I must admit that until now, my consideration of the role that faith plays in higher education was quite limited. I was obviously aware that students may be of different faiths and in an effort of inclusivity would avoid saying ‘Christmas break’ preferring ‘winter break’ and would always take extra care during Aïd. But to me, this was no different than making a point to celebrate Chinese New Year or Diwali, celebrating cultural differences in general without a special focus on religion. I was born and raised in France, which is a secular country, yet had always found England, an Anglican country, to be far more open to different religions. There, Muslim women are allowed to wear the vail in schools for instance, which in France they are not. This always made me consider England as a more tolerant society, but I hadn’t considered the opportunity for parallels at the scale of the university. Making a point to make religion visible could work towards a more tolerant student culture. In his paper: Religion, the public sphere and higher education Craig Calhoun discusses how keeping religion out of the public sphere can lead to segregation. In this way he argues that public institutions should be doing more to: ‘develop broader learning communities.’ This reminds me of Raise Asis’s essay: Feminism and the challenge of racism  and her point on the importance of acknowledging differences to fight oppression in a more unified way. Ignoring religious differences then, might act to reinforce oppression or discrimination. Celebrating them, on the other hand, might empower a group of people and make them feel more connected.

I do still wonder though, if the importance of the religious celebrations mentioned above lie specifically in the fact that they are religious, or more in that they reflect a different culture. I feel that this is something that Professor Kwame Anthony Appiah touches upon in his lecture: Creed. He highlights the difficulty of differentiating creed and custom and the danger of distorting the: ‘nature of religious identity by a fixation on faith.’ He continues with an interesting observation that the way people have interpreted religion throughout history is often more a reflection on their customs and traditions than it is the other way round. It’s true that I tend to find religious doctrine problematic. Similarly to Bridgette Crutchfield in her interview in the Shades of Noir Higher Power: Religion, Faith, Spirituality & Belief, (though with much less violence and anger) I tend to see religion as an exclusionary practice that can enforce oppression or discrimination (on women, or queer people for example). However, Professor Kwame’s lecture brings an insightful argument to this, saying that history has shown that creedal identities are in fact ‘mutable practices and communities rather than a set of immutable beliefs’. He proposes that religion might become a verb rather than a noun, making creedal identities an activity which might then bring change. In this way, actively celebrating the diversity of religions on our course, might help to create a united sense of community and an approach to religion that is progressive and inclusive.