This weekend, my Vietnamese roommate taught the third floor of Anderson how to properly bring in the lunar Year of the Rat. As she passed around a bowl of colorful candy, a friend reluctantly declined. “Sorry, I gave up desserts for Lent,” she said. A minute later, the floor was explaining to my roommate the meaning of Lent. My Vietnamese friend smiled and said, “Oh, so it’s a Christian holiday!” which immediately got frowns from the Protestant of the hall.
“No, not all Christians celebrate Lent,” he explained. My roommate nodded, the issue settled, and we went back to our discussion of the god that lives in the Vietnamese kitchen. It was truly a day of religious diversity.
Religion and cultural acceptance are one of those infamous “lessons you learn outside the classroom.” Many students grew up practicing the religion of their parents and adopting their friends’ and classmates’ beliefs. They may have had little exposure to traditions radically different from their own.
Having doubts about religion may be especially hard for students who have little exposure to other beliefs. College is a time for growth, for gaining new perceptions and insights on the world, for settling into beliefs that will eventually guide us in picking spouses and raising families. I hope you’re properly daunted by that last part. Religion, or even the lack thereof, is a huge deal and we need as much exposure as we can get to enough beliefs to make accurate decisions.
Even those who have no desire to convert and are content with their religion have so much to learn from a religiously diverse campus. Buddhists can teach purity of mind, while Christians value repentance, and Jews seek to emulate God through kind deeds. Atheists teach us to think everything through, and Islam literally means peace. People of different religions remind us the values we take for granted may not be emphasized by others. We are taught how to look at the world through a different lens.
Religious diversity should be celebrated on campus. New perceptions and ideas are essential to our liberal arts education. Whitman is enriched by clubs that offer spiritual guidance and promote diversity on campus. Religious differences force us to face backgrounds different from our own. They are a valuable reminder that we share the world with many diverse cultures.
When we wrote those college essays for Whitman claiming that we can add diversity to the campus, many students wrote about their religious pasts. Varieties in religion are similar to varieties in cultural and ethnic backgrounds because they represent different ways of thinking. Exposing ourselves to them can only aid us in our development.
