Friday, February 11, 2011

#210 Mandatory chapel at Bible college


Most Christian colleges require students to attend chapel services. Chapel is not an option, it's part of the curriculum. If you don't fulfill your chapel quota, you don't graduate.

Though Christianity purports to operate under the auspices of grace and generally claims that church attendance isn't something God grades you on, Christian culture doesn't see it that way. All that Christ-given freedom could get out of hand. That there freedom needs some good old-fashioned, Torah-caliber parameters. They can't just let those students roam around free, pointing their bodies wherever it seems like a good idea. Leave it to religious institutions to take something wildly esoteric and beautiful (such as as the gathering of believers in worship) and then find a way to monitor people's performance and grade them on it. Christian colleges know they can't actually make you worship, but they can make you appear to worship, and that's good enough for them.

So how exactly do you appear to worship? You just have to get your arse into chapel. If they could read your mind or inventory your heart they would, but they must settle for counting your physical presence in the sanctuary. In spite of all this chapel enthusiasm, you don't have to attend every day. Some schools require 3 chapel attendances a week, some say seventeen per semester, etc. This of course engenders criminal mischief as students seek to evade chapel attendance. At schools where video imaging is used, seniors pay the freshmen to go to chapel in their stead (a camera in the ceiling records who is sitting in which assigned seat, so as long as a body is in your spot you are absolved) or if they have a card system they do the Slide 'n Glide, where you scan your student ID at the chapel entrance and promptly bail.

The chapel services themselves start with some introductory praise 'n worship led by one of the three hottest guys on campus and his pained expressions. He likes to look up at the vaulted ceiling and intermittently close his eyes while singing, and every straight girl in the building prays again to be the future Mrs. Sexy Guitarist as a way to sublimate her lust.

Chapel is also where you assess the spirituality of your fellow students. If you are right with God or would like people to think you are, you will stand while you are singing and sway around and maybe close your eyes and lift up your hands a little bit, especially if your friends are. If you aren't right with God and feel terrible about it (chronic impatience with your roommate, repeated helpless making out with the guitarist, not having consistent quiet times or not witnessing enough), you'll sit down and lean forward and radiate humility. Sometimes your friends who know your struggles pat you on the back while they sing or they'll sit down and put their arms around you (and boy do they look like awesome friends when they do that). If you aren't right with God and you don't care, or if you are right with him but you think mandatory chapel is a crock of shit, you might remain sitting and whisper to your friends just to make the people who are standing feel uncomfortable, because you're pretty sure that if you are judging them then they are judging you.

After praise 'n worship you have either liturgical prayers or Scripture readings, depending on how reformed your school is, and then the Dean of Chapel delivers a message or homily (so named depending again on degree of reformation). It is a rare homily in which sports are not the primary analogical inspiration. Most people nod off or do homework at this point. Guest speakers frequently give the chapel homily. These speakers are usually balding males who are running for some kind of Republican office or assisting someone who is running for Republican office, and the message is on how God is using their campaign to make America more godly. Other times the message is given by students. These messages always feature a slideshow from a recent missions trip and an accompanying tale of the difficulty they had at first to keep the right attitude in the intense heat with no running water, and they always conclude with how much the trip changed them. There aren't very many female guest speakers at chapel, come to think of it.

Then there's a mad rush to get to class once the service is over. If you went to the trouble of going to chapel you would like for everyone to know it, so while waiting for class to start you will discuss the chapel speaker with what you hope is intensity and dissect the theology in the message while using as many big words as possible. You can tell which people didn't go to chapel that morning because they're the ones keeping quiet. Also, they're already seated and they aren't out of breath.

If you haven't fulfilled your chapel quota by the end of the semester, you are placed on Chapel Probation. Depending on your school you are then required to attend make-up chapels, pay a fine, or do a report on a Christian book for every mandatory chapel missed. On top of mandatory chapel, some schools require you to attend church as well. Church attendance is harder for them to monitor so it operates on the honor system, and you are exhausted and bored to tears from all those mandatory chapels, so you usually don't go and say you did. This of course has the side effect of extra guilt, as if you didn't have enough guilt already at Christian college.

55 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey, its Hannah your cousin. I was just browsing facebook and somehow ended up on this.. and I have to say I like this blog. This post you have here: This is one of the reasons I am going to a NONreligious college... finally someone who understands!

Shannon said...

Is that the chapel at Grove City College? It looks VERY familiar...

Jayni said...

This is definitely Harbison Chapel at Grove City College. I'm a current student.

stephy said...

Affirmative.

stephy said...

How's chapel treatin ya, Jayni? Is that Abercrombie model guy still leading worship?

Jesse said...

Current student here as well. Chapel is, for me, over forever (senior year fuck yeah). Stephy, how long ago were you at Grove City? I feel such a special connection to this blog now, knowing that you at least temporarily went through the same things I do here.

stephy said...

Jesse, I'm going to refrain from revealing any more, but I'm curious about how that Rainbow Bridge - Bridging the Gap thing is going over there.

Andy Whipps said...

I only went to Grove City for a year, but I recognized the chapel immediately. When I was there (1996-97) there was an underground service that would turn in your chapel tickets for you so you didn't have to go. Thankfully it was cheap enough that just about anyone could afford it...

Jesse said...

I'm in the FB group, but I haven't been to any of the meetings yet (schedule conflicts, mostly). Reaction from a few of my friends I've talked to is...hesitant, but not hostile. My roommate said he supported what Jesy was saying in her newspaper article, up until the point where she said the Bible was okay with it. That's largely the reaction I've gotten. I'm glad the group is getting people talking and thinking, at least.

Also, regarding the Abercrombie model-chapel leader: that could probably be like 3 different guys, depending on when you went here. Do you mean Ross?

Bob Montgomery said...

I didn't go to a Christian college, and I always wondered what chapel was all about. The More You Know(tm)...

tobethatguy said...

GCC alumnus here. Found your blog through a Facebook link and LOVE IT. I will be reading as far back as I can read.

NO, the Abercrombie model is no longer leading worship. He gave up modeling despite a successful career and, last I heard, was in seminary.

Dracula said...

Harding University, Searcy, Arkansas (Church of Christ). Required to attend chapel five days a week.

Year one, semester one: Balcony. Took notes in chapel. Sung with every song. Tried to get something out of every message.

Year two: Floor. Still pretty devout. Broke up with girlfriend near end of year, very awkward, as seat was next to her.

Year three: Floor, near front. Tried to avoid ex-girlfriend group. Inwardly detested frequent slideshows of starving children in Africa.

Year four: Floor. Drew cartoons of chapel speakers. Shared them with friends afterward.

Year five: Balcony, as high up as possible. Played Zelda the entire time. Did not participate in singing.

Incidentally, in very strict CoC settings, women are not allowed to preach. So whenever we had a female speaker, there would always be a compressed chapel service, with song, message and prayer, then the female speaker would technically be the "after show." Nice legalism there, eh?

stephy said...

Jonesey, my best friend went to Harding. She seemed to have the same exact experience.

Jeni Buckingham said...

This also sounds like my experience at Concordia College in Minn/St. Paul. I was only there briefly for a summer college program, but it was awful. Chapel (vespers?) was in the evening, and would let out around 11:30 pm.

Then you have to get up the next morning for your 1st class which started at 8am. Want food? You had to get to the cafeteria b/4 it closed at 7:30 am, but by then there wasn't anything left - real food could be had at 5:30 am if you didn't mind standing in line for a half hour. Oh, and it was forbidden to leave campus for food since most of us were under 18 at the time.

By the end I was emaciated and angry at the "Christians" in charge of the way we lived. It was inhumane! Your stories of skipping chapel are so familiar... Oh, and the guilt.

Dracula said...

Stephy -

Went to Harding, eh? What years? Probably a bit before my time, I'm guessing.

stephy said...

Yeah, '93/'94. She didn't last long.

Rachel Rose said...

I went to Vanguard (Assemblies of God) and depending on your class/work schedule, you can get the amount of chapels (I think it was something like 17 a semester) lowered. I was the queen of finding ways to get out of chapel. It was fine and all, but I could never stand the guest speakers. Most of the time when I actually went, I just worked on homework. Kids today are lucky, they can play Angry Birds the entire time. I was stuck with a little blue Nokia brick phone with a midi ringtone and a whole lotta required reading (I was a History Major).

I graduated in 2005, so I'm sure they have figured out a way to shut all of the loopholes that my friends and I figured out.

Anonymous said...

I just graduated from a Christian college. We were required to attend chapel three days per week, but were allowed six skips per semester.
I enjoyed chapel, but really didn't like the fact that it was required - it often became an "I have to do this" instead of an "I want to do this". And that sort of destroys the point of it.
There were a lot of things like that, things that made it seem as though the university didn't trust us to make the right decisions...there were restrictions on our movie choices, on our Internet browsing, on what video games we could and couldn't play... Legalism, pure and simple.

Anonymous said...

Much love for the Liz Phair reference.

stephy said...

You're the first one to have caught it that I know of. :)

Kristen said...

I just started attending a Christian university this fall and could not feel more glad that there are other people here who have had/are having similar mandatory chapel experiences. I've already skipped two because I felt swamped with homework. When I've gone, the presentations themselves have been ok, but I hate that I have to go or else it affects my academic achievement. It makes me feel like a bad, unbalanced person the few times that I've skipped. Also, last chapel I went to I came in a bit late and was told by a faculty member that puntuality is important and to be taken seriously and if I was this late next time, the doors would be closed and I wouldn't be allowed in. This woman made me feel like an awful person and completely unwelcome in chapel, which I feel is probably where I should feel the most welcome on campus. Although I'm not trying to excuse my lateness, the way the woman treated me seems so opposite of the way Jesus might have treated me in that situation. My college's method is turning so many people off to chapel, it's ridiculous. Although I am a Christian and I love learning about the Bible and theology, I'm seriously considering transferring to a public school next year, this being one of the many reasons.

Thanks for the post, Steph. It's nice to hear I'm not alone in my frustration with this.

SarahJ said...

Just graduated from Cedarville University--mandatory chapel every weekday. Worst hour of my day. Fortunately I managed to move off campus and arrange my senior year's schedule so that I no longer had to attend.

Best (worst) chapel? The speaker who told the male students that when it came to dating at Cedarville, they were like customers in the best bagel shop on earth. "No reason not to graduate without a wife--just pick one!"

Lola said...

Ha! Love this. I have an F in Chapel on my undergrad transcript at Northwest College, now 'university.'

stephy said...

An F in chapel!! You are getting comment of the day on the SCCL Facebook page.

Anonymous said...

We always called it "scan and scram" when you showed up, scanned your card, then snuck back out.

Anonymous said...

A fb friend posted this article and to be honest, this post makes me sad. I graduated from a Christian university where chapel is required everyday. I don't believe it's mission or purpose was to monitor anyones spiritual condition, but to provide an opportunity to grow and learn about the Savior we love..the Savior that gave his life for us. While not every chapel message was convicting, or pertained me at that time in my life, I must say, it was one of the best aspects of my college years. Chapel gave me the opportunity to refocus and be reminded that today and everyday, is about the Lord, not me. It gave me the opportunity to learn more about Him and spend a few minutes in worship. As people who call themselves children of God, we should be thankful for these opportunities that our institutions provide for us. For the opportunities to be in fellowship, to be in community, to spend time as believers worshipping together, praying together, rejoicing together, crying together. I am sad to know more students don't see chapel as a way to be challenged to think critically but instead as a way to mock others. Yes, in some cases, maybe your school's chapel was a joke and only the hot males led worship...and shame on them for making it about appearance rather than the heart, but either way, that doesn't mean you can't genuinely praise God and be thankful for an opportunity to be closer to Him. Get past the couple that can't keep their hands off each other, get over the fact that it's mandatory, stop caring about what the worship leader looks like and start focusing on the Lord and be thankful for an opportunity to allow Him to work in you. If you can't stand the message, then don't pay attention and pray instead. But at least keep an open mind that maybe that chapel message was speaking to the heart of maybe a friend or a classmate and we should rejoice in how the Lord works in our brothers and sisters in Christ. Again, chapel for me was a highlight and I believe my university did a wonderful job of bringing in wonderful speakers from all around the world, from all different backgrounds and occupations. I do consider my school to be blessed in that way. Chapel wasn't/isn't a joke and it was/is executed very well. But if I didn't want to hear someone speak or attend a specific chapel, I skipped and assumed the consequences my school, that I CHOSE to go to, had in place. I am thankful for how intentional my institution was/is about providing opportunities for it's students to be challenged, be in community with one another and grow spiritually. A mandatory chapel has is cliches and stigmas we can laugh at...however, what does that say to unbelievers? From the outside looking in, your negativity and mocking of an opportunity to worship our Savior is disappointing. The first young woman to comment even admits to pursuing non-religious affliated schools because of this reason. Not that secular schools are bad or wrong, but as believers, we should be able to see and defend the benefits to attending a Christ centered institution. I wouldn't change a thing about having chapel everyday. I believe it instilled a sense of discipline in my life when it comes to spending time with the Lord and serves as a great reminder that now as a working individual, I must set aside time to be in fellowship and community with believers. Chapel was and continues to be a blessing in my life. I learned so much from the speakers and had some great times sitting with my friends for that hour. I hope more students can see the benefits of having chapel, no matter how often or how good/bad the speaker is or how your attendance is being monitored. Being together as believers is a good thing and I am glad there are institutions that see the benefits of that.

Brent said...

Also just graduated from Cedarville. As an (at the time closeted) gay boy, have to say the pretty boy leading worship was always my favorite part.

Cedarville University said...

Wow this is amazing!

so clever and unfortunately, so true.

I went to Cedarville University, and while most chapels were pretty awesome, I witnessed every single thing you mentioned. The guitar player...classic.

very nice,
Jordan

Anonymous said...

A stone-cold atheist could enroll into a Bible College, lie and confess Jesus Christ, attend every single Chapel and wave his hands in the air emphatically and fall to his knees and feign crocodile tears... and he would be praised by the school and graduate with honors. While the entire time he's denying God. Now tell me, Bible School defender... what does THAT say about Christianity? Yet your answer, mr or mrs. anonymous, is to ignore the truth and ignore the elephant in the room because it might make Christianity look bad. (Which is really a testament of your own lack of faith.) Withholding truth is what is know as lying by omission... it's still lying, and no liar will enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.

Callie Glorioso-Mays said...

I was an RA at a Christian college that required chapel 5 times a week (with about 8 skips allowed per semester). I made "chapel bingo" charts for the girls in my hall that contained a bunch of "church-y" words. If the chapel speaker used that word, they got to cross it out. If you reached bingo and turned in your card to me later that day, you got a candy bar. :) Definitely the highest rated hall event of the year ;) We ended up doing it about once a month :)

Anonymous said...

You're right, a student could very well do that. In fact, I know that it has happened at the school I attended. I never said attending chapel is the mark of a great Christian. I never said raising your arms during a worship song, or crying during a speaker's message makes you a better Christian. What I did say is that offering chapel can be a wonderful thing and I don't think making it mandatory is a bad thing either. I know that for me personally, I am better off because of the chapel service my institution offered and required of me to attend. My university didn't force me to think a certain way, they didn't ask me like every message, but they did ask me to seek Biblical truth, to be challenged, and to love God. Chapel is ONE way they offered an opportunity for me to grow deeper. What I did with it was up to me. How seriously I took it was up to me. But I took it seriously because that's what I was looking for in a Christian institution. I wanted to grow deeper in my personal relationship with the Lord during my college years. I was a public school kid all my life and wanted to be in an environment where I could worship freely and be challenged in my faith, have Bible classes and learn about Scripture from professors who know and love the Lord. I chose to attend a Christian college that was serious about the spiritual growth of its students and atmosphere of the school so that I could walk away from my college years with an ability to articulate and defend my faith with a heart that knows God and loves Him above all else. I felt that I could best do that at the institution I chose to attend. And I strongly believe offering chapel is a wonderful thing and can reach students no matter where they are in their walk with the Lord. It is not a schools responsibility to measure or judge one's level of belief based upon chapel attendance. However I will again state, that as believers, shouldn't we be glad for opportunities to worship our Savior? You may not feel it's necessary for your own life, for your own walk with the Lord, but that doesn't mean it's bad or that we should mock it because it may very well be what another believer needs and we should be supportive of that. I'm not saying there aren't problems with chapels at Christian schools and that the author can't point out the cliche situations that happen that we find humorous because we can all relate and have found that to be true in chapel and church settings, but I am saying that if you're upset because a school requires students to attend chapel so that they may have another opportunity to grow and worship, then I think that's sad. I don't think that as followers of Christ we should be mocking the action of fellowship and the benfits to worship as a body of believers to the point where it elludes to it being a complete joke. I personally just don't believe this particular post by the author was uplifting. I don't believe it provided a solution or a challenge to other believers of how to change the current problem institutions are facing with how they conduct their chapel services. It instead just mocked it without stating how it can still be a good thing. For that reason I am disappointed by this post and am defending faith-based institutions whose intentions are to encourage sincere growth in their relationship with the Lord through opportunities such as chapel.

stephy said...

True worship is 24-7 and un-forced.

Anonymous said...

I would agree with that. Most definitely. And I will say that I never felt forced to worship in chapel just because it was required for me to be there physically. It is a choice to worship and I chose to take advantage of the time set aside each day by my college to worship together as a student body. I think it is a wonderful thing and I am glad I had the opportunity to do so. I don't think my relationship with the Lord suffered any because I attended a mandatory chapel.

Chrissy said...

Mandatory chapel worked wonders for Anonymous! You might enjoy this post more:

http://www.stuffchristianculturelikes.com/2009/05/80-leaving-perturbed-comments-and.html

Bill said...

Amen, Stephy.

It seems to me that God is where he finds you. Sometimes that's chapel. Sometimes it's other places.

And I'm sure that for "faith-based institutions", there are plenty of other opportunities for God to find a person, manufactured or otherwise.

The problem is that by requiring chapel, an institution *is* judging students'--and its own--spirituality based on service attendance. That is what makes a mockery of the "opportunity" for collective worship, not this post or these commenters.

JDM929 said...

Anonymous, mandatory is not equal to opportunity. Do you really want to be worshiping with people that do not want to be there?

Anonymous said...

who i am worshipping with is not to be the point. the point is who i am worshipping...and that is Christ.

stephy said...

So you can see how mandatory chapel is silly and often harmful, no?

Ben said...

Anonymous,

There's another issue that I don't believe you've addressed. The mandatory chapel sessions that Stephanie is talking about aren't taking place in high schools or elementary schools. They are taking place in colleges. In other words, grown adults are being forced to attend these chapels. The administrators of these colleges apparently have such contempt for their students that they don't believe that the students have the maturity to make a decision to be part of chapel themselves.

Anonymous said...

Making chapel available for students is a wonderful thing. Making it mandatory, monitoring it, and grading students on it reeks of legalism. A man cannot measure the level of another man's worship... because man can never know what's in another man's heart. Only God can to that. Christian School administrators self-appoint themselves authority over other believer in ways that they have no right or Biblical permission to do. They ONLY have authority over students in ways of academics. You keep defending your school, but your school is just a man-made institution and not the final authority of what is or is not the way a believer should behave.

Anonymous said...

Ben, As a adults, don't you then have the freedom to choose an institution that doesn't require you to be there? If you didn't want to abide by that rule, then you shouldn't attend that school. If you don't believe it is right, then why would you subject yourself to it? As an adult at 18,you had that freedom and right. But if as adults you chose to attend an institution where their rule (and right to have a rule in place) is to require chapel, then you willingly agreed to their standards. And as believers, we are asked in Scripture to respect authority. Brandt, my school never graded us on chapel so I guess I cannot comment on that. They did make it mandatory and I think that's ok. It's not so they could judge one's relationship with the Lord...that's certainly not the point in offering a chapel service. The point is to provide another opportunity to worship and to do so as a student body and I have seen many wonderful things, in my own life and in the life of my fellow classmates, happen because of chapel. There were times I didn't want to be there, but the Lord can use speakers and times of songs of praise to speak to our hearts and I am thankful for the ways He has allowed me to learn more about Him, even when I maybe wasn't feeling up to it. I don't believe I'm worse off because I had attended chapel and learned more about Christ. That is my argument. I am in agreement that God is the final say whether or not he ever knew us...which is why I'm glad I went to a school that finds it important enough to instill a sense of discipline in it's students lives when it comes to spending time with the Lord...because it is serious...if we love Him, we will learn about Him, we will praise Him and it will not matter if we are forced to be there or not...because it's not about that...it's about Christ. And I am sorry if a school judges or grades a student based upon attendance...but they still have every right as an institution to have a rule like that and if you don't like it, then don't go. But I for one, am thankful for how God used daily chapel during my college years.

Anonymous said...

And sorry for my previous typo in the first sentence!

stephy said...

Anonymous,

you say that as adults you have the freedom to choose an institution, but many students, and I would actually wager most students, at Christian colleges were forced to go there by their parents... usually because the parents are nervous about their kids being "in the world" and receiving a Secular Education™. Christian culture can and does force people to do all kinds of things, but Jesus never did.

You loved the "opportunity" to attend mandatory chapel and you feel it was a positive experience, but you don't have any room for other people's negative experiences of mandatory chapel. This allows you to pigeon-hole others and categorize them quite neatly, and this is deumanizing, as I feel mandatory chapel is.

Anonymous said...

Well, see, the funny thing is, I work for the college I attended with prospective students. In my several years here, never...and I can honestly say never, have I communicated with a student or read an application where the students must state why they want to come here where they say the only reason I am coming here is because of my parents...or that I don't have a choice. I know of students whose parents will only pay for their child's education if they attend a Christian school, but that in no way forces an 18 year old, who by law is an adult, to attend a Christian school. Pressure to attend and forcing to attend are two different things. We still live in a free country.

Your second point is interesting to me. I never said that it is right for schools to grade a student or judge a student on their relationship with the Lord based upon chapel attendance. I think we are in agreement there. However, I just wanted to state that I am sad that there seemingly seems to be no positive side represented or expressed about having mandatory chapel. It made me sad, as a believer and one whose life was changed through Christian higher education, that other readers/commenters that didn't attend a Christian school don't feel that they missed out on a great opportunity and for those that are looking at schools; your post solidified their decision to not even consider a Christian school. Not every student is going to love every chapel, but as believers, I don't think we should be mocking and degrading the action of fellowship and worship..mandatory or not. You can't discredit my experience, and I cannot discredit yours. But I can defend the other side and say there are benefits to it. I was never categorizing anyone like you claim...not sure where thats coming from.

JDM929 said...

Anon, why are you playing apologetics on campus-wide mandatory chapel if you don't care who you're worshiping with?

JDM929 said...

Also, make sure you don't confuse the mocking the mandatory part with mocking chapel. I mock the mandatory policy itself. If people chose to go, then that's fine.

Anonymous said...

A lot of schools want you to sign those enrollment forms as soon as possible. It's not as simple as choosing to go or not go because many 18 year olds don't have the experience or wisdom to see if the school teaches correct theology or a false man-made theology, and there's really no way to find out until you're already there. Just because it says 'Bible School' or 'Christian College' does not mean that it's automatically a safe place to spiritually grow. Many students just wind up being led down the wrong path and believing it without question and spend their whole lives making a mockery of God without even knowing it. I'm not speaking about your school, because I don't know what your school teaches. Then there's those like you who insist that everything be 'uplifting' and you forbid criticism. Basically what you are doing is bullying people. Lamentations certainly is not uplifting. And the books of Prophecy are quite critical of God's people. So using your logic, should we throw them out of the Bible, and replace them Joel Osteen books? Your lack of reason and finger-wagging towards others bothers me. I think you should spend more time reading your Bible while being led by the Holy Spirit. And furthermore, learn what the word 'mocking' means. Pointing out the truth in a humorous way is not mockery. And read what she wrote. She's not calling out chapel, she's calling out MANDATORY chapel. I may not agree with everything Stephanie does or says, but I'll certainly stand up to any faith-bully who demands that all of Christianity be bubble-gum happy time on a cotton candy cloud. There are many who do everything they can to silence and control anyone who dares question their fabricated reality of what Christianity should be. That is nothing Like Christ. Does everything really need to be 'nice' and 'wholesome' and 'positive' in order for your faith to be preserved? If so, maybe you ought to get to know God a little better.

Ben said...

Anonymous, in response to your 5:42 post: I'm not focusing on the decisions of the student to enroll at the particular school; yeah, it's something that hopefully students would know in advance and decide accordingly. I'm focusing on the decisions of the administrators in actually making this requirement. They clearly do not appreciate what their chaplains/guest preachers are doing in chapel services enough to believe that students would go on their own choice. If I was a campus pastor at such a college, I would be offended by this requirement.

This, let's remember is about a chapel requirement, not the actual chapel worship itself. Yes, that's something that can be a very good thing; the college I went to had M-Th chapel services too. And this might be a totally foreign concept to you, but... chapel attendance was entirely optional!

Mr. C. Elliot Stern said...

Of course the prospective students tyou work with aren't going to cite those reasons. What benefit is that to them? I work for and attend a Christian university as well; we make liars out of students every semester.

Katie said...

Just figured it's worth mentioning that my oldest sister met her now-husband when they were both actively involved in a "The Liberty Way"-bashing website while attending Liberty. They had to get 25 reps removed off each of their records by writing and presenting some bogus paper about something theological and inconsequential. My sister also pretended to have health issues her second year of college so that she could move off campus and never attend convocation ever again.

Needless to say, I'm proud to be related to her.

Zooey said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

Wow, I didn't realize how good I had it. I attended, and now work for, a church-related institution which offers chapel once a week and accommodates it by not (officially) scheduling any classes for that hour.

Nobody actually keeps track of who goes. There is no requirement for anybody to go. And yet every week there is a fair number of participants. All of them actually want to be there. Isn't that the way it is supposed to be?

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pseudodiva said...

I realize this post is two years old. But I went to GCC and graduated--holla. You know how I got rid of my chapel requirements? I wrote papers. I was an English major and was taking Christian Authors in my last semester. So doing the book reports on Christian books was a cakewalk. Pretty sure I wrote in one of the reports that I liked it better than going to chapel.

This is a fantastic blog. Party on!

RP said...

Just found this blog in 2015, but yet another Grover here...graduated in 2000, and I'd recognize Harbison Chapel anywhere. Haha. Oh those chapel cards...