Religion in the classroom

Editor's Note: This is the final piece in a series discussing the interfaith issues facing BC's administration as the school's population continues to grow and diversify. The topic of this article is the role religion plays in the classroom.

For rising seniors, registration for the final fall semester is just a day away, and competition is stiff, as everyone wants to take those certain classes on their "things to do before I graduate" lists, such as one of the many Capstone courses. Recently, however, another high-demand class has emerged and somewhat unexpectedly found a spot on such lists: Religious Quest.

A core class, Religious Quest was created back in the early 1990s by the theology department in an attempt to diversify the traditional theology core. Available through the comparative theology department, the class teaches Christianity in dialogue with other religions in hopes of raising student awareness and fostering discussion about the similarities between the many diverse faith groups on campus today.

"It's both a way to introduce students to different religions as well as deepen students' understanding of their own," said Catherine Cornille, associate professor of theology and instructor of the Religious Quest class that looks at Christianity alongside Hinduism. Other classes examine Christianity alongside Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and African religions.

Ibrahim Dayib, A&S '09, said his friends convinced him Religious Quest was a class he needed to take before leaving Boston College. As a member of the Muslim Student Association and prominent student advocate for interfaith dialogue, Dayib saw the class as a unique opportunity. Having attended Alnoor Academy, the first Islamic high school in all of New England, he saw attending BC as a chance to continue his own faith while opening his eyes to others.

"I've found there are many similarities (between Christianity and Islam)," Dayib said. "The intrinsic values that make up both faiths transfer over easily - that's one of the reasons I came to BC."

Cornille said this sharing of faiths and spirituality has been a central component of Jesuit tradition since its inception.

"The Jesuit tradition is characterized by openness to finding God, wherever he may manifest himself," Cornille said. "Part of our Catholic identity is to enter into a dialogue with those of different religions and see how truth can be revealed through these faiths."

It has taken time, however, for this concept to be realized on the educational level. Few Jesuit institutions offer such courses preaching religious diversity, and even fewer offer sufficient resources for their non-Catholic students.

BC, however, is a leader among Jesuit universities in its efforts to foster interfaith discourse on campus, and this effort has strengthened recently due to the funding made available through the new Interfaith Initiative started this semester. Cornille said BC was the first Jesuit university to offer a doctoral program in comparative theology, and is currently still only one of three in the United States to do so.

Last weekend, BC's dedication to interfaith dialogue was apparent as the school hosted its sixth annual interfaith conference: "Engaging Particularities VI: New Directions in Comparative Theology, Interreligious Dialogue, Theology of Religions, and Missiology."

Bede Bidlack, member of the Interfaith Initiative and GA&S '13, said the conference discusses various topics specific to improving interfaith education at Jesuit colleges. While the event opens the door for new opportunities to better interreligious dialogue, she said, the struggle has been in transmitting this information to the rest of the BC community outside of the small comparative theology department niche.

"The discussion has been rich," Bidlack said, "but now we need to look at how we can make a mountain out of this small hill. We want to break down the wall between the conference and the greater BC community."

For undergraduates, only a few comparative theology courses are available, and there is no comparative theology major. While the University has taken the historic first step toward interfaith understanding through its doctoal program, beyond the Religious Quest core, very few comparative theology courses are even offered in the undergraduate level.

Part of the problem, Cornille said, is the small number of professors of non-Jesuit and non-Christian backgrounds that BC hires. There is currently only one instructor on staff from each of these faith perspectives: Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism, she said. Cornille also said that the school is currently looking to hire someone with a specialty in East Asian religions, mainly from Chinese and Japanese traditions.

Crossing boundaries

While diversification and openness is the challenge facing BC's theology department, the ongoing battle at any Jesuit or religious-based university often comes from the outside; namely, those that believe faith should play no role in one's secular education.

For many students at BC, faith in the classroom is nothing new; a large portion of the student population attended private Catholic or other faith-based schools growing up. Dayib's Islamic high school, for example, taught science and math directly alongside the Koran and religion, two arenas BC keeps seperate.

But many wonder where the border is drawn at these religious institutions. How big of an influence does a Jesuit's faith have on his ability to teach a history class, or a philosophy class?

Dayib recalled a Chinese history course he took with a Jesuit instructor; he said that the professor's faith did impact his teaching, but not to the point where it generated a bias in the classroom. Using his knowledge of Jesuit history as a supplement, the professor discussed Jesuit influence in China when they first arrived in the east from Western Europe.