I did not grow up believing in God.
I was baptized in the Episcopal Church, like generations of my mother’s family before me. But I was a staunch atheist growing up. As a child, I asked my Episcopalian grandmother why our Christianity was more “correct” than Buddhism.
Many Oberlin students may share a similar faith background to mine. On secular college campuses, especially at Oberlin, students often equate religiosity with close-mindedness and bigotry. This is understandable. Christianity is used by politicians to defend the indefensible. Our education teaches us to think logically and evidence our arguments. Faith often requires belief without tangible, “scientific” evidence.
Now, I receive the Eucharist every Sunday. I go through the motions of services, singing hymns, and chanting Psalms. I enjoy praying the rosary as I walk to class.
My faith did not awaken overnight. The poet Christian Wiman has described his coming to faith as experiencing moments of love and truth that transcended his understanding of the world as it is.
“One doesn’t follow God in hope of happiness. But because one senses … a truth that renders ordinary contentment irrelevant,” Wyman wrote in one of his works.
As a teenager, I began to see the divine in my life that enhanced my understanding of the ordinary — the awe-shocking beauty of a mountaintop on a backpacking trip, the persistence and care of friendship when I did not believe in myself, an old woman sharing her lunch with a stranger on the bus, the out-of-body power of orchestral music.
Like Wiman, faith does not provide me with simple happiness or contentment. Faith is a constant struggle to understand the world around me and walk through life with greater grace, kindness, and compassion. Faith demands we challenge injustice in our world — that we are heartbroken by war, poverty, illness, and inequality. But my faith is also an assurance that love is greater than our current moment. Or, as the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. put it, that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
I am not arguing for the conversion of Oberlin students en masse to the religion of my choice. I am, however, writing to remind students that religion is not simply a force of American conservatism. I can understand this point of view, especially as U.S. President Donald Trump justifies an unconscionable war by depicting himself as Christ and as Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth misquotes scripture by depicting immigration enforcement as a “holy war.” However, in my faith community, being a religious person means spreading peace, welcoming the immigrant, loving thy neighbor, and giving up worldly possessions for the greater good of one’s community.
As Pope Leo XIV remarked, “[God] is never on the side of those who once wielded the sword and today drop bombs.”
My faith and politics are inseparable because my faith hinges on creating an ever-loving, just, and egalitarian world. In an ongoing feud with the pontificate, President Trump has remarked that he does not think the Pope “should be getting into politics.” Vice President JD Vance, a Catholic, has directed the Pope to “stick to matters of morality.”
But is the moral not political?
In many of my politics classes, I find our discussions circling back to the same questions. How do we improve our organizing for justice? How can we create third spaces where people can become involved in democracy and their communities?
Religion can and has provided the answer to many of these questions.
For decades, progressive activism has flourished throughout religious communities: abolitionism, women’s suffrage, and temperance, to name a few examples. The Civil Rights Act was passed thanks to religious activism — faithful Americans who believed racial inequality was morally unconscionable. Many religious communities today provide numerous social services: food banks, childcare, rehabilitative services, protection for immigrants, and English language classes, to name a few.
College third-year Maxwell Schaefer has done extensive research on Christianity’s role in progressive activism in particular. Schaefer was originally drawn to socialism by Eugene Debs, a prominent American socialist less known for his faith.
“[He] was my first great hero,” Schaefer remarked.
Debs’ faith was central to his condemnation of injustice and class inequality. Debs described Jesus as an advocate of the worker: “He was of the working class and loyal to it in every drop of his hot blood to the very hour of his death.”
Religious, progressive activism is a time-honored tradition in American and Oberlin College and Conservatory history. Acknowledging the deeply powerful potential of faith to encourage people to envision a better, brighter future is crucial for Oberlin students seeking to make a change in their communities and the world.
Let us return to the moral arc of the universe. To wake up every morning and struggle to make the world a better place is the struggle of activists. It is also the struggle of believers. Perhaps, if we bridge the gap between the two, the moral arc of the universe will bend toward justice sooner.
