from different religious backgrounds and it’s not very evident when you first get here, but it is something that beneath the surface is certainly the case.”

As to whether religion will disappear from Harvard, Gomes’ answer is simple. “We are still here. We will always be here,” he says.

—Staff writer Jessie J. Jiang can be reached at jiang9@fas.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer Naveen N. Srivatsa can be reached at srivatsa@fas.harvard.edu.