Editor's Note: This is the third installment in a four-part series examining religious life at Dartmouth.
A desire to spread God's love -- which Alex Mercado '11 said grants "the free gift of eternal life" to those who accept Christ -- drove Mercado to test the rhetorical skills he had learned in his native Texas by "presenting the Gospel" to a fellow student over lunch. After she told him in an e-mail that she felt he had discounted her faith, Mercado decided that this kind of advocacy was inappropriate at the College, he said.
Mercado said he now tries to spread his faith by leading an exemplary life.
"Here at Dartmouth, you live your Christian lifestyle, and people see how you're living," he said. "They don't start listening because you throw it at them -- they start listening because they're interested."
Mercado is among approximately 200 Protestant students involved with Dartmouth's three Christian Fellowships -- Christian Impact, Navigators Christian Fellowship and Agape Christian Fellowship. The groups' origins at Dartmouth can be traced to a religious revival in the 1970s, spearheaded by Peter Conway '74 and Eric Wadsworth '74, that brought evangelism to campus and led to the construction of a new church on campus. Campus Crusade for Christ, the parent organization of Christian Impact, came to campus in 1980 and the Navigators followed in 1985. Students founded the Asian Christian Fellowship in 1993 and changed its name to Agape in 2002.
Students involved with Christian fellowships on campus describe the college environment as accepting, although some said they had been regarded with suspicion by non-Christians on campus.
"This place is very respectful towards Christians, maybe in some ways too respectful, as it's very difficult to talk about faith," Soo Yeon Kang '10, chair of Agape, said. "They're almost reluctant to talk about it because they want to be politically correct."
Kang added that some people's preconceived views of Christianity or past negative experiences have caused them to misunderstand her faith. She added that some people falsely view Christianity as a hypocritical or overly proselytizing religion.
She also noted that the faculty has been respectful of her faith.
"The ones that know that I'm Christian, whether they believe or not, I'm just their student," she said. "It doesn't matter what I believe."
Andrew Schuman '10, editor-in-chief of Dartmouth Apologia, said he helped found the Christian journal to examine the scholarly, rational basis of Christianity that he said often does not receive attention.
"Part of the effort of the journal is to draw upon the rich intellectual heritage of the Christian faith and to begin to articulate those ideas in the modern context," Schuman said. He cited Augustine and Thomas Aquinas as examples of intellectually rigorous Christian scholars.
The journal generated some controversy from outside of the Christian community, Schuman said. Schuman added that he views the controversy as positive because it provoked thought and discussion, he said.
Other controversies include the 2005 Convocation address by former Student Body President Noah Riner '06. Riner told the audience that Christ offered the solution to human corruption in remarks that many students considered inappropriate for the occasion. A 2008 column in The Dartmouth by Lucy Stonehill '10 titled "See You in Hell" argued that religious zeal in the classroom blinds students to the critical thinking and objective analysis necessary for academic study.
The conflict between Christianity and secularism extends to the faculty and administration, Chris West, adviser to Christian Impact, said.Academic culture, including Dartmouth's, is "suspicious" or "hostile" towards Christian thought, West said, although not always in a visible or obvious way.
"The downside of this is that people harbor negative thoughts but don't express them," he said. "That creates a veneer of civility, but in most cases, that is only a veneer."
He cited the lack of practicing Christian professors in the religion department as an example of what he saw as Dartmouth's unwillingness to accommodate Christians.
"I would expect a chemistry teacher to respect chemistry and be a chemist," he said. "I would expect historians to teach history. I would expect Christians to teach Christianity."
Susan Ackerman '80, chair of the religion department, disputed West's claim, pointing to Christian religion professors. The department does not consider religion when choosing whom to hire, she added.
"Whether someone is practicing anything or not is incidental to us," she said. Academic history and writings are the most important criteria for hiring decisions, she said.
Outside of the classroom, students involved in Christian fellowships describe the organizations as warm, welcoming environments built on cooperation and mutual respect.
"They're like my family now," Sonia Yuen '11 said. "They have helped me grow so much both spiritually and in Dartmouth life."
Isaiah Berg '11 said Dartmouth's Christian environment gave him an ideal setting in which to explore his faith.
"I knew going into college that I wanted to figure out who I was and who I want to be when I leave here," he said.
Many students credited their faith with shaping their world view, morality and actions.
"There's no separation of Church and Alex's academia, Alex's friends," Mercado said. "There aren't little boxes I put things in -- it's all for Christ."
Mercado said his conversion to Christianity from agnosticism at the age of 12 convinced him that he could glorify God through academic success and religious devotion. This gave him the discipline and perspective to get into Dartmouth and lead a moral life, he said.
Craig Parker, the northeastern collegiate director for the Navigators and a former campus minister who has conducted extensive research on the Christian history of Dartmouth, stressed Dartmouth's Christian origins.
Eleazor Wheelock founded the College to facilitate the conversion of Native Americans to Christianity. From 1800 to 1869, nearly a third of Dartmouth's alumni became members of the Dartmouth College Theological Society, and several ministers trained at Dartmouth became leaders of the abolitionist movement. The College became increasingly secular in the 1870s due to the influence of scientific advances, increasing liberalism and weakening the more conservative elements at the school, according to Parker. By 1930, Parker said, only "residual" traces of the College's Christian origins remained.
"This institution is primarily designed to Christianize the heathens, that is, to form the minds and hearts of their children to the rules of religion and virtue ... and secondarily to educate ... persons for the sacred work of ministry," Wheelock wrote in 1771. "I do with all my heart will this purpose to all my successors in the presidency of this seminary, to the latest posterity, and it is my last will never to be revoked, and to God I commit it."
Parker pointed to this quote as an example of the "Voice of Christ" that Parker wanted to bring the College.
"Now, you ask President Wright why this is not a Christian institution, if that was the last will 'never to be revoked,'" he said.
