By Emily Schoch | Staff Writer
At Baylor, where faith is an integral part of campus life, students often seek ways to balance their spiritual commitments and academic responsibilities. But with coursework, exams and extracurricular activities, finding time for faith can be challenging.
To understand how students can integrate their beliefs into their academic experience, religion professors share insights on the relationship between faith and learning. They address questions such as how faith can influence academic motivation, practical ways to incorporate spiritual practices into daily routines and how Baylor’s Christian foundation supports students in both their intellectual and spiritual growth.
Dr. Devan Stahl, associate professor of bioethics and religion, gives insight into how students who choose to participate in faith can incorporate intellectual reasoning with theology. Stahl said that every inquiry that students have is directly correlated with God.
“Our faith in God is the starting point rather than the end point of our knowledge,” Stahl said. “We use our reason to illuminate our faith. And because God created everything, there is no academic discipline that cannot help us to better understand God.”
Incorporating scientific academics with ideas of theology and faith can be seen as challenging, but Stahl said that studying subjects within the sciences allows students to grow further in their faith.
“By investigating nature in the sciences, we can better understand the world God created,” Stahl said. “In better understanding human beings, we understand ourselves as God’s creations. If we study theology, we are attempting to understand God on a very deep level. All of our academic studies, therefore, can orient us toward God and deepen our understanding of God.”
Adjusting to college is challenging for students and can often lead to doubt within one’s faith, Stahl said. While students explore new surroundings, people and ideas she said that if approached correctly, students can use their faith to combat any doubt or disbelief that might come from experiencing a new culture.
“College is the perfect opportunity to open your mind to new ideas,” Stahl said. “You find yourself in a new community with new people who come from different places and might have different ideas and backgrounds from ourselves. In relating to others who are different from ourselves, we should question whether or not we have exclusive access to truth.”
Dr. Sameer Yadav, associate professor of religion, said that it is extremely important for students to ask questions that challenge their faith in an academic setting.
“The whole point of difficult questions and critical thinking, it seems to me, is to take some responsibility for our faith, to hold ourselves accountable to reality as best we are able so that we can cling to what is true and beneficial and reject what is illusory and harmful,” Yadav said.
Baylor operates with a Christian mission, allowing students to fully embrace their faith without judgment, Stahl said, and the role of a Christian university is to allow students academic growth with spiritual guidance.
“At Baylor there is no need to hide or shed your religious beliefs to engage in academic study. That is a real gift that Baylor offers to students,” Stahl said. “Professors may not start every class with their faith beliefs, but students can be assured that all their teachers are faithful people who do their work for the enrichment of both Baylor and their faith communities.”
Stahl explains that faith beyond the classroom is a crucial part in students’ journey through Baylor. Not only will students experience temptation and doubt during day-to-day life, but their time at Baylor will eventually end leading them on to new adventures that will inevitably come with challenges of their own, she said.
“Keep going to church. There are many access points to spiritual life on Baylor’s campus that students can and should take advantage of, but don’t forget that church should be the central place for living out our faith and nourishing ourselves for our work in the world,” Stahl said.
Yadav said to maintain a connection with God it is important to abide by the teachings in the Bible in order to stay connected with one’s faith.
“Maintaining a strong spiritual life in the midst of all of these different and demanding activities requires students to regard them all as spiritual activities — as avenues for loving God with all that one is and loving one’s neighbor as oneself,” Yadav said.
