By the Rev. Dr. Erin Moniz | Guest Contributor
I’m always encouraged when students ask questions and think critically about their spiritual formation while in college. Staff writer Rory Dulock is asking the right questions in her opinion piece.
Historically, chapel was practiced across higher education as an essential companion to the development of educated persons. In the mid-late 1900s, many schools dropped compulsory chapel (or the practice altogether). While I cannot speak to Baylor’s historic reasoning for maintaining compulsory chapel, as director for chapel, I can tell you how we seek to exercise its value to Baylor students and our community.
First, Ms. Dulock asks why we need chapel if students are already required to take two foundational religion courses. The reason speaks to the distinct nature of chapel. Chapel may be a class but also not a class.
Chapel focuses on the experience of spiritual formation. Our chapel options must 1) be anchored in spiritual practices, 2) challenge students to think about their faith, 3) create an environment for meaningful relational connections and 4) include the arts or sensory experiences. Chapel is a holistic, embodied experience shaped by people, place and practice, where students are more than passive receptacles in their chapels. In fact, this is largely the point.
Ms. Dulock’s request that chapels “count toward a degree” perfectly articulates why they do not. Spiritual formation purports that a person has value transcendent to what they can produce or achieve. Sometimes we can confuse grades and accolades with intrinsic value, with a sneaky assumption that who we will be in the world has to do with our education and accomplishments more than whether we are people of virtue.
Chapel is one way we counter this. We use chapel to invite you to a space where you get to come as you are, be seen for your value without any weights or measures, in a caring community of your choosing, so that, for a short time every week, you can turn down the volume on all that tugs at you. You can just be received into an experience simply made better by having shown up.
This is our hope. We are still working on it, but so far, the feedback is inspiring. Chapel is not for your degree; it is for you, because you matter. Period.
With 63 different chapel offerings that begin at 7:30 a.m. and go until 10 p.m., I hope we can help you find an open time for a good chapel next semester.
