And lo, the students created Reason Week
Students’ lack of interest in Christian Union events is not evidence of apathy, but of an appetite for reasoned argument, argues Paul Taylor.
It was the fifth week of Durham University’s Epiphany term and, with an inevitability that would make Sisyphus wince, the Christian Union were out in force to promote their annual ‘main event week’. This year the snappy title was “Rescued?” It was hard to venture out of your door without encountering a sea of red and yellow hoodies complete with a very professional looking graphic of a helicopter swooping over a stormy sea. Passing students were invited to talks held at the student union building where the CU do their best to demonstrate the divinity of Jesus and, perhaps more outrageously, the possibility of a free lunch: the hospitality and culinary talent of CU members remains an undisputed fixture. The talks and arguments were also largely unchanged from last year, right down to the analogies (one rambling story has had its somewhat dated reference to the Big Brother House replaced with a more generic locked room but is otherwise identical to its predecessor).
There is only one major deviation from the sequence of events in previous years: for the first time there is an organised sceptical alternative.
In the wake of the CU’s ‘Life Week’ last year, the newly founded Durham University Humanist and Secularist Society met in one of the quieter student bars for a discussion evening (imaginatively titled ‘Lol, that’s weak!’; puns aren’t really our strong point…) About a dozen people attended. The company was convivial and the arguments engaging, but even after a few too many drinks nobody was fooled into thinking that our event was in any way comparable to the large-scale presentations and blanket publicity achieved by our friendly rivals.
Things couldn’t be more different this year. With some much appreciated funding coming in from the AHS and our Newcastle-based neighbours, the North East Humanists, an entire week of events took place stretching from a Darwin Day bar crawl on Saturday the 12th of February to a debate in association with the Durham Union Society on the Friday entitled “This house believes the Church has failed Christianity”.
As far as we know this was the first time any Reason Week type event has been scheduled to go head-to-head with a Christian event week on any UK campus and the results have been astonishing. In stark contrast to the intimate pub gathering from a year ago we had nearly two-hundred students and staff crowding into one of Durham’s largest lecture theatres to hear A C Grayling speak on the theme of reason.
Publicity for our events also reached a new level, with posters and leaflets distributed around the city, and a feature article on Reason Week and the society appearing on BBC Wear’s website.
Most gratifying of all has been the feedback: non-believers and liberal Christians alike seem to have welcomed our challenge to the hegemony of the Christian Union. In the run up to the “Rescued?”, an article appeared in the student newspaper publicising the CU’s events and charmingly suggesting that non-Christians were being wilfully ignorant, “[sticking our heads] in the sand”. The success of Durham’s Reason Week showed that, far from being ignorant or uninformed, there is a strong contingent in the University whose doubt is founded on reasoned argument rather than apathy. After such a show of force they can no longer be swept under the carpet (a manoeuvre that comes naturally to students of all creeds…) but must be engaged with seriously.
Paul Taylor is a member and former President of Durham University Humanist and Secularist Society.
And lo, the students created Reason Week,
Offering food, that’s low. How could any student resist?! ;P
Come to think of it, that’s exactly the strategy Jesus used wasn’t it (as far as the Gospel’s can be said to be an accurate account). – bread, fish, wine. Same old, same old, Jesus appealed to the lowest common denominator, just like Fox News or The Daily Mail.
I was very encouraged to hear about Reason Week at Durham University, and the work of AHS in Universities throughout the country.
I attended Dundee University in 1989, having neither a religious belief nor an understanding of any of the arguments for or against religion. The Christian Union had a very strong presence, and was actively promoting their faith through events on campus. Through contact with Christians at University, I became Christian myself and subsequently devoted 15 years of my life to this faith.
It’s a long story how I untangled myself from the mental confines of faith, but as I battled with the questions that plagued me for years as a believer, reason won the day.
I’m not suggesting that were there a humanist society at the time, I wouldn’t have made the decision to become a Christian. What I do know is that had I known then the arguments for reason, an alternative view of the history of religion, a different reference point by which to try and understand my place in society and the universe, then I would have been better informed before choosing a life of faith over a life of reason.
I can personally testify to the importance of a Humanist presence in Universities, and hope you continue to find the support that you need to run further events like this.
@James Tring. What’s needed is for our education system to make it clear to children, at an early age, that it’s OK not to be religious. An absence of belief in a god does not make someone any less of a person. We need to instil in children a firm sense of confidence in themselves, in their inherent morality and sense of justice. It’s so easy for someone to be attracted to a religious group, not necessarily for religious reasons initially, but for purely social reasons. Religious belief comes later, and the recruiters know this. Extreme examples are the cults that spring up from time to time, often in the USA, but the same principles apply: a gradual indoctrination until the person is fearful of thinking rationally and objectively.
>An absence of belief in a god does not make someone any less of a person.
Another example of an absence being a positive thing is the absence of arsenic in my coffee.