Unlike most colleges in the 19th century, the Johns Hopkins University was not founded by a church. It staked itself out as a proudly secular institution, inviting a well-known opponent of religion to give its inaugural address in 1876. Since then, it has never really had a campus chapel.

In a few weeks, however, that same institution will open an Interfaith Center in a converted Methodist church, a move that shows the increasing role that religious and spiritual issues are playing on college campuses around Maryland and the country.

As campus chaplains deal with an increase in religious diversity and students pack courses on religion, campus officials report a growing interest in spiritual matters among students within and without organized religions.

Rabbi Joseph Katz, who has served Hopkins, the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and Towson University for 13 years, said the atmosphere is different from that of the last several generations of college students -- dating back to the 1950s, when he was in school.

"There was no religion on campus then," he said. "You left your religion at home. It started to change in the '80s. Now people like Jewish students want to be seen, to say, 'I am who I am and I want to do my spiritual thing.' "

The Rev. William Rich, the chaplain at Goucher College, said: "When I was in college in the early '70s, it was not cool to be interested in religion. Religions were one of those instruments of authority we were supposed to be questioning.

"But now you don't find that high a level of suspicion," he said. "In part, that's because a higher percentage did not grow up in religious households so they are not rebelling against it. In fact, getting interested in religion might be one way of rebelling."

In College Park, the Rev. Susan Astarita, the Episcopal minister at the University of Maryland campus there, also has seen the change: "I've noticed students moving from total cynicism to a concern with the fact that there is something beyond themselves, a mystery out there. It's not a social-action kind of thing like you saw here in the '60s, not like taking over Route 1 or dancing around the chapel singing 'Hey, Jude.' It's not that.

"These students now are people who did not grow up with a strict value system," she said. "Some come from blended families. Many have moved around a lot with corporate moves. And now they are asking these perplexing questions."

The research of Jeanette Cureton and Arthur Levine for their book, "When Hope and Fear Collide: A Portrait of Today's College Student," confirms this trend. Cureton said that deans nationwide report an increase in religious organizations.

"Students show all the problems of the larger society," she said. "Many come from dysfunctional families. In my personal view, the stage is set for them to be reaching out for something that would make sense out of their lives and give them meaning."

New homes for religions

At Hopkins, Larry Benedict, dean of students, said he started noticing a growing interest in spiritual matters five or six years ago and responded with the decision to renovate the former Alpheus Wilson Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church into a center that can serve as a worship space for Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu and Muslim students -- as well as offices for clergy and volunteer organizations.

At Morgan State University, the Rev. Marion C. Bascom, who has taken over its Christian Center, is faced with a similarly new array of religious beliefs. He is thinking of changing the name of the structure built by the Methodist Church in 1941, not long after it sold Morgan College to the state of Maryland, to the Interfaith Christian Center.

"There are people from everywhere" on this campus, said Bascom, 74, the longtime civil rights leader who retired in 1995 as pastor of the 600-member Douglas Memorial Community Church. "From Central and South America, from India and Asia, with all kinds of religious backgrounds, languages and cultures.

"This center was built at another time in our history to provide a place of worship for young Christian students," he said. "That time has come and gone. We have become a multicultural institution."

Goucher's Rich, an Episcopalian, has his office in the basement of the school's chapel on a campus where attendance at chapel was once mandatory. He now wonders if his building -- or his position -- can serve the diverging spiritual needs of his campus.

"I have had to become a student of world religion," he said of his work on a campus with Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists. "You need a wide variety of religious professionals to help lead religious life on campus. One person can't do it."

Symposium shows interest

Wellesley College near Boston was the site of a recent symposium that drew 800 participants to discuss ways of dealing with the diversity of religions on campus. "Most of our colleges were founded by religions," said Peter Laurence, who organized the conference. "But at some point in their history they repressed that and became secular institutions. This recognition what we might call religious pluralism is allowing religion to re-emerge on campuses as a very important part of students' lives without fear of being dominated by one particular tradition."

Academic interest in religion is reported on the rise at many campuses. St. Mary's College, the state school in Southern Maryland, has started offering a religious studies major. Katharina Von Kellenbach, an assistant professor of religious studies, said it was not easy to get the major. Academia "is not known for its openness to religion," she said. "There was real resistance here."

Kellenbach, who would like to see the school build a meditation center -- "a place to be quiet" -- said the growth in spiritual interest makes such courses more important. "Many students have these spiritual interests, but they know little about religions," she said. "We want to give them the tools so they can tell the difference between good religion and bad religion."

Hopkins changes view

At Hopkins, Lawrence Principe, an assistant professor in the history of science department, noted that it was the school's inaugural speaker -- evolutionist T. H. Huxley -- who coined the term "agnostic."

"I'm sure he was an atheist," Principe said of Huxley.

A practicing Roman Catholic who regularly meets with students at Hopkins' Newman House, Principe offered a course on science and religion last year. "I was expecting about 20 students to sign up, about the number who usually take history of science courses," he said. Ninety applied.

The Rev. Chester Wickwire, 84, longtime chaplain at Hopkins, could only chuckle when talking about the Interfaith Center, recalling that at one time he had a small chapel in Levering Hall, which was built by the YMCA -- Wickwire's original employer -- and sold to the school in the late 1960s. "A few years after that, I came back from the summer and they had turned the chapel into student council offices," he said.

For Sharon Kugler, the school's current chaplain, the new center has presented challenges. The church, for example, had stained-glass windows that would not be appropriate for Muslim or Jewish services -- not only because they depict scenes of the life of Christ, but also because depictions of faces are forbidden in those religions.

"But they were so beautiful we didn't want to take them out," Kugler said. So she helped design frosted glass screens that can be moved in front of the windows, hiding their images but letting their colors come through.

Pews have been removed in the front of the chapel to make room for prayer rugs. A room has been designated for daily Muslim prayers.

Students talk about it

"When I got here six years ago, I started the Interfaith Council," Kugler said. "We had about 12 or 15 students interested. Now we have 30 or 40 -- Catholics, Protestants, Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, Bahai, some Wiccans were interested.

"Our only rule is no proselytizing. Other than that, we talk about everything," she said, telling stories of moving encounters as students learn about, and confront, different faiths.

"I tell them when they leave that they are going out into a world where people kill each other over their religions," she said. "Now they can never be like that."

Pub Date: 11/30/98