Don’t build the chapel

Home Opinion Don’t build the chapel

No student reading this article was required to sign a statement of faith to attend Hillsdale College. That being said, faith activities are among the most prevalent activities in student life. One of the most beautiful things I’ve experienced in my four years at Hillsdale is the organic nature of religion on campus through student interest.

Faith and devout religious practices are ubiquitous at Hillsdale, but they are not practiced because we are told to do so. It is rather the voluntary drive of students at this institution to wake up early on Sunday mornings to attend church, spend spring break on a service trip rather than at the beach, or host Bible studies in dorms, within departments, or with their athletic teams that motivates faith life.

Building the proposed chapel may ruin much of what is beautiful, unique, and inspiring about religion at Hillsdale. It would take an organic entity and institutionalize it, creating some potentially devastating consequences.

When the House of Commons was being rebuilt in London after it was destroyed from a bombing in WWII, Winston Churchill stated, “We shape our buildings, and afterwards our buildings shape us.”

A chapel of the proposed size and prominence would impose a quality on campus that changes the way religion operates here, implying some sort of religious consensus where one does not necessarily exist. Even if it were merely built and left vacant, its erection sends a message to onlookers that Hillsdale is a certain kind of school.

The chapel’s presence will not only change the appearance and feel of campus, but it will also change the student population. This campus transformation will attract a different kind of student. Whether this is a good or bad change is another discussion entirely, but the fact that the change will occur is indisputable.

Students who are not Christian may either dismiss the school or be extremely cautious when considering whether or not to attend. The chapel may easily deter some very qualified minds from studying here.

The practical questions involved in the functioning of the chapel are also concerning. Who will get to worship in the chapel on Sundays? What kind of services will there be? What will be the effect on churches in the area that students currently attend? Other such troubling questions would certainly emerge.

Ultimately, those who hold their faith close in their hearts have no need of a special building on campus. But those who do not may be deterred from attending Hillsdale if such a building exists.