Photo Courtesy of Jacob Davick
While Covenant is the college of the Presbyterian Church in America, it is home to students of many denominations. Within our student body, a number of church branches are represented: Presbyterian, Baptist, Lutheran, Anglican, non-denominational, Eastern Orthodox, and Catholic, to name a few.
Clearly, the fact that students come from different church backgrounds and beliefs means that there will be disagreements on various points of theology. However, within our student body, many people have been quick to jump to defensiveness rather than taking the time to lovingly understand and respond to their peers.
Olivia Daniel ’30, a Catholic freshman, says that coming into Covenant, she expected a welcoming environment of students who were willing to learn about and discuss her differences in belief with love. Instead, she says, “A lot of the students ... can be very close-minded ... [They are] misinformed and not willing to learn.”
Daniel is not alone in this sentiment. Joaquin Paz ’30 grew up Catholic, and he expresses similar opinions, saying that “A lot of people don’t hear me out ... [and] a lot of people are very quick to judge ... because I didn’t grow up PCA.”
Abraham Soud ’30, an Eastern Orthodox student, says that people are very accepting of his faith — that is, when they understand that Eastern Orthodoxy and Catholicism are not the same thing. He reports that the large majority of his negative interactions with other students occur because they think he is Catholic.
“We have a lot of students who are Baptist, and we have a lot of Pentecostal students, and we have a lot of non-denominational students as well, and we have some pretty big differences with them too,” says Dr. Luke Irwin, professor of biblical and theological studies. “If anything, this is an opportunity for people here to get to know, ‘Why am I Presbyterian in the first place?’”
Irwin is exactly right. Covenant College is a place not to conform students to one school of thought or convert everyone to a single denomination, but to grow closer to Christ and understand more deeply why we believe the things we do. This does not look like making jokes or comments that demean other branches of the We Need More Grace... [cont.] church, as described in the experiences of Daniel, Paz, and Soud.
It also does not look like assuming we know what other people believe and why, as “Catholic doctrine is more complicated than most Protestants learned in their Christian schools,” says Irwin.
Instead, we should aim to have productive discussions where we learn more about our peers of other denominations. Rather than making assumptions and being quick to judge and denounce one another, we as a student body should aim to love one another well by taking the time to understand other branches of the church and disagree kindly.