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I’m embarrassed to admit that although I’m 20 years old, I know next to nothing about the western world’s largest religion— Christianity.
There was so much I wanted to learn; from technical questions about what goes on at a church service to why students still choose to go to church in college. I wanted to talk to students who were committed to their religion, those who believed until they stepped onto the University of Colorado campus, and everyone who worships in between.
As a child, my parents forced me to attend religious school and services with them each week until I had my bat mitzvah, or coming-of-age ceremony, at 12 years old. After that, I attended services only when family were going, partly because I wanted to go, but also because I thought my parents expected it.
Not surprisingly, I found that my Christian peers had similar experiences when it came to going to church every Sunday with their families.
Jackie Furbacher, a 20-year-old junior biochemistry major, said that although her parents didn’t force her to go to church on Sundays, it was expected.
“I can tell you that I don’t think my mom wanted me to go because of my faith as much as because she didn’t want to have the daughter that wasn’t going to church on Sunday with her family,” Furbacher said.
She said she thinks most parents force their children to go to church because it’s a traditional social norm in religious households.
Nicola Cratty, a 19-year-old sophomore psychology and international affairs major, said she started going to church about three times a month in high school because she was interested in learning about Christianity.
In college, Cratty said she wanted to continue to devote time to “deepening and building my relationship with [Jesus Christ]” so she joined the only Christian sorority, Alpha Delta Chi. She also decided to attend the Cavalry Bible Church service every Sunday and is involved with The Annex, a non-denominational Christian group for college and graduate students.
Megan Beranek, a 19-year-old sophomore psychology and sociology major, said she joins a wide variety of students when The Annex does a sermon and reads from the Bible on Tuesdays and holds a small group discussion about faith on Sundays.
After going to The Annex once last year, 19-year-old sophomore marketing major Leslie Barnes said the extreme level of devoutness dissuaded her from returning.
“I wanted to go because I grew up going to church, and I thought maybe it might be good to get involved with something out here but it kind of deterred me,” Barnes said. “It just seemed like everyone was way over the top … [and] I haven’t really found anything that’s inspired me out here.”
Some students said they have completely changed their views on Christianity.
Hunter Harrison, a 20-year-old junior philosophy major, said he went to church for religious reasons as a child, but started questioning his faith during his teenage years. During his junior year in high school, Harrison began studying philosophical arguments that demonstrated God doesn’t exist; he said he became an atheist soon after.
“I don’t understand why there is this big mystery about it,” Harrison said. “If God wants us to get into heaven and we have to know about him, why can’t he just let us know if he exists and then let us in?”
He said he thinks it isn’t logical for God to expect a person to discard his decision-making ability in order to believe in religion.
“I think that a lot of people believe in religion as kind of a default—unless you give them very strong reasons not to,” he said.
Despite the fact that I recognize different levels of religiousness in Judaism, I never really noticed this divide in Christianity until talking to my peers. In my quest to learn more about the religion, I realized that my previous belief that Christians practiced their faith more or less the same way was entirely wrong.
At the end of my discussions with each of my peers, I always asked the same difficult, burning question that made each student stop and think about how to answer.
“Why do you think it’s important for other students go to church?” I asked.
While they didn’t all necessarily agree other students should go to church, a majority of the students I spoke with did share Cratty’s sentiment when she said it’s a personal decision.
She said, “Even if I believe you should try and pursue God in your life, you have to take it well and easy at your own pace.”
Contact CU Independent Contributor Mindy Rappoport at Mindy.rappoport@colorado.edu.
