On Thursday 9 March the Queen’s Religious Studies Forum hosted an event on Religion and the University Experience: Perspectives from Britain & Northern Ireland, featuring Prof Mathew Guest (Durham) and me.
You can listen to the audio of our contributions here.
Seven key findings from my report are:
- Most students report that their involvement in chaplaincies or the CU has been positive, helping them to grow in their faith and make friends. 84% of evangelicals said CU has been central to their experience at university; while 75% of evangelicals and 64% of Catholics strongly agreed/agreed that chaplains provide pastoral support in a way professional services cannot.
- 94% of evangelical and 63% of Catholic students are involved in volunteer activities, indicating high levels of religious and civic engagement.
- QUB’s evangelical students are much more conservative on a range of ‘moral’ issues than their Catholic counterparts at QUB or Christian students in UK universities. To take just one example, 84% of QUB evangelicals believe that sex between two adults of the same sex is ‘always wrong’, compared to 18% of Catholic QUB students, 61% of CU students in UK universities, and 21% of non-CU Christian students in UK universities.[1]
- Catholics are more likely than evangelicals to dissent from traditional church teachings on moral issues. Women are more likely to dissent from these teachings, especially on same sex relationships and abortion. Both evangelical men and women are more conservative on these issues; with evangelical women more conservative than Catholic men.
- Some QUB Catholic students expressed their desire for the Catholic Church/chaplaincy to become more ‘open’ to women and LGBTQ+ people, while others thought the Catholic Church/chaplaincy should prioritize ‘evangelization.’
- Catholic and evangelical students differed in their views of what it means to be a Christian. Among Catholics, ‘love’, ‘life’, and ‘Christ’ were emphasized, while evangelical responses used the language of ‘God’, ‘Jesus,’ and ‘Christ’, with many emphasizing that Christians must be ‘born again’ and/or repent of their sins.
- University can be a time of religious change for many students. 54% of evangelical students reported becoming more religious at university, 2% became less religious, and 40% said their religiosity remained the same. Among Catholics, 53% reported their identity stayed the same, 25% became more religious, and 19% became less religious. Among both evangelicals and Catholics, men were more likely than women to become more religious at university.
[1] The UK survey was conducted in 2010-11. See Matthew Guest, Kristin Aune, Sonya Sharma, and Rob Warner (2013) Christianity and the University Experience: Understanding Student Faith. London: Bloomsbury Academic, p. 151.