Sam Gardenswartz investigates three Yalies’  spiritual transitions from hometown to New Haven.

According to Ben Robbins, SY ’12, “Yale is sort of a crucible for faith, in that ideas—all ideas, no matter what ideas—are challenged. All ideas are fired. You really have to look at what you believe, and when you believe something you really feel like you have to commit to it.”

Yale’s liberal arts education forces students to examine everything from iambic pentameter to upcoming elections to faith traditions. Coming to Yale, students have the opportunity to explore, develop, and change personal religious practices by interacting with the University’s various religious communities. That transition is what Yale University Chaplain Sharon Kugler calls “one of the most fruitful times there is in terms of spiritual development.”

Yalies react to this transition in different ways. Some students, like Robbins, find a community that encourages them to pursue deeper relationships with God. Others are confronted with a community that makes them struggle with their own journeys. Still others are able to maintain a level of observance without a communal influence. No matter what form the reaction to this transition takes, there is one constant: The new communities force Yalies to reexamine their relationships with religion—a relationship they may have taken for granted at home.

Robbins is a sociology major from Grand Island, Neb., a town in which you fill out the census at your local Church. As we talked, he sat erect in one of Branford common room’s large armchairs and proceeded to calmly tell me his story. He spoke calmly, in a low, sure voice, carefully choosing his words before he shared them. As he explained his growing relationship with God, he exuded tranquility.

Since before freshman year, Robbins has been involved in Yale Students for Christ (YSC). Robbins first interacted with YSC at Bulldog Days before making his college decision. Not expecting to find a Christian community at a supposed bastion of East Coast liberalism, Robbins was pleasantly surprised to chance upon a YSC event in his activities booklet. He immediately made a connection with Ray Park, MC ’09, a YSC staff member, who he says took an interest in him and invited him to play squash and talk about his faith.

“I come from Nebraska,” Robbins reflected, “and Nebraska is culturally a very Christian place. Church is just part of the fabric of society out there. Ray took an interest and showed me that there was a place for faith and for me to grow in my faith at Yale. That was huge. I don’t know if I would have felt comfortable coming 2,000 miles away from home and away from family and really striking out on my own, had I not had that kind of assurance and that experience.”

Upon arriving in New Haven after matriculation, Robbins met up again with Park and was quickly integrated into YSC where he felt “embraced by the community.” He remembers going to freshman Bible studies and group prayer meetings every morning with two older Yalies. Though he came from a religious background, Robbins found that the Christians at Yale were even more observant than those he had known at home.

“The Christians at Yale were different,” Robbins said. “I could see that, and I was excited to be around them and to learn what it was about their faith that excited them so much. How could I be more like that? Seeing their heart and their way of approaching God made me feel like, ‘Oh my gosh, I don’t know God at all, I have no knowledge of what it really means to live like a fool for God, to live as a fool for Christ.’”

Robbins was inspired by this new community to develop a deeper relationship with God. Now, more than a year later, he admits that he filters all decisions in life—from whether to drink, to what classes to take, to what summer program to apply for—through the lens of his faith and his relationship with God. “I still struggle with making everyday decisions, saying that God has already planned out what he wants for me, and saying that God wants to see me prosper,” said Robbins.

Through this new spirituality, Robbins has built a constant support network. Looking at his classmates, Robbins believes that at Yale people are studying what they want to study, doing the activities they want to do, and yet they feel a sense of emptiness. To him, it seems that they constantly feel a void. “As a Christian,” he said, “I know that that void is only something that Christ can fill and that a relationship with God can fill.” When he feels out of place or needs support, God comforts him.

When Robbins originally decided to come to Yale, in part because of YSC, he could not have known that in transitioning to Yale’s Christian community he would be pushed to develop this new relationship with God. He is excited about the prospect of sharing his experience with others who want to learn, either through Bible study or through more proactive methods: He invited me to come to Easter services with him. Nearly halfway through his Yale career, he cannot imagine living without the relationship that his school’s religious community has helped foster.

Karmen Cheung, MC ’13, is a New York City na-

tive who is active in the Asian-American Cultural Center and loves to run. At Yale, she has found a new opportunity to explore her faith. We met over Sunday brunch and she shared her story with me, going back and forth chronologically but always following a thought to the end, and smiling the whole time. Throughout our conversation, people came up to our table to say hello before bussing their dishes.

Cheung did not come to Yale expecting to find religion. At home, her father, a recent Christian, never pushed spirituality on her family. Everyone in her house just tried to live morally, which, according to Cheung, worked. Her motto: “Just believe in yourself, do your best, and live life the way you feel is best.”

“That’s what I adopted in high school,” she told me, “and I felt like there was no need for religion because as long as I was living a morally right life, what am I doing wrong that makes me someone that isn’t as good as someone that is religious?” Cheung did have some interaction with Jehovah’s Witnesses, but for the most part, she felt intimidated by their severity.

One day during Camp Yale a friend dragged her to an event with the promise of food and the assurance that she could just “check it out.” Cheung remembered: “They were playing games; it was fun. I didn’t feel pressured to go to church the next day, but they were like, ‘Come to church its fun and fine,’ and it’s not like I had anything pressing to do the next day, so I started going to church and getting to know them better.”

After attending the United Church of Westville, which draws a small group of Yalies and is not affiliated with YSC, Cheung was drawn more into their faith. Talking about the transition into this new community, she said, “It was definitely the community that drew me into the Christian faith, the support system that was there. Going to church and having all these upperclassmen fawning over you, being supportive, asking you how you’re doing all the time, that was a big draw for me. Even now I feel that the community is a big part of my involvement with church.”

In addition to supporting her, however, this new community has spurred Cheung into examining her faith and her relationship with God. “I feel like because I’ve come to understand the faith more, the religion more, I’ve matured as a Christian. I don’t know if I want to say I’m a Christian, because I haven’t been baptized and I don’t have a stable relationship with God. The biggest step for me is telling myself that I do want to try.”

It is easier for Cheung to explore her faith in this new community than back home in New York. Here, there is church every Sunday, and throughout the week there are fellowship dinners and people she can call if she wants to talk. She mentioned that at God Pod, a weekly meeting with five to six freshmen who talk about their faith, they discuss how hard it is to maintain a strong faith outside a Christian community. Cheung personally felt the truth of this when she left her new community over spring break. Her friends at home view her as a rational, logical—and, by extension, irreligious—person, and it was easy for her to disconnect from her relationship with God during break.

Independent of her religious situation when she leaves Yale, Cheung is capitalizing on her opportunity to explore her faith. “Regardless of if I try to be Christian or whatever that means, I feel like it’s a good experience for me to learn more about it and have considered it actually before dismissing it. Now I feel like I’ve gotten a chance to think seriously about it, to consider it, and to actually try before saying if I want to be Christian or not.”

Cheung is still unsure of where her journey will take her. But she also knows that many of her community members treasure their relationships with God, and she feels that she is missing out. No matter what or when she decides, however, she has found herself a community at school that is helping her along the way.

Julie Shain, DC ’13, is a theatre studies major, also from New York City, who fills her extracurricular time on the stage in productions like Twilight: A Britney Spears Musical and Just Add Water improv comedy shows. Shain and I met on Saturday afternoon in her quirkily decorated Welch common room; as we talked she huddled over her midday meal, a slice of Claire’s Lithuanian coffee cake. She lay down on her couch and casually discussed her religious practice as if remarking on today’s dining hall menu.

Shain grew up in a modern orthodox Jewish household: Her parents sent her to a modern orthodox school where Shain prayed every morning and learned Bible and Talmud along with math and history. Her family kept the Sabbath and only ate kosher food. According to Shain, “I was pretty observant, if not always so religious. I would still observe things even if I didn’t believe them.”

At school, Shain is just as religiously observant as at home. Every Friday night she shuts off her cell phone, puts away her book bag, and rests for 25 hours. But despite her weekly Sabbath observance, Shain is not a regular at the Joseph Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale. While she liked the people she found when she visited the Jewish community at the beginning of the year, she finds now that Slifka is a little far out of the way for her to attend for a Sabbath lunch on Saturday. She thus spends much of her Sabbath among non-Jewish friends who are busy working on papers and using their computers.

“At home when I had Sabbath,” Shain told me, “I would be able to hang out with friends who would come over, my family was all observant, it was just a relaxing environment. Here people are doing work, and I’m in an environment where other people are moving forward and I’m taking a step back, so it’s not as relaxing as it would be if I were in a more relaxing environment. I miss that.”

While Shain recognizes that she could find that sense of Jewish community at Slifka, she chooses not to out of a self-professed sense of laziness. “I’m not a hunter-gatherer as much as a consumer of whatever’s-in-front-of-me,” she admitted. “So to proactively get up, get out of bed, and go to Slifka lunch on Saturday takes effort.”

Despite Shain’s absence from Slifka lunches, she appreciates Slifka and all it has to offer. “Yale has a great Jewish community,” she mused, “and I just need to start going to Slifka. It’s my fault for not taking advantage of it.”

Yet, Shain is not unhappy with her level of religious observance. She recognizes what she could do to make her Sabbaths in her new home more similar to those of her childhood. While she mentioned that she eventually sees herself being a more active member at Slifka, she does not feel the need at the moment to change her practice. She has found herself a comfortable level of religious observance that does not rely on the Jewish community at Yale.

There is not one religious change that all Yalies must go through as they leave what they knew back home and enter new religious communities full of different customs, different leaders, and, perhaps most importantly, different fellow believers. Some Yalies will reaffirm their faith in the face of what they see; others will struggle to find meaning; and others still will not participate in the religious community as much as they did at home. Many others will have totally different experiences from those of Robbins, Cheung, and Shain.

In this time of Passover and Easter, however, it is worthwhile for Yalies to think about their relationship—or lack thereof—with their new religious community. Why do some decide to go home for the holidays while others remain in school? Do we choose to spend these crucial holidays with our new communities or our old? There is no doubt that Robbins was correct when he noted that Yale is a crucible for ideas and beliefs. We only have four years here; we need to spend them engaging the new beliefs that we find. Ultimately, we can decide for ourselves how to transition from home to college to complete independence.