Department of
Religion

Why I Became a Religion Major 

PLU Religion majors reflect on why they were drawn to the academic study of religion...

I was raised in the Lutheran church as an active and involved member of the congregation, but around age 16 I had what I now call my "faith crisis." Suddenly, this institution that had provided so much stability and comfort in my life was the source of stress, doubt, and fear. However, I was unwilling and even unable to walk away from the church entirely. Somewhere towards the end of my high school career, I decided to turn my anger and uncertainty regarding religion into an academic interest. In this way, I entered my first year at PLU with the idea that I should be a religion major.

In my first year at PLU, I soon realized that there was so much more to this field than I had previously thought. My initial mission to understand my faith crisis grew into a complex, deep, and much more mature endeavor. Furthermore, the religion department at PLU has a wonderful and supportive faculty that encouraged my intellectual curiosity and growth, enabling me to become the excited and passionate student that I am today. I have thoroughly enjoyed my years in this department learning to ask questions, to develop opinions, and to be fearless in my pursuit of knowledge. I did not choose to be a religion major; religion grasped me. Through classes at PLU, I became acquainted with Lutheran theology, especially the theology of Paul Tillich. -Maryn Johnston

On an average fall day my sophomore year of college, I was sitting in uniform in my Military Science class (a required class for participation in Army ROTC). The topic we were beginning to discuss for the next four weeks was terrorism and anti-terrorism. As our military instructor walked in and prepared to start class, I settled into my chair and readied myself for another day of work. However, the dose of what our class was about to receive in the next few weeks was something so potent I could not have prepared myself enough mentally.

Our instructor began the lecture on terrorism with a sleuth of personal encounters with “terrorists”. The instructor’s definition of terrorism comprised of “combatant” terrorists, and “non- combatant” terrorists. The instructor provided us with several graphic training aids, and a power point slideshow and video of what common terrorists look like and practice in different parts of the world.

The last half of each class period the instructor would open it up for discussion. We talked about questions such as, “Who defines terrorism?”, “What is considered terrorism?”, and "who are terrorists?” The answers to these questions I saw my classmates coming up with surprised me. There was a heavy burden being put on religion, in specific Islam, rather than on who terrorists actually were. I was shocked, but I didn’t know why. I didn’t know much about Muslims, Jews, or many other religions other than my little part of Christianity. However, it was painfully apparent to me there was an extreme social and cultural injustice going on here. So I decided to learn for myself.

After we had moved on to a different topic a month later, I decided the only way to learn the truth about what we had talked about the last four weeks was to devote my major to the topic of Religion. I continue to have strong feelings about misinformation and stereotypes concerning religious cultures, in specific Islam. I believe that each person of each religion deserves the respect of my education. To be media-informed is too cheap and biased of a way to claim to be educated on religion. My religion major at PLU has provided me the opportunity to sort through popular misinformation, and discover the real story of many religions throughout the world. And I will gladly say, to be properly educated on religion is an in-valuable attribute to my growth as a student, young adult, and global citizen. -Robert Denning

We often hear on our campus that the idea of vocation, indeed Luther’s notion of purpose in vocation, is something not only esoteric, as if divine in nature, but also inherently linked to our very real passions, values, and experiences. In my own life, this has never been truer than having accepted the path I felt destined for; living a call to a doing of my passions, those that deepen my sense of the world, and help me to engage the environments I find myself in. When I came to PLU, I did feel called: (I cannot explain it any other way) a sort of experience that eludes complete comprehension, at least in nature, but at the same time, is so wholly experiential and real that the person experiencing has a sense of newness, of knowing and peace. I came to this campus on a beautiful day in April in 2008, and seeing the green of the trees and the red brick: a place where the soft flow of nature is unimpeded by the busy workings of humankind, couldn’t help but feel that this place was a place of discovery, indeed, the place I must come to bear witness to the changes that, although unknown at the time, have taken place within me as a fact just of my being and experiences here.

I came to PLU intending to be Music Composition major. My transcript had said “Intended Psychology,” but I soon discovered, that although the passion, if not the enthusiasm I had for these subjects brought me closer to my true purpose and vivified my sense of wonder and amazement, were not wholly fulfilling. The whole picture I saw of myself included both of these, but choosing one or the other felt confining, limiting. I don’t know if it was the fact that that January as a First Year student was full of snow (we don’t get a lot of that in Southern California!), but the backdrop that brought about a quiet wonder in me was conducive to a change in me whose origin has passed all understanding to this day. That month, I registered for Annal Frenz’s class, “Introduction to the New Testament.” Although I had always been raised in the Church, and my family had always been prone to discussion, and to study of scripture and of text, I was overcome with language – with a sense of speech – I was no longer babbling, I was hearing and speaking a language I could call my own, that reached me, that brought clarity to why I had come here, showed me a path I had only passed by before, but never traversed. Here I stood, at the end of one road, and as I put the first step forward, I knew; I knew I was destined to study Religion. I was called to pursue this passion of mine, where all my passions became ordered and were enlivened, engrossed in this larger purpose.

It did not take long for me to meet Dr. Samuel Torvend, my advisor, a past professor of mine, and dear mentor and friend. As I remember even today, when I first met him I was wary, as a schoolchild who is wary of the principle, not wholly certain what to make of him, but fully aware that the first knowledge is fear. I declared my major, and have never looked back. It was a challenge to redefine myself: this student who had been involved in music since he was very young, but looking back now, the roads never really diverged, and although I do sometimes take a road less traveled, I am not alone, and what is more, it has made all the difference to me. I am interested in how and why religious views develop the way they do. Although I would not consider myself religious, the existential questions I have encountered in the PLU religion department are questions I consider not only academically, but also personally. -Thomas Voelp

Now that I have, and am still learning, to consider questions of meaning and purpose in the classroom, I cannot go back to ignoring them outside of my classes. I intend to continue my study of religion in graduate school and eventually return to the classroom as a professor of religion. -Nicolette Paso

I reluctantly registered to take a Religion course in my first semester at PLU in order to get it out of the way. The course turned out to be the best decision I’ve made in my academic life … The course opened my eyes to the possibility of discussing religion not only in a critical way, but in constructive and redemptive ways as well. I now find that one of the most evocative aspects of the study of Religion is this: the religious motives which inform political action thereby shaping a cultural epoch. This simple and yet complex subject is one that can be studied from countless historic angles that all point directly toward the present. -Sam Porter

Since taking my first religion class, I have encountered many ideas and questions I had never considered in my studies of religion before. I tended to take things at face value and not ask questions, but doing that misses what is one of the best things about studying religion. One thing I have learned is this: there is no clear, straight-forward answer; asking questions is the only way to study religion. -Emily Nolte