Paul Brandeis Raushenbush is an ordained Baptist minister who also serves as the Huffington Post’s “Executive Editor Of Global Spirituality and Religion”. (He was previously Dean of Religious Life at Princeton University). In a new piece at PuffHo, “7 Reasons to hang out with your college chaplain (even if you’re not religious)“, he lays out his rationale for why all students, including nonbelievers, should, as he urges, “run not walk to your college chaplain’s office.” Here are his reasons (indented) and my off-the-cuff reactions:
1. Chaplains are interested in the big questions.
While college chaplains may at one point have been involved in the business of providing answers to the big questions, today most view it as their responsibility to provide provocative and open forums where students are able to grapple with the questions that are at the heart of a liberal arts education such as: Who am I? What kind of life do I want to live? What do I believe? How will I contribute to this world? These conversations are held in a non-graded space so it is ok, and expected not to know all the answers.
Well, you can also take a philosophy class (or talk to a philosophy professor) in which the Big Questions can be discussed without any reference to the unevidenced supernatural. Now I’m sure that some college chaplains have training in psychological counseling, and perhaps some also have training in philosophy or the history of philosophy. Further, I’m sure others aren’t the least bit interested in proselytizing or giving you answers that comport with their own faith. But I’d recommend discussing these issues instead with your fellow students, from whom you can learn much about life. And why not talk to the heads of (or members of) the local humanist and secular groups?
2. Chaplains have your back.
Spending time getting to know the chaplain, and letting the chaplain know you can be of immense help during the twists and turns of an education. There may be times when you just need someone with who you can talk to without fear that it will go beyond the two of you.
So can counselors and therapists, who are also required to maintain confidentiality. Virtually every American college has them on staff.
3. Chaplains go on fantastic trips.
This will depend from college to college but often the university chaplain has budget for trips for community service as well as spiritual exploration.
The “spiritual exploration” will no doubt involve trips to religious sites. As for “social justice work” and community service, see #7 below. But, if you just want a free trip to the Holy Land, well, go for it. . .
4. There is always food.
Yeah, pretty much always a place to get bagels, cookies, candy etc. It’s like a 7-Eleven in there.
Seriously?
5. It’s a place of peace.
Sometimes chaplains have inherited a beautiful chapel that they have opened up to be a special place on the hectic campus where you can go and sit, breath and reflect — and where nobody will bother you.
Indeed, but you don’t need to talk to the chaplain to go sit in a chapel. After I was brutally strip-searched in 1972 by the Guardia Civil in the Sagrada Familia church in Barcelona (they mistakenly took me for a thief), I was so shaken that I walked to the Gothic cathedral nearby and sat in a pew for an hour to compose myself. I didn’t need to speak to a priest.
6. Chaplains can help you understand your roommates.
There are three questions that I emphasized during my time as a college chaplain: What do you believe? What does your roommate believe? How will your beliefs influence your actions?
Why would they help you understand your roommates better than anyone else could?
7. Chaplain offices are often a locus for social justice work.
If you are looking for a way to make a positive difference in the world, your chaplain’s office is often one of the most active locations for service organizations and social justice groups.
Perhaps, but colleges usually have a panoply of secular groups dedicated to helping the poor, the marginalized, and the dispossessed.
In the end, nearly all the issues above apply not just to students, but to everyone. Why wouldn’t Rausenbush urge everyone to go to a minister, priest or rabbi, whether or not they’re in college?
Below is Raushenbush on HuffPo live explaining why chaplains can immensely enrich your college experience by being “challenging: intellectually, emotionally, spiritually, intellectually in the best way.” Click on the screenshot if you want to hear more.
Now don’t get me wrong: insofar as they can serve as counselors or empathic figures, chaplains might sometimes be helpful. But since there are others who are actually trained to do that stuff, do you really need the religious overtones?
When I was in college I went to the chaplain exactly once: when I was trying to get conscientious objector status (CO) in the military draft. Had I not gotten that status, I had resolved to go to jail rather than fight in Vietnam or serve in the army. (One of my friends, more of a purist than I, refused to even seek CO status and wound up in prison, where he had a rough time.)
At the time there was a religious-objection requirement for CO status, though the draft board could waive that on rare occasions when one’s objections to war were sufficiently philosophical to be seen as almost religious. But I was told that letters from credentialed religious people would help. So I went to the chaplain at William and Mary and laid out for him the reasons I was opposed to war—none of them religious. (I had already written a long paper for a philosophy class justifying my pacifism.)
The chaplain was sufficiently helpful to write me a letter. I also obtained letters from my father (an Army officer) and other military men who testified that they knew I had a sincere objection to killing. Those letters (and my term paper) were enough to get me my status without even having to be grilled by the Virginia draft board in Newport News. I then worked for 13 months as a hospital technician—my alternative service job.
A coda: Having realized that I and 2500 other COs were drafted into service illegally (I was a draft counselor and knew the law), I went to the ACLU and initiated a class-action suit against the government: Coyne et al. v. Nixon et al. What sweet words those were! The government had acted illegally by drafting conscientious objectors into alternative service but didn’t draft anyone into the army after 1972. We won in a half-hour hearing, and were all freed from service.
So yes, the chaplain was helpful, but only because the testimony of a religious figure was given special weight by the Selective Service.
I didn’t think my respect for Dr. Coyne could get any greater. I was wrong.
Ditto. Sub.
The religious figures that I have had personal contact with were all ill-equipped to deal with the “big questions” and didn’t really have any interest.
When your answer to The Big Questions is God, your imagination is limited.
Yet, their answer is ironically imaginary.
I was just thinking of that in regards Jerry’s advice to see the humanist and secular groups, they may actually know something about these questions. What can a religious contribute except obfuscation?
Don’t forget that the answers are also paradoxically wrapped in mystery. Seems to me that’s more of a statement of the problem than the answer.
What religion does sometimes too, it seems to me, is re-state the question in such a way that their answer appears valid. They thereby cut off further investigation.
That’s exactly the odious way that the Catholic Church defines mysteries. It cannot be known but part if it can only be revealed via revelation and faith. Then they look down on a materialist worldview that that condescending arrogance in the guise of humility admonishing the atheist, “of course you can’t obtain certainty with science…it is we who humble ourselves before God to receive the unwavering Truth…now let me tell you the truth about what you get to do in your bedroom.” It’s absolutely nauseating.
sub
Exactly. Yes. Chaplains can offer all those things. But so can basically everybody else on campus — even most of the faculty, not to mention other students.
I had “big questions” all-night discussions with students; many times I very much appreciated some faculty or staff person who “had my back”; I could have gone on fantastic trips with the marching band had I wanted to put up with the marching; everybody was always eager to feed starving students (including one professor who had a theatre-style popcorn popper in his office that was never empty); the library is a place of peace, as is an empty concert hall or a practice room during off-hours; my roommates were more than capable of explaining themselves without me needing to get some god-botherer to explain them for me; and you couldn’t walk down the mall without tripping over all the booths set up for people doing social work of some form or another.
…and that’s long before we get to things like fraternities and professional societies, student clubs, sports, and just the plain ol’ everyday experience of the classroom.
I mean, if none of your English classes ever get into existential discussions over the literature you’re learning, something is seriously wrong. And the same for theatre, opera, painting…any of the arts, liberal or otherwise, really. Hell, even history and anthropology…psychology….
Whereas all the chaplain has to offer is the weak sauce of the inferior has-been. No wonder he’s desperate to try to drum up business.
b&
Sorry chaplain pusher guy, but I only tolerate religion in exchange for food when it’s family.
Wow, I didn’t know you had personally battled the Nixon Administration in such a manner. I’m sure the tradition in this country to grant special status to religious beliefs led to giving a letter from a minister more weight with the draft board, military and US government than from other sources. Thank you for standing firm on your moral convictions despite the risk to your freedom. We need to make it clear to the American people and our government that we have strong secular morals that deserve just as much respect as those who claim deeply held religious beliefs.
Very interest your experience with the Chaplain at your school back in the day and the CO status. If I recall your college exemption would only be good until you graduated and after that you could be snapped up. By 1972, I think the draft was starting to go down but only hindsight tells us how that went. They probably had started the lottery by then as well.
Back in 68 when I got out of high school and was not yet thinking about college, the draft was almost a sure thing upon reaching 18.5 years old. There were few alternatives and mine was to simple joint the Air Force and stay away from the draft which nearly always sent you to the army, the marines and Vietnam.
When I was going to college later in the early 70s, down in St. Louis they had a Priest who lived on campus I believe but I don’t recall him being referred to as a Chaplain.
I should mention the only communication I had with Richard M. Nixon was the standard letter that comes 6 years after going into the service which tell you that your military obligation has been fulfilled. I was certainly glad to be alive to read it but did not think an official notice was necessary, the calendar was good enough for me. He was about to take his last helicopter ride anyway.
Yeah, sounds like your discharge notice was one of Nixon’s last pieces of correspondence before his “I hereby resign the Office of President of the United States” letter. A model of concision, that missive.
Another Great post, Jerry!! Your life stories are valuable lessons and entertaining to boot!! I think an autobiography should be in the works!! Who needs a chaplain when you can just refer to Coyne, Dawkins, Hitchens, Krauss et al!?
Ditto the autobiography request!
I hung out with a couple college chaplains, and they were dandy people — one being the father of VP Mondale’s wife Joan (nee Adams). Don’t remember ever talking about Big Questions, though. Not sure I’d recommend it as a Thing To Do as does the HuffPo “spirituality” hack.
i suspect this guy is disingenuous at best, dishonest at worst.
when i was doubting, as a teenager, i was pushed into many meetings with ministers, chaplains, etc. to help “explain” the truth to me. all but one listened patiently and exponded knowledgably (to me) on the bible, Kierkegaard, Luther, etc. i grew to anticipate the pregnant pause followed by “…but Jesus”. it was obvious to me at the time, and after many repetitions, this was not about truth, but about control.
there was the one minister who, after hearing me out, gave me a copy of Russell’s History of Philosophy and most of his paperback Copelston volumes. he was interested in what i thought. he was interested in the truth.
sub
This guy is such a caricature that I couldn’t help but be reminded of the Doonesbury character, the Rev. Scot Sloan, who was the “inspiring social activist, described by Look magazine as “the fighting young priest who can talk to the kids.” The complete bio is here: http://doonesbury.washingtonpost.com/strip/cast/member/18
In all my years of college or grad school, I never had anything to do with any campus religious officials. I made it through OK without them, as far as I can tell.
Colleges have chaplains?
My college had a chapel but, as far as I know, no chaplain. The chapel was used for weekly non-class lectures by speakers from off-campus.
It might or might not. Note there are at least two types of college chaplains.
1. Are paid for by the university. At strictly religious universities they likely push that particular religion. At other universities they likely coordinate religious activities and are suppose to be neutral (e.g., schedule the chapel and other space under their control, try to set certain minimum standards for on-campus religious groups [no high pressure tactics]). The latter also frequently give explicitly atheist groups support (I know one group that got the use of a chapel for free for a talk where getting the same space elsewhere on campus would have cost).
2. Chaplains paid for (or supplied by) a denomination to a particular university (or several if they are in close proximity). They might be recognized by the university but are not paid by the university. At the university I’m most familiar with their recognition at the university depends on being endorsed by a student group and by agreeing to a code of ethics.
I’ve read of people, not official military chaplains, having unusually wide access to the United States Air Force Academy, too. Academy graduates, like other military college graduates, have a far better than average chance at becoming political powerful, so religious groups try to hook them early, while the military system is breaking them down and building them back up. One has women quitting their military careers to be sheep to their shepherd husbands, even (perhaps especially) when it means splitting them away from their own families — those families being, of course, the wrong sorts of Christians. Less than a decade ago, the athletic locker, there, had a huge “Team Jesus” banner up, because even a nominal coach, at the USAFA, was free to proselytize. I wonder whether much has changed, since? It appeared the head honchos of the USAFA and their bosses, too, were in support of this system.
Thank you for sharing this important part of your life with us. I hope an autobiography will soon be in the works.
Reason #4 doesn’t surprise me at all. Undoubtedly the largest organization at my university is a Christian professionals association, and they are well-known for providing elaborate free lunches to meeting attendees.
I have the impression that this association meets every week, because I’ve been booted from the lectern in the large lecture halls multiple times by the administrative lackeys for faculty who are receiving their “service to the university” brownie points while being part of this organization. I’m at the lectern because I’ve been answering student questions after lectures, or related to TBL case conferences in one of the courses I teach. My bag, containing my iPad etc., has been dumped unceremoniously on the floor on multiple occasions, because it was “in the way” on the back table of the lecture hall, where the lackeys set up the food for the students. The lackeys exude entitlement on behalf of the students and faculty, as if this Christian organization and its food are the sole reasons for the existence of the university.
When I finally manage to retrieve my bag and leave the lecture hall, I have to weave my way through a tightly-packed and hungry crowd of dozens and dozens and dozens of students, lined up to get their food and proselytizing (or whatever goes on during the meetings). Some of the students might ask whether I’m going to stay for the meeting, to which I just politely respond that I brought my lunch from home, thanks.
#6 is sad and hilarious at the same time. If I want to know what my friends think, I’ll ask them and not a chaplain.
I would like to make a comment on your Barcelona experience. As you should know, Back then Spain suffered the dictatorship of General Franco. Althought it was not a formal militar dictatorship, the military were the main support of the government. Franco tittle was “jefe del estado”, and was personally refered as the “generalísimo”.
But I drift. Guardia civil was then (and still legally today) a military corp, acting as a civilian police force, they were not contested, never. You can imagine the impunity which they acted with. Maybe it’s difficult to understand this if you are not spanish and if you are not from a family whot lost the Civil War, but I can be 99% sure that they didn’t mistake you for a thief, they simply didn’t like you, or having people like you around. And this without (I asume) them knowing you were jew. Hell, you couldn’t even be three person together talking in the street, you Could be conspiring!
Sorry for the point, but it was a very difficult time in our history, and had to clarify this things didn’t happen simply as a mistake. But I am sure it was not your intention to sweeten things.
Bye from Canary Islands!
Did not know the Guardia Civil were still in operation in Spain. I remember seeing them always when downtown in Madrid or Saragossa back in the early 70s. They had these very funny hats and often seemed to be carrying machine guns.
I remember them in 1969 and they looked askance at our American mini-skirts.
Probably nothing personal. They were likely conveying Francisco Franco’s opinion. We were told not to mess with them in any way and they were Franco’s personal police. I suppose they were at that time.
I sometimes looked askew at miniskirts — but only so the women wearing them wouldn’t be made uncomfortable by the ogling. 🙂
I didn’t tell the whole story. I brushed by two English girls who were in the narrow cathedral walkway, and one of them, who subsequently discovered that her passport and money was missing, reported me to the cathedral guards as the likely pickpocket. They apprehended me as I exited one of the steeples, and then took me back inside and strip-searched me, yelling at me in Spanish all the while (I desperately tried to convince them that I was a visiting professor giving a talk, which I was. They finally let me go, without apology, when they realized I was innocent and sans any purloined articles.
Oy gevalt! Professor!!! Did your hosts for the talk find out about this? Did they have anything to say?
The Brit might have made an honest mistake, but the situation makes me angry enough to think she deserved what had happened to her, to point her finger at you!
Well, It wasn’t as I thought, but was pretty bad anyway. It’s possible that, as an american visitor, you could have had some satisfaction if your hosts complained.
Where you there to talk about evolution anyway? It would surprise if you were in the very catholic Spain of then.
Pickpockets generally work in pairs. Who’s the partner you passed the bird’s money and passport to? 🙂
Nonsense. If we support religious organisations, they will continue. If we ignore them, they will wither and die. Withering and dying off from disinterest is the best thing that could happen for the world in regards to religious organisations. It allows money and effort to be spend instead on inclusive charities and organisations that don’t have a religious agenda.
In the First World, we don’t make apologies or excuses for religious relics, because we don’t have “university chaplains” or other such nonsense. The USA needs to grow up and leave the Third World, and join the First.
I agree and the god card would be lurking in the wings waiting for a piece of the action, this whole ‘thing’ feels like a facade, how nice are we? without mentioning his name. Nice try.
Big high five Professor taking on the might of the US Government no less and winning!
God cursed that day, cause he would have known you were going to spend a life bagging him and to boot, forced to play a role.
I met Mr Nixon in 1973 but I lie, it was indirectly as I found myself in Massachusetts and they were suffering a backlash from his administration. My friends explained that the state had voted against Nixon and state funding had been cut with heavy unemployment the consequence. They were not, like myself academic types. Nixon’s impeachment was gathering momentum by the time I left.
I did meet a few draftees and returned service guys.. and it struck me then, being of draft + or – age, this could have been me. I had just escaped compulsory military training at home, by way of a NZ Labour Government abolishing the programme. Vietnam was a volunteer only force.
I once rented the home of a WW2 CO, a very brave thing to do given the times, I suspect no amount of god would have stopped you doing jail time (as he did) A curious thing, he left a joint in the rent book.
I’d be really interested in reading your views on pacifism.
Aaaand sub, just in case you think it’s a great idea and want to know where to send a copy of your next book!
Reason 0 (in the real world): the Chaplaincy is often a place where unworldly but nubile students of the female persuasion hang about, making it a good place to pick up some company on a cold winter’s night. Or in a mountaineering weekend’s tent (the outdoors is soooo spiritual!) Or plumbing the bowels of the Earth (exploring Satan’s realm, suspiciously near the traditional “dark satanic mills” ; suffering and facing primal fears is soooo spiritual).
Yeah, the chaplaincy is a good place to pick up girls. OK – some of them are princesses on the outside and frogs on the inside; you do meet a suspiciously high proportion of lesbians (but they can be fun in other ways too, often drink like a thirsty Hebridean fish, and ALWAYS have access to nubile girlfriends picked up at the chaplaincy who are shocked, shocked I tell you!, at what unnatural vices have been proposed to them. (an opening for talking about natural vices, if ever there was one!)
Oh yeah, down to the Chaplaincy, post haste!
Plus, the hipper priests-in-debauchery-training often have a line on blow when there is none out in the real world. I suspect he keep his stash in the thurible.
Sorry, did the post have any other reasons? I was getting quite nostalgic there. Ruth and Jane and … wots-her-name with the broken finger …
We can always rely on you to subvert the whole thing and lower the tone of the discussion to a suitably interesting level.
Also providing by far the most persuasive reason for lurking around the chaplain’s office.
Well done!
cr
There are depths I will not plumb. Well, not without using an ROV and a blowtorch – I have a physiological limit somewhere upwards for 200m (like any other hoomin, and most mammals).
I wonder – could you burn a flame at any depth? Even when you’re beyond the critical point of your oxidiser, fuels and reactants? Probably, I suspect, with a caveat that it’d be “fun” trying to push the envelope. “Fun” in a “concrete bunker and rearrange the scenery” sense.
It is a secular blasphemy that Raushenbush has as his middle name the last name of the first great modern liberal (and first Jew) to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court — the “peoples lawyer,” Louis Brandeis.
Yes. Indeed!
The grin of that guy seriously creeps me out!
Oh, but it’s a good Christian grin – well practised, like the extraordinarily sincere sincerity on Mrs Duggar’s face when she, well, wants to appear sincere for one reason or another.
Yeah, he doesn’t seem to have mastered the maxim that “the secret to success is sincerity; once you can fake that, you’re in.”
“There may be times when you just need someone with who you can talk to without fear that it will go beyond the two of you.”
Is this guy a native English speaker? That’s even worse than Wings’ notorious “ever changing world in which we live in.”
😝
Makes my teeth itch
Better the campus clinic than the chaplain for that.
And my ears want to fall off, when I hear such things. Reading it, my eyes want to auto-correct, while my hand itches for the red ink pen.
I hate hearing “the thing is is…” Lots of places with two “is”es in a row these days, including PBS NewsHour talking heads. Sometimes “the thing is that” is appropriate, and often just plain “the thing is”.
Grrrrr
Ditto that “Grrrr” and raise you a subject pronoun where an object pronoun belongs. For example: “Jack went to the store with Lynn and I.”
Surprised he managed to avoided the barbarism ” … beyond you and he.”
Argh…not sure I’ve ever heard “beyond you and he”, but have heard lotsa lotsa “between you and I”s
I think Joan Baez’s then-husband did the same. I have a hazy memory from Woodstock* that she discussed it right before singing “Joe Hill.”
_______
*The movie, not the concert. Even there, though, plenty of mind-alternating substances were making their rounds around the theater.
“altering,” not “alternating” … maybe those substances were stronger than we knew…
That was an unexpectedly heartening story to read at the end. Thanks Dr. Coyne.
Indeed, a good “twist”.