Education + Religion = Religication
By Staci Reafsnyder | Sports Editor
This year, the Campus Program Board (CPB) brought back the Religication series for the student body. The Religication series are used to present UIndy students with factual information on major world religions. According to the cultural and spiritual awareness chair, junior Erica Bair, CPB brought back the program to educate and make people more aware of other religions on campus.
Senior CPB member Alicia Strong said that a lot of people on campus like to explore different religions, and the Religication series gives them an opportunity to expand their horizons.
“I think it’s important for students to be able to learn about different cultures because that’s the world we live in, where it’s really important to know as much as you can about everything and what’s going on,” Strong said. “It’s really interesting for me to learn about it as well.”
According to Bair, the first Religication session she remembers was as a freshman, but after that the series did not exist until it was brought back this year.
This year, there have been four Religication lectures held on Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism and Hinduism. Someone who is a part of the featured religion being featured will come to the university and speak, followed by a question and answer portion. A book raffle also goes on during the lecture and features a book about the particular religion. Strong said it’s a fun perk to keep learning about the religion even after the lecture is done. Strong was also a part of the planning process, along with Bair, that came up with the series.
The most recent part of the series was on Hinduism; Indu Vasudevan from the Hindu Temple of Central Indiana talked about the religion and answered questions.
For the Christianity portion of the series, hosted last semester, there were five denominations of Christianity represented. Because the university is Methodist affiliated, CPB had Reverend Dr. Lang Brownlee represent that denomination, and Sr. Jennifer Horner represented the Catholic denomination. There were also three other denominations represented; Baptist, Pentecostal and Nondenominational.
“It was a panel discussion,” Bair said. “So we asked different people from different denominations of Christianity. We had them sit, and they each got to tell a little bit about their denomination and then people asked questions.”
The last Religication lecture in the series is set to take place sometime this month, but the topic, at the moment, is undecided. These religious lectures are available for L/P credit, something, Strong said, appeals to the student body more.
“I hope the people who come to it, because they have a better understanding about other religions, will be more tolerant,” Bair said. “My guess is that a lot of people, before they came to college, only knew about their religion. So I hope to change that.”
