MIT's Burgeoning Faithful

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Uniqueness and Diversity: Values in Conflict
Building W11, MIT's Religious Activities Center, is located on the corner of Massachusetts Avenue and Amherst Alley, just a stone's throw from the MIT Chapel. From the outside, the beige structure doesn't look like much at all, but inside the casual observer will find the physical embodiment of the many nuances of MIT's religious life.

Immediately on the right is the Muslim prayer room, with one door marked as the women's entrance, the other the men's. A curtain separates the two sections, and students deposit their shoes on a rack before they enter to lay down their prayer mats. Inside, the murmurs of prayer are accompanied by the tiled echo of splashing water from the foot-washing room. Down the hall is the Jewish prayer room.

Downstairs, the chaplains' offices surround a common area, facilitating casual and incidental contact among the various faith groups. Standing in the center of the common area, one can turn in a half-circle and easily make eye contact with all of the chaplains—or almost all of them. The offices for the evangelicals are down the corridor and off to the side. None of the chaplains appears to interpret this placement as anything other than a logistical accident. Nevertheless, the setup is eerily symbolic: if there is any sort of religious divide on campus, it is not between different religions but rather between the conservative and dogmatic interpretations of faith, on the one hand, and the progressive or liberal expressions of it, on the other.

Many might expect to find the greatest contention between the Jewish and Muslim communities. However, the opposite is true. According to Suheil Laher, MIT's Muslim chaplain, shortly after September 11 the Islamic students began hosting an interfaith Ramadan dinner for the MIT community. The now-annual event drew about 600 attendees in 2004. Fewer than 200 were Muslims. What's more, the hosts provide a kosher menu. "To know that in this day and age, with these headlines, that there's an Islamic group who makes sure that they have kosher food at an event is a wonderful thing," says chaplain Rabbi Ben Lanckton.

In fact, the chaplains are positively ebullient when the discussion of interfaith dialogue comes up. The mood sours, however, when the conversation veers toward the relationship between evangelical Christian groups and liberal mainline Christian groups.

Angelin Baskaran '07, one of the student leaders in Campus Crusade, believes that the mainline Christians could be helping to undermine much of what she and her peers are trying to accomplish. Many of these mainline groups, she says, emphasize the compatibility of all world religions, which she believes makes it difficult for her group to communicate what she calls the "uniqueness" of the gospel.

Many religious leaders on campus clearly find this tension to be uncomfortable and asked not to be quoted by name on the topic. One liberal chaplain, for example, finds it disturbing that some conservative Christians tend to present  answers in sound bites. "I personally can't tell you my views on the Bible or Jesus Christ in sound-bite fashion. If I do, I feel like I'm selling something." And one of the Jewish chaplains takes offense when some evangelicals (mostly outside groups) describe Jews who convert to Christianity as "completed Jews." "The implication is that I, therefore, am an incomplete Jew."

This sort of tension is exacerbated by the desire of conservative Christian groups to evangelize the campus. For instance, Campus Crusade's mission statement reads, "Our goal for this decade is to help give every man, woman, and child in the entire world an opportunity to find new life in Jesus Christ."

Being so candid about such a message poses a clear challenge to the larger community, and the matter is complicated by the fact that all MIT chaplains have to sign a statement that outlines the manner in which proselytizing is to be conducted on campus. According to Ford, "In everything we do, we're aboveboard, and we understand that no means no."

One reason for the discomfort between evangelicals and mainline Christian groups may be fundamentally conflicting definitions of religion. For many, religion means a combination of cultural and spiritual traditions and practices, which often involves a particular ethnic narrative. For evangelicals, religious truth is divine revelation and nothing else.