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BY JULIAN CHENDER

In print | November 1, 2007

For a considerably left-leaning campus, Swarthmore houses a substantial religious right. Swarthmore Christian Fellowship, the evangelical Christian group and Swarthmore’s chapter of Intervarsity Christian Fellowship, has quite a pull, with 50 active members and 100 more on the mailing list.

While SCF “welcome[s] all, regardless of background and belief,” the Intervarsity doctrine to which it officially ascribes has a less open view: “We believe in: The only true God,” it reads, “in Jesus Christ alone for salvation … [and] the victorious reign and future personal return of Jesus Christ, who will judge all people with justice and mercy, giving over the unrepentant to eternal condemnation but receiving the redeemed into eternal life.”

The fundamentalist belief in the one true path to salvation leaves little room for discussion. “I’m right and you’re wrong” does not foster dialogue, and “that’s just the way it is,” while great lyrics for Bruce Hornsby, is rarely a satisfying explanation.

However, I recently had a gratifying discussion with a girl from SCF who is the sweetest, most genuine and kindest fundamentalist Catholic I have ever met. She listened to my point of view, which she deemed incorrect, but incorrect meriting some level of contemplation.

While she suggested that I was absolutely, ultimately and cosmically incorrect - which is to be expected from religious fundamentalists - she wasn’t dismissive. She wanted to know what I believed, and not just so she could debunk it; rather, she was genuinely interested in what I thought.

Even when she explained that I would be going to hell, she did it in a truly apologetic way. I asked her what happens to people like me, and she said, with genuine remorse, “Well, you don’t go to heaven … and I guess the other option is hell,” ending with the raised, crinkled eyebrows of “So sorry, I wish it were different.”

According to her, I am going to hell because I don’t believe in the same things as she. This begs the question, what is hell? In Buddhism, hell is a state of mind, a projection created by aggression and hatred where life feels very hot and claustrophobic. I am pretty sure, however, that she was talking about fire and brimstone. But how does she even know that such a place exists? Nobody has gone to hell and returned to tell about it.

This calls into question belief in general. Why does one believe something he or she has not experienced? So many religions include, even if they are not based upon, beliefs — those creeds passed down from generation to generation that are accepted unquestioningly, and which hold no experiential basis.

One religion with such a tradition is Pastafarianism, whose adherents believe that the universe was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster. (“None of us, of course, were around to see it, but we have written accounts of it.”)

These fundamentalists compose a serious minority, so what happens to all the wonderful people in the world who die without ever hearing of Jesus Christ? And what happened to everyone who died before Jesus was even born?

Among those that are destined for eternal damnation is the Dalai Lama, who wrote in an op-ed in the Washington Post on Oct. 21, “I often say that while one can adhere to the principle of ‘one truth, one religion’ at the level of one’s personal faith, we should embrace at the same time the principle of ‘many truths, many religions’ in the context of wider society.”

Any theology that presupposes that a kind person motivated by compassion will go to hell because he does not hold the same beliefs is worthy of being questioned.

Julian is a junior. You can reach him at jchende1@swarthmore.edu.

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