Religious Displays Should Educate

Last week's protests against the erection of a sukkah in the courtyard of Dunster House highlight the controversial nature and uncertain future of religion in the houses. The sukkah, which functions as an outdoor house used by Jews to celebrate their harvest holiday, was put up by Dunster's Allston Burr Senior Tutor Suzi Naiburg and numerous interested students. Dissent emerged on two separate fronts: one, the refusal of Dunster Superintendent Joseph O'Connor to allow residents to play volleyball on the lawn, and two, the use of the Sukkah to celebrate a Harvest Moon Festival combining the Jewish holiday with features of the pagan Thargelia festival and the Chinese Zhong Zie Jie. On the volleyball dilemma, we pass no judgment. But on the celebration of a multicultural harvest holiday we do have some thoughts.

The guiding principle of Harvard's policy on these matters should be an appropriation of Marxist rhetoric: Democratic capitalism calls for freedom of religion, not freedom from religion. The human spirit and the quest for truth which we so much value in our academic studies and in our political debates are also embodied in the religions celebrated by students in the University. Their expression of their religious sentiment is not only a right, it is a good. Harvard should value diversity in its truest sense--diversity of beliefs--because from the interaction of undergraduates on this plane, students will both better be able to forge their own synthetic world view and to defend that perspective when required to do so.

Last year, the representatives of the Undergraduate Council on the Committee on House Life supported a ban on using house funds for all forms of religious ceremony in the houses. We couldn't disagree more with such a position. The contribution of religious ceremony to house life is certainly no less than that of a coffeehouse, an opera or a drag night. While we hold all of these communal activities (whether art or debauchery) in high esteem, we cannot regard religious observance with a lower degree of honor. Raise the nativity scene. Light the menorah. Celebrate a public Ramadan. Religious students should be encouraged by house masters and the administration to express themselves in this way, and funds within the budgets of house social committees should be made available for such purposes.

That said, religious celebration in the houses must be characterized by both an inclusive, egalitarian and educational nature. The spirit of such a defiantly open religious policy is best served by a radical sense of ceremony, in which all fellow house residents should not only be allowed to take part, but should also be encouraged to do so. Further, the treatment of religious celebrations within the houses, and any distribution of house funds for these events, must be conducted in a non-discriminatory manner; all religious denominations who request space or funds should be treated equally, though the grants themselves should be in proportion to the scale of the ceremony. Additionally, the ceremonies, serving as they do not just co-religionists but the house community, should attempt to teach ritual and meaning.

We would encourage the display of and practice in the religious spirit which flows through the student body in a multiplicity of branches. Harvard's sense of divinity has been here from its inception. Guided by the three principles of inclusion, equality and education, we hope to see religion prosper in the houses in the coming years because the spiritual life is very much a part of student life; undergraduates would be deprived if it is limited solely to houses of worship.