Collegiate Times

Elizabeth Malbon answers a question during her New Testament course.

Some of Blacksburg's most notable religious scholars aren't leading the faithful in prayer on Friday afternoons, reading from the Torah on Saturdays or standing at pulpits on Sundays. Their sacred space is the second floor of Major Williams, their crumbling cathedral, Newman Library. The six religious studies faculty members at Virginia Tech provide a particular service to the university community in maintaining the careful classroom balance necessary for contending with some of the day's most heady questions.

Religious studies courses take an almost invariable tack in their first few lectures.

"I talk about my first lectures as 'truth-in-advertising lectures,'" said Elizabeth Malbon, a professor who teaches courses on the New Testament. "I say, 'This is what I have to offer; if this isn't what you're looking for, goodbye, good luck. Life is short - go get what you want.'"

What religious studies professors have to offer, they say, is the academic study of religion.

"We're observing religion. We're thinking of religion and respectful of religious practice, but that we're also respectfully critical," said Brian Britt, a professor specializing in the Hebrew Bible.

It's a distinction that's tough for many students from confessional faith backgrounds to grasp.

"This isn't Sunday school. This isn't CCD. Students think they know what they mean when I say, 'Here's the distinction,' so there's a lot of head nodding on day one," said Grace Kao, an assistant professor who studies religious ethics. "Then maybe on day 12, we're talking about what scholars will say about flood counts in the Hebrew Bible, and it's clear by the way some of the students respond that they're not really ready to do the academic study."

The struggle to explore a faith tradition at hand while students remain rooted in their own tradition is not aided by the fact that many students only take a single religious studies course over their time at Tech.

"You find yourself re-inventing the wheel, class after class, as opposed to being able to grab a bunch of students at the intro level and move them through your program," Kao said, an issue that can make it difficult to allow students more room, paradoxically, to challenge the nature of religious studies inquiry.

"There are rigorous debates between theology and religious and whether it is really the case that religious studies is this neutral, academic thing. But you can't destabilize something before you have the basic categories. You have to start with the distinction," Kao said.

Even so, the battle needs to be fought.

"Most of the students that are taking our classes, this is the first and only class in religious studies ... It's unrealistic to expect students will have calculated that ... but it clears the floor, it opens the space, it makes it possible for us to be there," Malbon said.

The Challenge of Nuance

While Kao noted that she found it puzzling that many students spent "significant energy" trying to figure out her personal faith beliefs, the professors' ability to keep their own backgrounds out of the discussion was noted time and again in interviews with religious studies students.

"(Malbon) never mentioned what her beliefs are. And I really like that way of learning and just perfect for the scholarly setting. That means that both Christians and non-Christians can relate and understand," said Melanie French, a sophomore majoring in communication with a minor in religious studies, of Malbon's New Testament course.

The drive to determine a professor's beliefs belies another streak that religious studies faculty have noticed: the need to posit essential answers to religious questions. In one method of essentializing their religious studies education, students separate: their academic study is one thing, their personal faith understanding something else.

"Because a lot of the information that we cover is from what scholars and historians believe, I try to see the class as a history class. There are certain things that I will learn for the class but I will dismiss because I don't think they are true or I haven't researched enough," said sophomore interdisciplinary studies major Carrie Lillard. "The Gospel of Thomas is not something I know much about and neither does one of the leaders of my church back home, so I set that aside."

Another form is the attempt to concretize religious traditions into definitive categories.

Continue Reading: 123 Next »