A few months ago Elizabeth Svoboda emailed me to ask if she could come to a Chi Alpha function and interview a few of our students for an article she was writing about spirituality on the college campus. I said sure, she showed up, the party ended, and I didn’t hear anything else. I really didn’t think that much more about it.
So I was very pleasantly surprised this morning to learn that the article, School Spirit, has been printed in Science & Spirit magazine.
Overall I was quite pleased, although I feel compelled to clear one thing up. Elizabeth accurately quotes me as saying
Glen Davis, the leader of Stanford’s Chi Alpha Christian fellowship, has seen instructors go to extreme lengths to keep discussion of religion and morals out of the classroom. “One professor taught a class on [German theologian, writer, and central figure in the Protestant Church’s struggle against Nazism] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and she didn’t mention his spiritual beliefs at all,” he says.
I’d just like to put that particular statement into context–I was praising the professor in question for changing her approach once she realized what she was doing.
At least, that’s what I think I was doing. I didn’t take notes on my own words (which would be an odd habit to have).
Q: What are you doing?
A: Recording what I say for posterity.
Anyway, I don’t recall everything that I said that night, but I’ve told that particular story on several occassions and I typically start with the fact that the professor initially skirted past Bonhoeffer’s beliefs and ultimately decided that she couldn’t keep doing that.
I just mention it on the .01% chance that professor happens
a) to read the article,
b) recognize that she is the anonymous professor in question,
c) and then comes to this website seeking an explanation for my apparently disparaging comment.
Okay, on the .0001% chance.
Explanation: I was giving you props–really!