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Majoring in Religion

The revival of belief among students predates September 11.

Dec 3, 2001, Vol. 7, No. 12 • By COLLEEN CARROLL
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IN THE WEEKS after September 11, religious leaders and media commentators marveled that young Americans were turning to religion in droves. In Manhattan, fewer than two dozen participants were expected at a Rosh Hashana service in TriBeCa; an estimated 400 showed up, most in their 20s and 30s. At Harvard University, overflow crowds packed student Masses, and an interfaith prayer service at the law school drew 300. Officials with Campus Crusade for Christ, an evangelical ministry on some 850 campuses, reported that from the University of Nebraska at Lincoln to the University of California at Berkeley, weekly fellowship meetings were attracting record crowds.

Many observers saw this as a reaction to crisis, the sort of visceral response that subsides when danger fades. But evidence abounds that a growing interest in religion--especially traditional religion--among the young antedates September 11 by several years. It seems to be a trend that springs from deeper roots and thus may prove to be enduring.

Bob Bordone, 29, who lectures at Harvard Law School, has watched student interest in serious faith commitments rise since he started law school there in 1994. Most campus ministers at Harvard, he thinks, send students the message that they should not be "too outspoken" for their particular faith. Yet the preference for orthodoxy has grown, he says.

"It's been student-initiated," Bordone says. "They're the ones who are looking, and most of the campus ministers tend to be more watered down."

A Catholic, Bordone attributes the trend to "a crisis of meaning" among the young. "We inherited that from the '60s generation," he says, "and we want something real."

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