The Brown & White

I found the title of the article "Keeping the faith" (March 14, 2008) to be a bit misleading. I was surprised to note the word "God" never appeared once. Though such a move is safe in terms of political correctness, I think an omission of the discussion of God misrepresents the nature of religion and faith, which will likely be a touchy issue on any college campus.

To be fair, the omission is not such a great problem for the discussion of religion, in that a religion is the human-run organization of the faithful, and a discussion of which can certainly be limited to only what those people do, not what they believe.

However, the title of the article is not "Keeping the religion." It is fundamental to note religion and faith are in no way synonymous.

I am a Protestant Christian and a member of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship at Lehigh, and thus I can only give a Christian perspective; I make no suppositions about other faiths.

Though one often finds true Christian faith in a church, the church building and its functions are not the essence of Christianity. The amount of students at Lehigh attending weekly Christian services speaks only to Lehigh's religiosity, nothing more. Services, religious buildings and rituals are not faith, but are to be (very important) expressions of a life led through faith.

It is my opinion that Christian faith is found solely in belief in and relationship with Jesus Christ as savior. I am sure the phrase "Jesus Christ as savior" conjures up religious thoughts in many readers, some of which are negative, but it shouldn't. As someone who discovered real faith while at Lehigh, I can tell you the greatest implications of faith are not organizational or institutional; they are a personal, spiritual and relational revolution.

To some, the distinction between religion and faith may seem inconsequential, but in my life it has certainly been a pivotal realization. Religion, though hopefully a major part of a life of faith, is executed by the hands of people and thus can certainly be very broken. Examples of broken religion are so rampant they need not even be described. Faith fundamentally is the part of a life that is directed by God, which by definition is free from such brokenness.

Though a more risky venture, it is my opinion that readers would have been better served by a discussion of faith rather than religion, because this would describe where the hearts and minds of the Lehigh student body are, rather than their God-related schedules.