Word: faithful
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...IOP’s recent panel discussion “Challenges to Faith at Harvard” revealed more clearly Harvard’s need for a general religious space on campus. The IOP’s Harvard Political Union astutely recognized the lack of dialogue about religion, and held the event for this reason. As Shankar G. Ramaswamy ’11, chair of the HPU, noted, “We decided to have this event because it’s the type of matter that students might be reluctant to strike up a conversation about, because...
Third, a distinctly religious public discussion space would be an extension of current, albeit incomplete attempts to engage with students’ faith-based identities. Rather than being completely foreign territory, a university-sanctioned, interreligious place of dialogue would be an augmentation of current efforts. Harvard currently organizes a “Reflecting on Your Life” program for first years to see how their “personal values” might affect their desire for a particular “life dream...
...this approach is insufficient. The College needs to recognize sooner or later that many students currently use a distinctively religious vocabulary, with all its metaphysical baggage, to address these same questions. And until the advantages of a faith-based approach to questions outside of students’ career or academic choices can be shown to be inappropriate for some students’ needs, Harvard should not be afraid to foster a distinctively religious dialogue...
Some without a particular faith might eventually want to try religious language, in all its diversity and complexity, on for size, perhaps without reference to a particular faith. These students, situated on the religious spectrum somewhere between agnosticism and a particular belief, should have a non-denominational space in which to voice their beliefs both with fellow students as well as with different religious groups on campus...
This new dialogue could take a number of different forms. One viable solution would be for all Harvard Chaplains to regularly extend invitations to students to ask questions about faith in general. Alternatively, student groups, in the spirit of this semester’s IOP event, could send a representative to a general religious caucus. These meetings would expand the dialogue among religious groups and provide a space in which students could find out more about this fundemental element of human experience...