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 PrintableVersion Evangelical student witnessand what anthropology can do to help, and what insights it might giveChristians go to university with many of the same aims as everybody else. They want to spread their wings, find out who they are . . . perhaps even get a degree. But there is one aim which Christian students do not share with their non-Christian counterparts. Many will spend much of their time at university being part of a student-run Christian community and trying to persuade non-Christians to join with all kinds of outreach activities. But, according to my research, while an ‘in your face!’ busy CU might be successful at some universities, at others the same group might actually drive students away from Christianity. Liminality & communitasThe largest evangelical group on British campuses is the Christian Union but there is also Fusion and Speak. There are many factors that these student evangelical groups have to take into account when witnessing to other students: what are the students’ cultural backgrounds? Even, what kind of subjects are they studying? But there is one factor, according to my doctoral research (recently passed by the Divinity Department of Aberdeen University), that is a crucially important consideration for any CU that wants to maintain a community and persuasively witness: Liminality. In anthropology-speak, universities are, to varying degrees, liminal or transitional phases for undergraduate students. University is a phase of transition, often from being seen as a child to being seen as an adult. It is a time of change from one identity to another. During this phase, a student is usually away from the area he or she knows and may meet people from very different backgrounds. So liminality leads to Communitas. Communitas is a breaking-down of social and geographical structures — the things which help to make identity. It leads to a feeling of ‘togetherness’ but also confusion over who we are. At university, therefore, the student’s identity is confused and unclear. These concepts were first developed by the British anthropologist Victor Turner (1920-1983). In these circumstances, according to various other anthropologists and my own research, students need to find some kind of structure and identity (because without it they are cut adrift and don’t know who they are anymore). They may find it in highly-organised student-run groups — such as the Oxford Union Society. It will give them the structure and identity they need. But it will only be successful in doing this if the university experience really involves confusion and transition or liminality and communitas. Real worldBut enough of the anthropology lecture. Let’s get back into the real world of student evangelism. I conducted fieldwork with three Student Evangelical Groups from three very different universities. These were Oxford Inter-Collegiate Christian Union (OICCU, at Oxford), Aberdeen University Christian Union (AUCU) and Navigators Studenten Leiden (NSL, at Leiden University in the Netherlands). I went to their meetings and interviewed and surveyed a balanced sample of members. In each case, there was a strong argument for claiming that each group was the most successful evangelical group at their respective universities. They were the largest (and their aim was the growth of a Christian community) and they had the most members that had started university as non-Christians (their other aim was to witness). But the CUs were very different from each other. They successfully took into account, probably without knowing it, the needs of the students to whom they ministered in terms of liminality and communitas. OxfordOxford University involves a high level of communitas, of identity break-down. Most students are not from Oxford, so it questions geographical identity. It also questions class identity. Half of Oxford students have been to private schools. So state-school pupils will meet them. The college system means that the son of a security guard may well live next door to the son of a duke — they may even share a bedroom. Oxford’s various rituals, ‘formals’ for example, will also help to create bonds between these two groups and people come to Oxford from all over Britain. So it is a highly liminal university in which who you are may change. This would be especially the case for state-school pupils who have never been on a gap year because, unlike public school students, they may never have lived away from home. AberdeenAberdeen University is far less liminal. Most of its students are from Scottish state schools. In many cases, they are from the north of Scotland. Unlike in Oxford, a sizeable minority live at home even during term time. There are no colleges and far fewer rituals: there isn’t even a matriculation ceremony. Leiden University is less liminal still. Almost all the students are from the part of Holland where Leiden is situated (and are therefore Protestant), many do not live in Leiden in term-time, or live at home, and almost all go home at weekends. Leiden University involves no great change for many of its students. So, the ‘Oxford Experience’ is the most difficult to cope with. Many students there need an identity, a structured group. And this is why OICCU is so successful. In comparison to the other two, it is a structured group. There is some kind of OICCU meeting almost every day. There is an annual Mission Week, packed with activities. Members wear special ‘hoodies’ which clearly mark them out as Christians — offering a clear identity. They are the most forthright in terms of what they believe and how to behave as a Christian, they have a kind of group dialect as in, ‘SLOBs are gonna meet on Tuesday at Cats’. Few were prepared to swear. It’d always be, ‘This projector’s a bit pants’. They even seemed to dress differently from non-Christians. Outreach activity was at least weekly. At Oxford, where students’ identities are adrift, a witnessing group like this gets it just right. It is what people need. But because the group is so structured, people will need an ‘outlet’, something unstructured. Many anthropologists have noted the importance of this balance in successful groups. And this was seen in many of OICCU’s worship-meetings and especially Powerhouse, on Saturday mornings. This largely involved an emotional and unstructured (there weren’t even chairs!) form of worship. Of course, there are other reasons for the charismatic movement at Oxford, not least church politics and national religious culture. These were examined in detail and accounted for in the thesis in relation to each group. Aberdeen University is far less liminal and AUCU reflects this. It meets only twice a week, the Mission is smaller and people tend not to wear Mission ‘hoodies’. Belief and behaviour are less strict, there is far less Christian dialect, a small number of members would swear and the female members, in particular, dress more similarly to non-Christians, with regard to revealing clothes, for example. The meetings are far less charismatic (though there is still an influence). There is less of an emotional outlet, because it is not required. So AUCU were less ‘different’ from non-Christians. Leiden in the NetherlandsLeiden University was the least liminal and NSL clearly paralleled this. It met only once a week and had only one outreach event a term, which was normally a party with no ‘Christian’ element. One NSLer said this was because, ‘We don’t want people to think we’re weird! We’re just normal people who are Christians’. NSLers dressed and spoke almost exactly as non-Christian Dutch students. Even ‘boundary-words’ such as ‘non-Christian’ were not heard (in Dutch of course). Unlike the other groups, they had no objection to drinking. A larger minority were happy to have pre-marital sex than in the other groups. And a larger minority were less strict about what were the appropriate theological beliefs for a Christian. But, of course, there needed to be some ‘structure’ and this was seen in the meetings which were solemn and serious. Another group at Leiden, Ichthus, was almost exactly like OICCU . . . and had fewer than 30 members. Of course, there was a big difference regarding how some non-members felt about these groups. At Oxford, when I asked about OICCU, one girl snapped, ‘Are you gonna try and brainwash me?! I’m not interested!’ At Leiden, a student simply remarked of NSL, ‘I hear they have some cool parties!’ But what the research showed was that university witness is not necessarily about outreach, outreach and more outreach. If you took OICCU and dropped it on a British Polytechnic, where most students were from the local area and lived with their parents, it would probably drive students away. But the same would be true if NSL was dumped in the middle of Oxford. Understanding the degree to which the university is liminal is, according to my research, a vital factor in getting the balance right and creating a thriving Christian community with persuasive witnessing activity. Not every university experience is the same as Oxford. And if a CU realises this, and appropriately reflects this in its activities, then, at least according to my research, the CU will be more attractive to both Christians and, crucially, non-Christians. Edward Dutton © Evangelicals Now - September 2006 |
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