This past week, the Office of Religious and Spiritual Life hosted a variety of events, from Oberlin Buddhist Fellowship Daily Sits in Lewis House to mass at Sacred Heart of Jesus Catholic Church, to celebrate Interfaith Week. This series of events aimed to strengthen religious and spiritual connections among the Oberlin community.
Samia Mansour, OC ’10, is the current assistant dean and director of the ORSL. She has held this position since fall 2023, but religious life on campus has been a concern of hers since she was a student.
“There were religious communities, and the students who really wanted to be connected to that particular community would find a way to be connected,” Mansour said. “And they were doing their own thing, quietly off to the side, so when I was considering coming back to campus, I did not want to enter a space like that again.”
She discussed the importance of the ORSL, especially considering how far Oberlin has come in its dedication of space for religious conversation.
“Hearing that [the Center for Intercultural Engagement] was intentionally created to bring religious life … into the campus culture really excited me — to know that the administration and the folks in charge really, really want to invest in religious life and really care deeply about it,” Mansour said. “I was really excited to be a part of helping to build that.”
Mansour’s recent endeavor to foster connection across religions has been Interfaith Week. But she didn’t organize the weeklong series alone.
“Well, the Interfaith Student Council is run out of this office, so the members of the council really help advise me as to what kinds of programs we bring to campus and what kinds of things we do,” she said. “So it was really collaborative between me and the Interfaith Student Council to sort of put this week together.”
Interfaith Week consists of an extensive collection of events running through Sunday, all with the intention of fostering dialogue and community for people of all religious and spiritual backgrounds. The point that was most stressed throughout many conversations with representatives of the ORSL was that these events are for everyone.
College fourth-year and Interfaith Student Council member Saphira Klearman stressed this inclusivity.
“It’s open to people who are curious,” Klearman said. “It’s open to people who have intense religious trauma. It’s open to people who are frustrated [with] religion, who love religion, who are passionate about theirs, who are curious about another’s.”
One notable event was “Ask Me Anything” with the new Director of Student Support and Outreach George W. Smith-Whitfield. He didn’t talk about his new position at Oberlin, instead opting to discuss his faith and his experience as a pastor for the Wesley Temple African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in Akron.
He walked up to his chair wearing his clerical collar and an Oberlin Connect Cleveland shirt, showing the intersection of his identities with pride. Throughout the talk, his main emphasis was on being your “authentic self.”
“It is okay to have Jesus and a therapist,” Smith-Whitfield said.
He acknowledged how some individuals have negative feelings and experiences associated with the Bible, and how it has been seen as an oppressive text. But in seminary, he learned about liberation theology, which asks how the Bible can inform social justice movements and aid populations oppressed by readings of it that promote discriminatory practices.
Smith-Whitfield communicated a willingness to approach religion with compassion and acceptance, discussing his respect for other religions. He believes that names like Jehovah, Allah, and God all refer to the same power. To him, this is an indicator that we are all more similar than we think, even on the basis of assumed religious differences.
“Life is hard, and the world that we live in is difficult right now. … Hold on to your faith, hold on to that hope,” Smith-Whitfield said.
College second-year Miriam Barnhill-Wright is another student on the Interfaith Student Council. Her involvement with the council started through her connection to a religious group on campus.
“I got started because I saw it in the Campus Digest,” Barnhill-Wright said. “I lead Quaker Student Group, and I got excited about the idea of meeting other people who practice faith on campus.”
Her enthusiasm for the ORSL stemmed from a desire for a broader sense of community where she could make a difference in bringing people together who wouldn’t have otherwise had the space to do so.
“What could I do to get … people from my group excited about working with people in other groups too?” she said.
Barnhill-Wright will be tabling in Mary Church Terrell Main Library with other members of the Interfaith Student Council on Saturday.
“We are going to have candy and give it out to people under the assumption that they’ll give it to a stranger and spread acts of kindness,” she said. “[We’re] just trying to make Oberlin’s campus a little more friendly. That’s been a theme that has been coming up in interfaith conversations and dialogues, ‘Oberlin students need to be more friendly to each other.’”
ORSL is continually working to spread connections and start conversations throughout the campus community.
“Maybe that’s the last thing I will note,” Mansour said. “I am very well aware that people have feelings around religion and people have religious trauma and they’ve maybe had some bad experiences. But I think our office is not here to proselytize or to encourage people to be more religious. Our office is here to provide pathways to learn.”
