Volume 34 - Issue 4

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Branford College presents

PUBLISHER

Silpa Prrichn-14 EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

AnyaKammaz MANAGING EDITORS

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Dank/ Kurtz-Pklan, Plllrick Clsq Pilt1 DESIGNER

TIIIUtna fukoff

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PRODUCTION MANAGER

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Carl Hungerford BUSINESS MANAGER

Eric Rut1tow

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PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR

jessica Cchm

AssociATE EDITORS

B!JZke Wilson, Matthew Undtrwood RESEARCH DIRECTOR

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]IJCQb Blahtr CIRCULATION AND SuBSCRI PTIONS MANAGER

Cunt Clrro/J, Sara Hirschhorn

Two Master's Teas:

Suff

February 26

Michxl Addison • lhvid Banhwdl • }asia Bulman jessica Chang • Ruth IXGolia • Swhma Gandhi Flora Lichtman • Katie MalWa • judith Miller Santi>g> MO$t)'ll • Mmhcw Pattmon • Hdm Pbillips Sophie Rascnun • Benita Singh • Nodia Swoman Ellen 'Thompson • Tori Truscheit

Guns and Butter: Politics & Policy Driving the War on Terror

Mmrkn muJ Dormm • Tom GrigJ • B<oob Kdky • Jennifer Pim • Hc:nry Schwab • Alan Schoenfdd Elizabeth Sledge • Frod Strebeigh • Thonw Strong

Jod!ua Civin • Peter B. Cooper

Norma Ornstein, American Enterprise Institute 4:00PM Branford College Master's House 80 High Street

At/Won Richard Blow • jay Carney • Richard Conniff Ruth Conniff • Elisha Cooper • Lauren Rabin Steven Weisman • lhnid Yergin

FrimJs Sc- Ballou • Amon M. Beanl, jL • Bloirc 8mnm Edw1td B. Bauxn.jr. • Edwud B. 8mnm Ill Paul s. 8mnm • Gcnld Brud< • Borl>ora Bundl J>r Carner • Daphn< O.u • Joob Civin jonathan M. Oul< • Clement • Elisbo Coopa ~ B. Coopa • Astdy Cowt • J<rry aad Rae <Awt M..i Dcnisoa • Al>cn J. Fox • Mo. Howard Fox David "'-"" • Geolfr.,- fDcd • Anwo Gancbn Sllawia GoldmaD • Dovid Grcmbttc • T- Gr9 5cq>1xD Hdlman • jane ~ • Bcoob Kdlry Rep JGrwood • ~ j. JCamaiU, jL u..;. E. Lcbtmu • u.- • E. NoiJks u.H.nk Manobod< • Mattba E. Neil • Paa Neill Howard H. Newmaa • Sc:an O'Bn<a • julie Ptom t-is and """" """ • Jooh Plaut • Julia ....._ l.aurcD Robia • F.ufu c. lt.udal • R.oli. R.igo Mad< Riadb • N'doobs X. Rioopoub • Saoan RGiuu Mea. and Anluu Sop • Didt ....t O.W,O, Sc:on Ridwd Sbidds • w. Hamp<OG Sida • Lioo SiMrmaD Elizabab and Wiliam SlcciF • n-.. Straolc Elizobetb T..., • Alex aac! Bcay Ton:lo • Md.- T.,_ Allco aM Sanb Wuddl Daniel Yerp and Ancda Sea. Yap

eoa.....o.

February 28 Occidental ism Avishai Margalit, Hebrew University 4:00PM Branford College Master's House 80 High Street

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THE NEW JouRNAL

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TheNewJournal

Volume 34, Number 4 February 2002

FEATURES

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Small Things Arrwork and text by Amanda Reiterman

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7

The Devil and Daniel Greer A controversial Orthodox rabbi reclaims the ghetto.

by Jacob Blecher

20

Polarized An art installation brings race relations into focus.

by Benita Singh

24

God Lives on Dixwell Boise Kimber preaches politics from the pulpit.

by Daniel Kurtz-Phelan

30

The Last Crusade Yale Students for Christ markets a new evangelism.

by Ellen Thompson

16

STANDARDS · 4 5 2.0

Editor's Note Profiles of Devotion

32

Roundtable: Testimony: Five Voices on Faith

36 38

The Critical Angle: These Hallowed Halls by Blak~ Wilson

Endnote: Yale Shrugged by Nadia Sussman

•, TH~ NEW JouaNAL is published five rimes during <he academic year by T~ NEW jOuRNAL ar Yale. Inc., P.O. Box 3-431 Yale Srarion, New Haven, Cf o6s1o. Offic< address: 1p Park SU«t. Phone (103) -4}1· All onmenrs copyrighr 1001 by THE Naw jOURNAL ar Yale, Inc. All Righrs Resttved. Reproduction eirher in whole or in pan wirhour wrin<n permission of rhe publisher and <rliror·in~efis prohibited.

While <his magnine is published by Yale College srudenrs, Yale Universiry is nor responsible for irs eonrenrs. Seven rhousand five bundred onpies of eacb issw. are disuibured freoe ro members of me Yale and New Haven onmmuniry. Subscriptions are aVllilable ro rhose ourside rhe area. Rares: One year, sr8. Two years, $}1. THI! Nnr jOURNAL is prinred by Turley Publications. Palmer, WA; bookkeeping and billing services are provided by Colman Bookkeeping of New Haven. THt N.., joURNAL enonurages lerrers ro rhe <rliror and onmmenrs on Yale and New Havco issues. Wrire ro Ed.irorials, 3-431 Yale Srarion, New Haven, o6s20. All letters for publication mwr include address and signature. We reserve rhe righr ro <dir allleners for publication.

19S7.

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The 2001-2002 editorial board has chosen to focus its final issue on the theme of faith. We felt that questions of card inal beliefs and the limits of objective knowledge, while seldom voiced, lurk in the background of everyday affairs.

Of course, once we decided o n the t heme, it started to pop up everywhere, from the President's State of the Union address to the exhortations of sidewalk preachers.

Walking back from the train station a few weeks ago, I was stopped in my tracks by a poster in the window of a un i. form store: "Wear Your Faith ! Joyfully... in a Murphy Choir Robe." As an intermittently disaffected Jew, I can only dream of a faith as comfortable and enveloping as a turquoise satin choir robe. It would allow me to blend in with an identical grou p of believers, while being perfectly sized to fit me. Some of our article subjects have a lready found that kind . of solace, whether in patriotism, paganism, evangelism, or Zen. But far more often, true belief means struggle. Unlike those robes, fait h is hardly ever easily adjustable. Our panel participants, whether atheists or believers, were candid about their moments of personal crisis , when everything they thought they knew was called into question. Another shortcoming of a faith like a choir robe, for some, is that it stays inside the church; it isn 't worn out in the street. The Orthodox rabbi in one of our features, and the Baptist preacher in ¡ anot her, both hold religious tenets that demand strong involvement in the community. The public reaction to their politics and power plays may be mixed, but both men are convinced they have the Almighty's go-ahead.

My last four years of working on The New journal have been t ruly inspiring. The devotion displayed, the impass ioned debates to define the core of our philosophy, and above a ll the dedication of t he mind, body, and soul to every activity of the magazine-writing, business, and design alike-combine elements of the monastic and fanatic. I congratu late ev~ryone (especially Jessica Cohen and Matthew Underwood, who received first prize and honorable mention recognition in the Atlantic Monthly College Writing Competition) and wish the new editorial board a wonderful year to come.

- Anya Kamenetz, Editor-in-Chief

REVISIT THE TWENTIETH CENTURY IN FOUR SPECIAL EXHIBITIONS AT THE YALE UNIVERSITY ART CALLERY

Museum Store Book Sale

j anuary 29March 30, 2002 Between Language and Form

The Tiger's Eye : The Art of a Magazine The 1948 Directo rs of the Societe Anonyme Exhibition

February 19 Ap ril 28, 2002 The Synthetic CenturyCollage from Cubism t o Postmodernism

Yale University Art Gallery 1111 Chapel Street at York New Haven, CT 06511 MAaC l l DUCHA MP

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T HE N Ew JouRNAL

Secrets and Lies I BEGAN MY FORAY into Freemasonry on an ominously dark afternoon. The lodge loomed over Whitney Avenue like Skull and Bones on steroids-big and brown, with very few windows and two heavily fortified doors. I tentatively knocked my hand against the iron door, half-hoping that no one would answer. No one did. As I began to walk away, I noticed a Subaru wagon puJling into the small drive beside the lodge. A suspiciously normal man in a gray sweatsuit got out and went to a side door. I fol- ¡ ¡ lowed at a respectful distance and saw several other sweatpants-dad men heading for the same door.

I stopped one before he entered the lodge and gave my pitch: ''I'm very interested in Freemasonry. Would it be possible for me to sit in on one of the meetings to see what it is aU about?" The man, about 35 with sandy blond hair jutting out from under his baseball cap, scoffed at my question.

"This is a fraternal society, so no, you can't sit in." I pleaded my case, but the man walked past me into the lodge. Another man arrived. His eyes flashed wide and he broke into a sympathetic smile when I explained my predicament. He told me he would take me on a tour of the building, but I would nor be allowed to see the meeting because of the "secret rituals." I walked in, and my stomach dropped.

The lodge was designed, according to my guide, with a "Greek and Egyptian motif in mind." The spectacular decor was funded by the lodge's million-dollar endowment. The inside is a labyrinth of halls and doors. A Familiar-looking man popped out from one of the doors wearing a white jacket and white pants, with an emblem stitched on a loincloth that wrapped around his waist like a belt. He looked at me suspiciously; I wondered if he

FEBRUARY 2002

wore the outfit under his sweatsuit or had changed since entering the building. My guide and I followed a black and white checkered hallway co a cage-like elevator.

As our ascent halted and the doors slowly opened, I found myself in an enormous egg-shaped room, where the Masonic group performs "dramatic rituals." A burgundy rug covered the floor, and rows of green velvet chairs lined the walls.

The center of the room was empty except for an altar. I scanned the room for bloodstains but didn't see any. An organ filled the back of the room, opposite a stage with large red chairs.

An emblem shaped like a large letter "G" hung above them. The ceiling was painted like a cloudy sky, with quarter-sized holes in the plaster. When I asked why the lodge hadn't fixed the holes, my guide rold me that they were intentional. The holes were placed where stars shone on the night that the lodge was built 150 years ago. In each hole was a white light that could be rurned on when other lights were off.

Masonry encourages its members to live virruous lives, but the riruals are highly secretive. Clearly I had not bumped into a normal mason, because my guide told me that he would gladly reveal the secret riruals. Bur he said it would do me no good because they are made up of symbols and allegories that are designed to be interpreted individually. If he were to tell me about them, he would just be imposing his own inteqSretation.

I argued that the exclusion of women from the fraternal society was unf.tir. To my surprise, my guide agreed, but told me that seven "members of the rite" would have to agree in order to admit a woman. My guide then told me the story of Prince Hall, one of George Washington's slaves who snuck

into a Masonic meeting and saw the secret rituals. Washington decided that the only thing to do was to initiate Hall into the Masonic order. My guide concluded his story by staring straight into my eyes and telling me, "There is an old elevator shaft in this building that has openings in all the meeting rooms, you know." I envisioned myself scurrying down an elevator shafr watching mysterious riruals. Could I be a modern-day Prince Hall, the first woman to join an order that has been aU male for thousands of years?

I left the lodge the way I entered it-a bit confused. Perhaps I'll go back to the lodge on a clear night and see for myself what goes on. Of course, I will be unable to reveal anything I see.

- Flora Lichtman

Witness ALEJANDRO

RoMERo

TALKS ABOtrr SCIENCE

with the enthusiasm of a new convert. "I find spirituality in aU these theories. They're so beautiful to me. When I see picrures come back from the H ubble telescope, for example, or when I go out to the field and I look at narure, I don't say, 'Oh my God, this is wonderful, look at what God created.' I say, 'Look at what is here that we can try to explain.'"

Before arriving at Yale, Romero believed in a different explanation of the universe. As a Jehovah's Witness, he spent six hours a week in Kingdom Hall, the Witness equivalent of church. An apocalyptic religious group, Jehovah's Wimesses believe that Jesus was the son of God, but reject the Trinity and conventional Christian theology. Founded in l872, the Watchtower Society, as the group is anoctpates the coming of called, Armageddon, when only Jehovah's Wimesses will be saved. Members cannot salute the flag, vote, celebrate holidays, donate blood, or join the armed forces. Members of the group are also discouraged from associating with non-members. "For so much of my childhood I was very scared," Romero said,

5

"because I would learn [scientific facts] and they made perfect sense to me. And yet I'd gec.home and I'd be taught that it was a sin co believe these things." . Chemistry lectures at Yale were a welcome alternative to constant theological indoctrinacion, and until this semester, Romero was a Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology major. That he could enroll in college at all was an exception to Witness tradition; higher education is considered an unnecessary distraction from Witness spiritual goals. Romero recently changed his major to Theater Studies and has an actor's awareness of intense human experience, learned in part from years inside houses of worship.

"When you walk into a church and you see these high ceilings and a gigantic cross with Jesus in a dramatic pose, and you hear the choir, and you smell the incense and you see the candles and you see all these peoples brought together in one place, how can you not feel something? But science gives you something else. Science gi~es you che truth."

Truth for Romew, however, conflicts severely with Witness ideology, which condemns both his fascination with science and his homosexuality. He sees his parencs' religion as a cult and bemoans his own former indoctrination. "I used co go to school and see my friends and teachers and think, 'God is going to kill them. God hares them."'

Romero tugs on his shoelaces, coaxing them out of bow ties and pulling back on the loops. "To tell my parents that I was no longer a believer was to tell them that I was committing suicide. It was getting me up, facing my entire family, the whole congregation, and saying, 'No more."'

His eyes glaze over, ftxed on the laces.

"To this day, certain members of my family refuse to speak co me." He pauses, pulling a shoelace through a loop methodically.

Suddenly, he looks up and confidence returns co his eyes. "I will never go back to believing in God, because I've found something bigger and more beautiful than Him." -Tori Truschrit

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Alej;ndro Romero

Propheteeri ng As I

wALK IN, the colorful Christmas decorations and slight buzz in the air remind me of a successful community center or a small company. Phones ring with businesslike regularity. Someone laughs. A young child interruptS her play and looks up, smiling ¡pleasantly. Everything is spacious, brig~t, and clean. All in all, the Connecticut branch of the Church of Scientology gives off a soothing vibe. ''I'm glad you made it." My contact Donna greers me warmly. She isn't used to seeing many Yalies, with the church located so far away on the outskirtS of New Haven.

Immediately, she pulls me into a quiet corner and happily divulges the fundamentals of Scientology. Scienrology is the study of knowledge and truth. It's ¡a religious philosophy aimed at improving the daily life of its adherentS. Their goal is "total freedom" -freedom from man's undesired emotions, from unnecessary chemicals, from depression and insecurity. The Church claims to do it all, even advertising itS ability to increase your IQ. But there is no mention of spirituality here, because above all the Church worships science.

But Scientology also worships the holy dollar. The beige walls are plastered with posters advertising a dazzling array of courses; the shelves strain under the weight of the many volumes written by the C hurch's guru L. Ron Hubbard. His presence hauntS the room. The posters cry out his name in bold capitals; his suave, mag-

netic vo1ce echoes from a television.

Courses can cost anywhere from $60 co $6oo. The Church even offers special package deals. Commit yourself co a whole series of courses and you may get 20 percent off. The dizzying collection of price tags conveys a simple message: Show us your wallet and we'll show you who you are. And, more importantly, how you can live better.

Donna tells me that she truly wants to help me. She runs me through a 200-question personality test. A computer then evaluates the results, spewing out its verdict unmercifully: I am affiicted with pretty much every mental ailment that has ever been diagnosed. Depression. Lack of confidence.

Irresponsibility.

Submission.

Withdrawal. "Something needs ro be done," Donna tells me. She exhales softy, her brows furrowed with worry. She suggests that I come back some other day when we'll start tackling these issues one by one.

As I part with Donna, the office exudes positivity. A man whistles. A woman laughs. Donna herself glows in saintly contentment. She's happy, I think.

She may have spent five thousand dollars to reach that state, or 50,000. At these prices, however, happiness might be something my money can't buy.

Captain America Qp COURSE I'VE SEEN HIM. That's exaccly why he's there--every Sunday, parading down Elm Street in front of Christ Church, clad head co roe in red, white, and blue.

His shout like a cluster bomb, irs reach extending through my bedroom window, blocks away: USA! USA! And that other noise, the crack of his flag as it cutS through the wind. Unseen, it sounds almost like cackling-just what you'd expect from the madman on the street.

Up close, however, the madman is milder. Zeqir Berisha is old, near 70, with a jack-o-lanrern face. His Old World smile is deliciously broad, with gaps berween each crooked tooth. His skin is worn cough with the weather, and his eyes seem to light

THE NEW JoURNAL

up with the sun. He might be mad, but he's also gentle. He goes by Ziggy.

An Albanian Kosovar who fled Tito's Yugoslavia in 1969, Ziggy speaks English as if it were a Slavic tongue. The words are correct, but the pitches are foreign, rising to the tone of feverish laughter and seconds later falling to a hoarse, conspiratorial whisper.

Ziggy tells me he's not an American citizen, and he claims to be barred from returning to his native land. Yet his aile~ giance is dear: Srars and stripes adorn his bandana, his tee-shirt, his jacket, his pants, and his shoes. I cannot vouch for his undergarments, but I'd guess the assumption is safe. The only departure from the theme is a gold medallion around his neck, stamped with the Albanian double-eagle. "I wave this flag any place because this country is the greatest nation that I see," he declares, filling his lungs nearly ro bursting.

"I can smell it in mine heart."

Ziggy has devoted his life, he explains, to fighting Communists-a group that over the course of our conversation came to include not only Tito, but Mikhail Gorbachev, Slobodan Milosovic, Osama

bin Laden, Jesse Jackson, the entire Chinese nation, and the members of the Connecticut Coalition for Peace. The CCP stands in silencre across the street, holding signs protesting the war in Mghanistan.

Ziggy's main critique of all of them is that they are irreligious. "The Communists, they don't have any faith," he says. "And they are brainwashing our people right here."

Ziggy's own beliefs owe more to politics than anything else. "The Turks invade my country," he says, "so I am a Muslim."

He does not practice, however, since he is unwelcome at the local mosque. He helped found a mosque in Waterbury, he explains, laying the foundation stones himself, but "they chased me out because I disagreed with them." The conflict arose in 1983, when the Reagan administration bombed Beruit. "One man came in to pray in the mosque and he was saying, 'Brother Muslims, they are killing our boys in the .

Lebanon' ... I stood up and I said, 'Listen, this mosque is built in the United States and we shall pray for this country and give thanks to America for allowing us to pray here.'" Ziggy waited for someone to second him, but no one did.

Years later, Ziggy is still standing alone. Parents stop with their children for a moment to hear his story, and Ziggy loves to be a civics lesson. They continue on, just as countless supporters in honking sws pass by once the light turns green. But Ziggy is here for good. "''m going to stay like this until I die," he states firmly. He ¡is a new and permanent feature of the landscape: an alien with a flag, a man without a church who is waging holy war.

-Matthew Underwood

And Keep It Holy THE SUMMER BEFORE HER FRESHMAN

year at Yale, Shari Goldman Gottlieb worked as a counselor at a Spanish camp in Minnesota; she . was "the token East Coast girl, the token Jew." "If you're looking for a strong Jewish community," she warns, "don't go to northern Minnesota. There was no

fEBRUARY 2002

context for me. I didn't know how to observe on my own." Just before leaving for Yale, Shari's religious differences became impossible to ignore. To christen new campgrounds, a Catholic priest did a benediction and Shari was sprinkled with holy water. "They said it was appropriate because it was a representative religion for the Spanish-speaking world."

The next day, still chilled by her unwanted blessing, Shari set off for her new life at college: "My parents drove me up to Yale. That night we went to Shabbat services at Slifka Center. I was very much needing a Jewish community." The September weeks were packed with Jewish holidays and Shari found herself at Slifka more often than not. "That was one of the main ways that I made friends," she said.

When the rush of holidays subsided, Shari began to make observance of Jewish law a permanent focus of her life.

Shari has not always been observant.

Although she has always had faith, her parents do not believe if! God and did not raise her to follow the practices to which she now adheres, such as interdictions on email, travel, and handling money on the Sabbath. Transplanting her new routine back home to Hollis Hills, Queens, is a challenge: "It's more difficult to do things like observe Shabbat-my parent's idea of a fun Saturday morning is driving around to Barnes and Noble and I can't do that.

There is a personal sense of loss. But you have to negotiate. I'd rather bend my rules than boycott."

In contrast, Shari encounters few roadblocks within Yale's vibrant Jewish community. On Friday night, students pour into Slifka to pray, sing, and eat. She dons a tallis (prayer shawl) to lead Conservative services, and after dinner, there are onegs-what she calls "Shabbatfriendly parties"- where there is no music, in accordance with the proscription some observe against the use of electricity.

Above all, Shabbat for Shari is a time for reflection and regeneration, both personal and spiritual. "It makes my whole week better. It gives me a break." In addition, the knowledge she has gained here allows her to sustain' her practice without the support of others. "If I were to go back to the camp in Minnesota now," she says,

7

"I would be able to observe Shabbat on my . own." Luckily, she does not have to do this at Yale. "When everyone is crazy and wan. dering around in their own orbits, Friday night, I know there is a home-base community of people who will be moving at a slower pace." She considers her entire community healthier for it.

"I think rhe saying goes: It is not the Jews who have preserved the Sabbarh, bur the Sabbath that has preserved them."

-

Sophi~

Raseman

The Calling "I'VE WANTED TO BE A PRIEST since I was a ¡little kid," says junior Danielle Tumminio.

Danielle realizes that this path is not an easy one: "There is a common perception that priests are weird."

Organized religion is not central to Danielle's farriily, so she cani:IOt look to them for unconditional support. Initially, her parents tacitly opposed her possible career plans. In addition, as a woman she faces a special set of difficulties; the Episcopal Church offers little guidance for females who want to become priests. Most of all, she finds it difficult to reconcile her choices with those her peers are making around her. "The hardest thing for me about considering the priesthood at Yale is that I'm surrounded by so many goal-oriented people who are going to go on to do amazing things in the world, like be politicians, acuesses, well-known lawyers ... It's a real struggle to know that I'm never going to be rich or famous ... that my contribution will be at a quieter level."

Nevertheless, her calling is "a pull, almost like being in love."

Danielle is not the only student at Yale who has dreamed of this unusual vocation.

Other students eloquently express the challenges and excitement they face when thinking about ordination. Though Danielle believes "this is a very spirituallyoriented campus, in that people talk about religion a lot," she feels that students often look down on organized religion. As another aspiring Episcopalian minister observes, "Christianity gets the reputation of being a pep rally for God." A senior considering ordination as a Catholic priest notes,

8

"Organized religion is outdated." Echoing this sentiment, Danielle does not "feel that my belief suucture has to fit the belief system of my religious organization exactly."

Students at Yale considering ordination are by no means Bible (or Torah) thumpers. They are questioners who recognize flaws m organized religion.

Another senior considering the Catholic priesthood says, "It's a V{)cacion. I don't have a choice about it.

It's something I have ro discover. The idea of religious vocaShari Goldman Gottlieb cion must consume you.

It can't be one among many choices. It must be that you can't see yourself as happy outside of religious life ...

At the same time, people rarely think of ordinario.n as . a reasonable possibility for someone in the modern world, which can lead to feelings of separation from the rest of the world."

-H~kn

Phillips

Turn the Other Cheek "Jp A MAN UES WITH A MAN as one lies with a woman, both of them h;tve done what is detestable" (Leviticus 20:13). While teaching a course on the Old Testament at the Yale Divinity School {ms) last semester, Professor John Collins quoted this passage from the book of Leviticus. He explained that, in its literal sense, it appeared to prohibit homosexual behavior only between men. "As soon as I said this, a woman at the back of the class let out a loud sigh of relief," he recounts. The whole class broke into laughter. The incident has become a legend on campus. By some accounts, the laughter lasted for as long as

20 minutes, revealing the high level of nervousness surrounding homosexuality and religion-a hot topic at the Yale Divinity School.

For almost two decades, YDS has stood with only a handful of other theological schools in welcoming and accepting homosexual students. Unlike most schools that train Christian ministers, YDS is nondenominational. According to Professor David Kelsey, this helps the school accept homosexuality. "It does make a difference [that Yale is] not beholden to a particular denomination which has issues with the ordination of gay people," he says. "Since we're not accountable in those ways, we're spared that sort of outside pressure." The Gay, Lesbian, Suaight, Bisexual Coalition was established in 1985, and YDS has supported it financially since its inception.

According to students, YDS is known for both welcoming and enrolling more homosexual students than any other divinity school. The Coalition's leaders, Sharon Fennema and Stephen Gould, say their organization boasts a mailing list of 55 students and that anywhere from "five to 8o" attend Coalition events.

Despite the ms's inclusive aims, its tolerance may be one-sided, argues firstyear Master of Arts and Religion student and self-described "conservative evangelical" Elizabeth Zagatta. "More conservative perspectives sometimes don't come out because people are afraid of backlash," she says. "Opinions have to be respected in both directions." However, Zagatta insisted that exposure to different religious views has helped her explore and suengthen her faith.

Such exposure grounds the decision of many aspiring ministers to attend YDS instead of denominational seminaries, where students focus on the teachings of their own church rather than broader ecumenical thought.

Such religious diversity and openness are products of a century's worth of change.

Founded in 1822, YDS no longer consists solely of "mainline Protestants" uaining for

THE NEw JouRNAL

the mmistry, according to Professor Emeritus Harry Adams. Today, students of Episcopalian, Roman Catholic, Baptist, and even atheist backgrounds study sideby-side. In addition to the three-year ministry-focused Masters of Divinity (Morv) degree, YDS also offers a two-year Masters of Arts in Religion (MAR) degree for students bound for the academy.

Inter-denominational controversy is not confined to issues of homosexuality.

The school's academic approach also separates it from denominational seminaries.

Instead of treating religious documents as the inspired word of God, many YDS professors, including Collins, approach religious texts as historical documents.

Operating under the assumption that h umans authored these texts, they search for linguistic and anthropological clues to the texts' origins and their intended social purposes. According to Harvard Divinity School Professor Peter Machinist, many critics claim such study "cheapens the word of God." Some denominations even view such academic m ethods as heretical. For these reasons, conservative Christian denominations discourage their prospective ministers from attending YDS and its peer institutions at the University of Chicago and Harvard, the only two other university-affiliated, non-denominational divinity schools.

Among these "heretical" institutions, however, Yale stands alone in its ability to nurture the faith of its students because it remains, above all else, a Christian school. While its peers employ professors of Judaism, Islam, and Eastern religions, all YDS professors are Christian. According to Guy Martin, Associate D ean of Admissions and Financial Aid at YDS, this provides the school's community with a "common language" for discussing theological issues.

While conservative evangelicals and members of the more-liberal United Church of Christ debate the ordination of homosexual ministers, Muslims and Christians do not even share a common authoritative text on which to base theological discussion.

According to YDS Dean Rebecca Chopp, Yale's peers are often seen as "really big religious srudies programs," while Yale

FEBRUARY 2002

remains a leader in purely Christian theology. The Methodist Church, for example, allows its members to pursue ministerial studies at Yale but not at Harvard. Despite its reputation for being a liberal divinity school, Ch opp said that Yale retains a strong tradition of evangelical participation because "Yale is not a place where one loses their faith ."

Indeed, GLSB Coalition co-coordinator Fennema said it was not Yale's openness but rather its commitment to her lifestyle that was the deciding factor in her decision to attend: "I felt like Yale was one of the few places where I could actually believe in God." -Ruth DeGolia and Lauren Stephens-Davidowitz

Centering A MILE FROM STILL-SLEEPING downtown New Haven, three blocks past Ingalls Rink, and through the back door of a three-story blue Victorian, the New Haven Zen Center is the tranquil meditation room run by the Kwam Urn School of Zen. The room is dedicated to all New Haveners, residents and nonresidents alike, who seek tranquility at the beginning of an otherwise exhausting day.

The central question of Kwam Urn, according to resident Zen Master Seung Sahn, is one of inrrospective simplicity and profundity: "What are you?"

The worshippers here are a calm, colorful group. From Nic Deschense, a Yale junior from Canada and forward on the varsity hockey team who lives at the center, to Camilla Atwood, a middle-aged postal worker who describes herself as utterly addicted to the free meditation, these people are dedicated to the art of Zen. Arwood, sitting cross-legged on a soft azure pillow and surrounded by eleven other parrons aligned in rows, says she is a devout Christian but finds solace in connecting with her true meditative self. She admits her ignorance of Buddhist docrrine and

likens her meditation to a sort of inner therapy. Membership in the Kwam Um School, a Korean Buddhism-based umbrella organization with centers throughout the world, runs at $360 a year, but the casual walk-in like Atwood can pay nothing at all and still get a better sense of self-not to mention a soothing cup of tea.

The day commences with an elaborate chanting ceremony. Korean words of prayer bounce off the pale walls and low ceilings, filling the room. Next comes meditation. For 30 straight minutes the room and its inhabitan ts sit perfectly still, five men and seven women contemplating nothing at all.

Camilla describes her 30 minutes as a departure from the stresses of the day.

During her moments of contemplation she centers her mind on the image of a crystalclear lake. She has attended a dozen Zen sessions since September n; she says she connects with God through prayer but can only learn about herself through meditation. She talks easily about Seung Sahn, the guru ofKwam Urn in the Northeast, a prolific writer, and Dae Soen Sa Nim (Great Honored Zen Teacher). Her reverence for the Center is refreshingly genuine.

As meditation winds down, the group chats and sips green tea. Jobs, concerns, errands, and tensions may litter too much of the remaining day, but for a few moments at the center, the world sits still.

-Matthro~ Patterson

Rites of Spring JANE (NOT HER REAL NAME) and I had been walking for a half-hour. We talked a little, mostly about reincarnation and dreams.

Jane was convinced she had lived other lives. I was not so sure, but offered my own thoughts-"The night seems unusually dark. These houses are so big. Like a dream .... " Jane answered, "You know, surrealism is not a bad thing." We were walking up Whimey Avenue, looking for a Unitarian church Jane had read about. The day was lmbolc, the pagan holiday dedicated to the "roots of spring" and the "lengthening of days." Jane cradled a wreath of flowers. I wore a backpack. The contrast between our appearances-her black dress and pentagram necklace, my boring sweater and jeans-made me uncomfortable. The night

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was holy for Jane. For me, it was just a weekend.

Jane is not exactly sure why she is at Yale. "I'm here for a reason, that's all I know." Years ago a palmreader told her that she was destined for a life of travel and that she would meet many "strange, strange people." Taking these words as a message, Jane began "living life one day at a time."

This eventually brought her to New Haven.

When she was 14 Jane attended a religious camp in Finland. She lived in the woods and spent days reading, discussing, and embracing spirtuality. On

The church looked like a haunted house. Candles £lickered in the windows.

Upon entering, we were immediately greeted by the high-priestess and led to the kitchen, where a modest buffet had been laid out. Jane wandered off to meet the others. I kept my distance. After two lonely years of worshipping alone in her dorm room, she was finally going to meet other pagans, and I did not want to fuck that up.

The Priestess led me to the altar room. It was large and as cold as an icebox.

Celtic music oozed from the walls. In the middle of the room, several people were assembling an altar. A wine-colored cloth the last day of 1111.~--.--tl-....i;;;:.~,._~~P.!!IIP.I!'IIN was draped over a camp she was small table and held confirmed.

"It in place with gilded was so strange. candle holders, While being conflowers, wicker basfirmed, I couldn't ketS, bowls, and a understand a word large white candle. the preacher was People began trickling saying. It was like into the room. Groups gibberish." of two or three formed in Nevertheless, Jane went each corner. One woman through the motions. talked about her mobile phone, a Upon returning to the States, man told a story about his trip to Sweden, she immediately began looking for a and a debate on the origins of paganism church that was suitably "Finnish." She erupted in the nearby kitchen. As cime found one, and immediately rook commupassed, the mood began to change. Dry nion. "To me, communion is one of the conversations melted away, giving birth to most beautiful and sacred partS of the a fantastical, collective energy. A man Christian religion. I took it very seriously." began to beat on an African drum. The During the ceremony, Jane remembers thump-thump was infectious. Others hearing laughter coming from the congregrabbed drums and joined in. I was hand· gation. "It blew me away. People were actued a small djimbe. "Want to give it a cry?" ally laughing and talking during commuI £licked the drum head softly at first. Then nion. It disappointed me so much." She louder. Louder. Louder. Louder. The celeclaims that it was this experience that bration had begun. changed her life. "I never thought I would One mao slipped into gray legginS$t stop being Christian, but I needed to fastened a broadsword to his belt, and put reevaluate everything." Jane remembers a on an olive tunic. The priestess wore a ster· friend approaching her during this difficult ling head band. Jane put on a flowing black time and posing the question that would robe. One woman, called Sederis, wore ultimately help her find paganism. "My jeans, a turtleneck, and white sneakers. friend asked me, 'lf you could somehow People began removing their shoes and control nature, if only in a small way, socks to facilitate "grounding." A man would you want to?'" Jane responded, named John approached me. John was "Yes." raised a Lutheran, defected, joined the THE Nsw JouRNAL

1

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brotherhood of Islam, and then studied with an Onhodox rabbi. Now he was a pagan. "You should give this a try. It will be an experience." I kicked off my shoes and followed the others, taking a place in the back of the line that had formed just outside the altar room. There were probably twelve of us. Some held lanterns; others held songbooks in their hands. I could hear the priestess blessing the altar in the next room. offering water to the goddess of spring.

Eventually the line began to move forward. The priestess stood at the door. splashing devotees with scented water as she acceped their declarations of faith.

When I approached her, the Priestess smiled. She poured water into my cupped hands. She touched my heart, then my forehead. and asked, "Do you accept the blessing of the goddess Breid?"' I was hesitant. "Do I really have to do this?.. Her eyes relaxed. She nodded quiedy. I just stood there. Finally. I accepted and walked into the room. Once the Priestess had blessed the group. we formed a circle. We hdd hands-left palm down, right palm upand undulated as a group. like a sine wave.

Our chant crescendoed-"The river she is flowing I Flowing and growing I The river she is flowing I Down to the sea." The man in the tunic walked around the room, holding his broadsword, shouting incantations.

A man in a red cloak joined the Priestess by the altar. She clutched a black book bound in white ribbon, and read instructions. AU turned, saluting the four cardinal directions. Hands were raised in celebration.

Meditation followed. We sat down cross-legged as the Priestess read from her book. I closed my eyes and listened. I was standing in a forest. Snow was f.Uling and it covered everything. Ice hung from the trees. The night was ominous and the road was nearly invisible. Suddenly, I carne to a dearing. There was a sparkling rock ledge.

F1ames floated up a twisting path. I continued to walk forward. A hole appeared. maybe in the rock. maybe in a big tree. I couldn't tell. Inside the hole, I saw a light.

Long flowing hair. The promise of green. I was &lling asleep. I was falling into a voice.

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I was heavy like granite. I was the ground, just like I was supposed to be.

I woke up with a start. "New life .... " The priestess pronounced a reawakening.

Now, the ceremony became intensely personal. One by one, we approached the altar. Like the others, I knelt, said a prayer for my f.unily, and placed a polished shell in a basket for the goddess. Some bowed low before the altar. Others prayed long and hard. Some cried. Everyone took a "healing cloth," a gift from the goddess to be used before the next full moon. I dripped hot wax into a flat saucer and stood my candle upright before returning to the circle.

The man in the red cloak approached each person, handing them a cookie. "May you never hunger." All responded, "And may you never hunger." The priestess passed a chalice of ale clockwise from person to person. "May you never grow thirsty." Most took long, almost sensual drinks ftom the cup. The ale smelled of raspberries. Some saluted the goddess as they drank, raising the cup as one would toast a young bride. A few prayed in silence. I was the last one to be offered a drink. I politely declined. The priestess seemed confused-maybe hurt-but I just could not do it. The magic of the night had worn off, and I was too aware that I was an outsider, not even half-pagan. Though intrigued, I was cold, exhausted, and con¡ fused.

The journey ended there. Jane had found others. She had found a path that I was not willing to travel. Leaving the church, I stumbled into the street. The night was still surreal. Now, the extreme darkness and giant houses were complemented by the lingering smell of a cold sanctuary and memories of a dream-like service. "Surrealism is not a bad thing."

Jane's words sort of made sense now.

-Clint CarroP

12

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By Jacob Blecher

T

HE LIGHTS ARE OIM, AND THE AIR IS STALE. Fallen pieces of ceiling crumble on the faded carpet that covers the basement floor. An old smoke detector intermittently emits a faint beep.

"People actually used to inhabit this pl'!.ce," Rabbi Daniel Greer, who recently bought the properry, tells me as he points to a tiny kitchen with an abutting shower stall. "Six families." We walk upstairs, past heaps of unread newspapers, to another kitchen, where mice have burrowed through the cabinets. Greer explains that slumlords once made staggering profits off the house, just blocks northwest of Yale, collecting rents of $650 a month through federal housing subsidies.

Now Greer, an ultra-Orthodox Jew, holds the deed to this dilapidated Edgewood area residence, and he plans to renovate it fully-a job that could cost $10o,ooo and take two years to complete. But Greer's compassion for 36 Brownell St. is hardly that of a devoted architecruralist. For over a decade he has amassed ruined houses in his neighborhood, gutting and refurbishing them before renting them out. Greer presently controls a veritable empire of 30 properties in the warren of residential streets between Edgewood Park and Whalley Avenue.

Depending on whom you ask, Greer's real estate dominion has been a godsend, a curse, an enigma, or maybe all three. Since the project began, properry values in Edgewood have stabilized, crime-specifically prostitution and drug dealing-has decreased, and houses that once sat in ruin have received stylish makeovers.

But charges of racism have been swirling around the enterprise ever since Greer challenged the ciry housing authority's placement of Gracie White, a black woman, in a house on his street. Some members of the black communiry have branded Greer a separatist-an epithet they believe is aptly symbolized by the imposing, eight-foot fences that surround his properties.

Greer is used to controversy. In 1997, he helped instigate and carry out the bitter and unsuccessful "Yale Five" lawsuit, in which four Orthodox undergraduates (the ftfth dropped out) sued Yale because the Universiry had not exempted them from mandatory on-campus housing, which they claimed forced them to break their interpretation ofJewish law by living in close proximity to members of the opposite sex. Greer's daughter Batsheva and family friend Elisha Hack were among the litigants.

Through it all, Greer's renovation project has developed steadily. Construction crews are currently painting, hammering, and sawing away at fom sites, and several other properties, including 36 Brownell St. and a three-story office building on Whalley Avenue, are on the waiting list for repairs. Greer openly boasts that he has established a "well-run housing authoriry" that no government agency could match. Whether his enterprise will better Edgewood, : however, is unclear.

G

REER FIRST CAME TO NEW HAVEN 41 YEARS AGO tO attend Yale Law School, where he roomed with future California governor and Presidential aspirant Jerry Brown. After a whirlwind tour of Wall Street, New York Mayor John Lindsay's administration (as Depury-Mayor for Ports and Terminals), and war-torn Israel, where Greer was ordained, he returned to New Haven in 1976 with his family and settled in Edgewood, a neighborhood with a burgeoning Jewish presence. Greer resisted the urge to _which so many New Haven Jews had succumbed: to move to the comfort of the ciry's outskirts. He chose instead to brave a harsh urban atmosphere, one historically plagued by poverry, drugs, and prostitution.

Greer had grand hopes for Orthodox Judaism in Edgewood when he arrived. Disappointed with the local religious school offerings, he founded his own school, called the Gan (Hebrew for "garden"), in order to educate his children in accordance with his strict interpretation and observance of Jewish law. Greer's political skills and remarkable connections-he served on the city police commission and was close with then-Mayor Ben DiLieto-paid off. In 1982 the ciry sold an Edgewood school to him-without a public bidfor a paltry $35,000. Greer moved the Gan into the massive, redbrick building (which required an eight-year, $1.5 million renovation) and eventually renamed it the Yeshiva of New Haven. He became the rabbi of the Yeshiva shu!, or synagogue.

But what of Greer's vision of Judaism? On the outside, Greer does not conform to the ultra-Orthodox stereotype of black hats and long coats, but he does seek a very radical inward orthodoxy.

"There was a beautiful world," he told me, "a world of Eastern .

Europe where there was the intensiry and seriousness and commit- . ment to Judaism which was lost ... We feel very strongly that to be : Jewish you have to be really Jewish ... We're trying to restore a

A controversial Orthodox rabbi reclaims the ghetto 2002

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world that no longer is." In the ominoussecurity company to watch the streets. ly-tided b ook jew vs. jew, which chronicles Greer fiercely denies that allegation, but the "Yale Five" suit (and which sits on a Alderwoman Elizabeth McCormack conshelf in Greer's office), Greer confirmed his firmed Stark's story. h ighly intellectual and unusual conception Soon afterwards, Greer began purchasof Judaism. H e told the author Samuel ing houses, usually for between $2o,ooo Freedman, "We want to recall the world and $8o,ooo. At first he bought up homes we've b een cut off from by the around the Gan School as dormitories. But Enlighten ment ...." soon he sec his sights on other parts of the But if the "Yale Five" incident is any neighborhood . When I asked Greer about indication, Greer's uncompromising devohis motivations, he pointed to the slum tion seems to surpass even that of most economy-a "bad system" that he says fosOrthodox Jews. The suit sent shockwaves ters crime and instability in the real estate through the New Haven Jewish communimarket. "We realized that ultimately if we ty, alienating many who saw Greer's aggresdidn't start doing something to the infrasiveness and· con' structure of the demnation ofYale Greer's neighbors complained that neighbor hood-namely · h"IS b ack as too extreme. th Steven W ilf serves e goat S h e keeps In the housingas one example. yard were emitting a foul smell. we weren't An Orthodox Jew going to make a who sent his chilreal dent," he dren to the Gan school, Wilf moved five says. While he tapped government funding years ago from Edgewood .to Westville, a programs like the Neighborhood popular Orthodox neighborhood that is.

Assistance Act, Connecticut Housing He thinks that Greer has welcomed conFinance Authority, and city block grantstention in order to foster a stronger Jewish ranking among the top individual recipients of all state money-he used his City identity in his community. "It's a model of separation-a 19th century European Hall connections and tax and real estate model-in which individuals feel a need to law expertise to begin expanding his propseparate and often polarize through the erty holdings. His deft use of several nonrejection of various things, like Yale, profit corporations-Edgewood Village modernity, or liberalism," he told me. "It Inc., FOH Inc. (Friends of HaGan), is most certainly not the model in New Edgewood Corners Inc., Edgewood-Elm Housing, The Gan School, Barak Joseph Haven." Many Jews, he thinks, have found Greer's struggles irrelevant, and so too his Morand Zelinsky Memorial Fund, and Edgewood Properties-allowed him to Edgewood community. raise even more funds and to bid on housooN AFTER THE GAN MOVED, Greer es more covertly. says, it became evident that his By the mid '9os, Greer's unique role as school and synagogue, and with it his life both real estate mogul and civic watchdog in Edgewood, could not flourish if prostihad become apparent. He and his "peoplen tution, drug dealing, and other crimes perbegan planting and watering dozens of trees around the neighborhood and picking sisted. So he and a number of other concerned neighbors resorted to some extreme, up trash on the streets and sidewalks. In even brutal, measures.

They began 2000, the year the New Haven R~gist(l' d ubbed Greer the "Mayor of Edgewood,n patrolling the neighborhood in their cars, he sued the owners of a house of prostitu· hoping to spot prostitutes and their johns.

Whenever they found a john, they would tion run by cwin brothers. After working with the police to put the two in jail, Greer take photographs and coax the police to make an arrest. They also established the ultimately took over the property, and now counts it among his many trophies.

"John of the Week" program, in which they would h ang up posters with the names and addresses of arrested men in their own subreer is actually something of an aes. thete when it comes to the renovaurban neighborhoods. Evan Stark, a fortion of his houses. Like an expert sales:. mer Edgewood resident and ward co-chair, man, he brags about the detailed, elegant says that at one point Greer even hired a

S

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THE NEw JouRNAL

work his crews have done. "Everything's new," he explained as he showed me through a "gingerbread" Victorian residence on Elm Street that he recently began restoring. He has added new windows, new floors, new tiling in "New Period" bathrooms, a new roof (a 4o-year, he notes, as opposed to a mere 20-year), and new, hand-painted ballisters. Upstairs, he showed me a set of windows that he personally designed to prevent small children from falling out. "It's really a lot of fun to fix up houses," he exclaimed gleefully. "It's like Legos on a large scale."

As we stood on the newly finished floor of another house on Edgewood Avenue, Greer pointed out an old stainedglass window that the previous owner had covered in paint. One of Greer's workers cleaned the glass and framed it in wood that matches the original paneling of the room. This attention to detail is almost an obsession for Greer. Throughout my tour, he hurled order afrer order at his son Eliezer, who comes home from Brown every weekend to help out.

The workforce creating these immaculate homes is f.Urly diverse: One day I found a mixed-gender group of Eastern European immigrants painting a house.

Greer offers only that he employs "full-time workers" from construction firms. When I asked about tenants, he answered that he rents to the "public"-which he assured me includes both Jews and other minoritiesfor "low market" prices. His requirements for rental are similarly vague: "Stability, reliability, good track-record."

But even if Greer rents f.Urly according to the law, his project looks suspiciously like gentrification. He is known for exerting rigid control over his properties. When one tenant altered the landscaping in the yard, Greer evicted and sued him.

According to McCormack, Greer threw out a group of Southern Connecticut State University students who had been throwing parties. Edgewood residents tell stories, as well, about Greer's lack of sympathy for his neighbors. When Stark wrote Greer a letter that expressed concern about the tall fences he installs on every property, Greer refused to speak with him. In another, more bizarre instance, neighbors around Greer's own residence complained that the goats that he keeps in his backyard were emitting a foul smell.

FURUARY

2002

Greer admits he is "not a saint." He finds that safe streets and stable rents make life better for students at his school and for members of his congregation. He stands a better chance of sustaining his ultra-Orthodox community in the more secure environment his housing empire and tireless work has created. But if the houses improve the neighborhood, he asks, what is the harm? Greer has dubbed this philosophy "entrepreneurial, nonprofit self-interest."

Quoting the Book of Jeremiah and Rabbi Hillel, Greer tells me that institutions have an obligation to tend to their neighborhoods.

"We've got to do something for the neighborhood in which we live," he says. Why? Because local groups get the job done better than "unimaginative, bureaucratic" government. Greer told Freedman the very same thing. "Government can't do," he said. "It can only assist. And where it arrogates to itself the idea of running families, schools, cities, it makes them worse. It destroys more than it builds."

0

N FEBRUARY 1, 2002, GEORGE W. BusH named Jim Towey the new head of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.

In doing so, he revived a program that had laid the ~"i~~~~~~!~!!~~~~~= foundation for the "compassionate conser- { varism" upon which he built his presidential campaign. Bush's words at the announcement of the hiring perfectly echo Greer's views on religion and politics.

"Government cannot stand in the way of the good works of the people in our neighborhoods," he said.

"Government must expedite and stand on the side of faith-based programs. We should not discriminate at the federal level against people who are trying to help us solve the nation's problems."

But in eschewing one kind of "discrimination," Bush's support of f.Uth-based groups Like Greer's opens up entirely new realms of discrimination. Greer is free to rent to whom he likes, to evict whom he hates, and, in effect, to shape a community that conforms to his own interests and ideals with Little, or no, accountability. Greer's attempt to strengthen Edgewood has made it less democratic. "One has to be careful not to have the state take over for the Almighty," he admitted in Freedman's book. Ultimately, the fate of Edgewood Ia] rests in the hands of one man alone. jacob Bkcher; a sophomore in Davmport Colkge, is research director forTNJ.

A

are no strangers to controversy. Seated in their Brooklyn studio, Tarry remains pensive as she flips through their portfolio. "It's impossible to talk about our artwork without talking about it in the arc of public response and exchange," she says as she turns to McCallum, her husband and collaborator. "The work we do here," she says slowly as she looks across the loft, which rises above the blaring trucks of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, "can become irrelevant when the audience takes over."

When Helen Kauder of A.rtSpace, a New Haven arcs center that showcases new works, invited McCallum and Tarry to participate in Citywide Open Studios in New Haven this past fall, no one foresaw how acute and overpowering the "arc of public response" would be. Commissioned to create an installation in the historic Center Church on the Green for the week-long arts festival, the husband-wife team was inspired by the church's recent apology for slaveholding among its members in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Their resulting work Silmu is a series of 19 photographs of current members of Dixwell Avenue United Church of Christ-the first African-American church in New Haven.

McCallum and Tarry's exhibit, intended to be displayed for one month, symbolically granted a long-overdue wish to Center Church's black congregants of centuries past, who had been restrictRTISTS BRADLEY McCALLUM AND }ACQU.EUNE 'TARRY

ed to the balcony. The sepia-tone photographs, enlarged to greater than life-size and mounted on posts, were scattered across the pews of Center Church's main sanctuary. Silmc~, with its images of Dixwell Church's present members bearing solemn faces and dressed in 18th century garb, stood in stark contrast to the church's sporless white walls. It clashed with the red carpet. And it was indeed powerful, perhaps more powerful than anyone expected.

U

NLIKE TliElR ART, McCallum and Tarry's studio is easily overlooked. Their working and living quarters occupy the wp floor of a brick warehouse and are hidden among the wholesale markets of Brooklyn's Navy Yard. Entering the loft, one meets an array of their previous work-manholes, tombstones, call boxes-as well as the pervasive smell of fish from the market one floor below.

Together, McCallum and Tarry comprise ConjunctionA.rts, "a nonprofit artS organization that is dedicated to supporting. developing and presenting community-based art that fosters civic dialogue." Five years ago, McCallum, then a recent graduate of the Yale School of Fine Arts and an artist-in-residence with the American Civil Liberties Unjon, was inspired to create a work in response to New York's mounting concern with police btuta1ity. He solicited Tarry's help, and together the duo created Wit7Uss. Completed CWO

years after the ronure of Abner Louima in a Brooklyn precinct and two months after the fatal shooting of Amadou Oiallo in the Bronx, Witness consisted of 20 brick-red booths with telephones inside.

The call boxes were located around the city where people died in confrontations with New York City police. When lifted, the receivers played testimonies of victims' encounters with police brutality.

When one of the call boxes was placed outside the United States Courthouse in downtown Manhattan, federal marshals, despite the city's explicit approval of the project, refused to allow it to remain. Spokespersons for former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani referred to the project as "a disgrace."

S

ILENCE UNNERVED NEW HAVEN THE SAME WAY THAT Witness shook New York. In both cities, McCallum and Tarry's work was overshadowed by public response. And in both cities, the act provoked enough outrage to bring about its own demjse.

Just one week after its opening, Silnzce was removed due to complaints by the congregation that its images blocked the view of the pulpit and were damaging the pews. So the story goes. However, in an interview with the New J1,rk Times, Reverend Shepherd Parsons at Center Church suggested that Silnzce did much more than block rhe view of the pulpit. "When I walked in and saw it, I

gasped," Parsons stated. Whether because of its physical or symbolic presence, Silence made people uncomfortable.

The congregation's reaction, however, was nor disclosed to either AnSpace or the artists themselves. According to Kauder, "after the work had already been on display for two worship services, and I inquired how the project was going, the heartfelt reply was: 'It's wonderful!' If there were other views of the project, they were kept silent until the abrupt about-face." The church moved rhe photos to the balcony. The audience of Silnzce had indeed taken over.

Even to the artists, whose previous work has attracted national attention, New Havens reaction was unprecedented. "This was the first time," McCallum reflected as he looked through slides of their interrupted exhibit, "where the narrative and process of our work was decided by circumstances outside of our control. Never in our wildest dreams did we think that Center Church, who asked for our presence, would dismantle and remove the installation without consulting us. Their choice has an irony that is hard to escape."

When McCallum and Tarry discovered that Silnzce had been removed, they thought it only proper to participate in the discourse they had incited. They constructed tombstones out of plaster bearing the names of those who left Center Church in the 1820s to form Dixwell Avenue United Church of Christ. The tombstones,

shrouded in black lace, were installed in Center Church's balcony, alongside the 19 relegated photos. Meanwhile, the op-ed pages of the New Haven Register discussed the significance of the work's removal.

Frank Harris, a Register columnist and journalism professor at Southern Connecticut State University, viewed the incident as "indicative of the way many white Americans do not want to talk about slavery. We have a constant desire to forget about the past."

D

lXWELL AVENUE UNITED CHURCH

stands a ¡ mile and a half north of Center Church on the Green. The newly relocated Silence will soon be on display inside.

Dixwell Church is one of the largest predominantly African-American churches in New Haven. It is situated next to an abandoned, gated yard and the Elm Haven Housing Project. Directly across the street is the blighted Dixwell Plaza. Founded in 1829, Dixwell Church was conceived by Simeon S. Jocelyn, a white Congregationalist and member of Center Church. After witnessing the mistreatment of blacks at Center Church, Jocelyn took up their cause by holding private services for African-Americans in his own home.

Nine years later, Jocelyn, along with a group of 19 black congregants, started the Temple Street Church, later to be known as the Dixwell Avenue Congregational Church.

s t

Q

c y

The 19 photographs of Silence symbolize Dixwell Church's 19 founders, and as symbols they have taken on lives of their own. In the same way that the AfricanAmerican members of Center Church were forced from the main floor to the balcony, Silence, without the consent of its creators, was banished to the balcony before its relocation to Dixwell. Some might say that if Center Church was in fact trying to forget its flawed past, it failed. In the end, Center Church repeated its past.

However, according to the Reverend John H. Scott of Dixwell Church, what took place at Center Church was no more than "a huge misunderstanding." Brushing aside the high-minded and moralizing tendencies of the artists and critics alike, Scott believes that critics of Center Church's decision disregard the church's purely practical concerns. "If the pictures weren't on the pews, it would have been an entirely different story," Scott maintains. Of course, the photographs, including depictions of Scott and his son, will seem even more imposing in his own, smaller church.

Scott's voice sounds weary from trying to convince too many cynics that the events of the past months are not a case of history repeating itself. "Center Church is a very progressive, loving, and uplifting church.

They are open and affirming," he says, "Each congregation has the. right to determine what is best for their church."

Scott's point seems valid. Race relations, in any city, cannot be reduced to

black and white, nor can they be accurately represented by cardboard cutouts.

Center Church on the Green is in fact considered a progressive church by many, which is part of the reason it was originally invited to host Silence. It has been praised for irs encouragement of the local unions, and it supported "Yale, Slavery and Abolition," a report published by three Yale graduate students which described Yale's past relationship with slaveholders.

The belief that race relations cannot be simplified cehainly works both ways. It was only six months ago that Center Church appointed its first AfricanAmerican layman. Reaching back to the 19th century, Jocelyn, whom Scott praises for his humanitarian impulses, originally founded Temple Church not because he believed that blacks deserved equality per se, but because he thought that moral discipline among the African-American population was in decline. Jocelyn is remembered as both a founder of the first AfricanAmerican Church in New Haven and an active member of the American Colonization Society, which advocated the return of freed slaves to Liberia.

"We may not always realize the ways in which history impacts the way we act today," McCallum says. According to Harris, Silence and its distance from Center Church reflect the separation, created with the formation of Dixwell Church, between African-American and white churches in New Haven. "Throughout New Haven,"

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Harris says, "we can sec black churches on the outskirts of the city and white churches in the center." One cannot help but reflect on the deeper significance of Sikncls displacement. The mere representations of black church members, 173 years after the creation of Dixwcll Church and the onset of segregation by choice, could not be accepted as part of Center Church's congregation or as part of its history. As Harris says, "I guess it's easier to forget."

McCallum and Tarrf, on the other hand, want people to remc~ber. "Exhibits like Siknu," McCallum says, "bring up serious questions about private and public spaces." "The congregation of Center Church was forced to engage with [Siknce]," says Tarry. "They didn't really have any choice." The phoros, in the church's center, demanded confrontation and recognition.

Still, New Havencrs like Reverend Scott insist that Center Church's decision was simply practical. If there is a divide between Dixwell Church and Center Church on the Green, the members of the churches themselves do not sense it.

At the service commemorating the 17oth anniversary of DixweU Church's founding, Center C hurch's Parsons delivered a sermon with Scott. Scott remains convinced that searching for a deeper meaning behind the story of Siknce would be misguided. "It's always good to lift up history," Scott says, "but the exhibit posed problems that we did not contemplate."

But the intention of Siknce was co do just that.

While some object to the aggressive agenda of public art like Siknce and Witness, McCallum and Tarry believe that they have a duty to fulfill. "As artists," Tarry

FEBRUARY 2002

asserts, "we have a responsibility to go beyond what a historian would dobeyond a didactic instruction. We have to create something that makes the viewer question. We have to engage dynamics that are lasting." To McCallum, Center Church's claim that Siknu blocked the view of the pulpit remains baseless. "If you have 19 people in a church that siz.c, it feels empty," McCallum states, "With these 19, the church somehow felt full?"

T

ARRY AND

McCALLUM

KNOW THEIR

work in New Haven is far from complete. "We have a responsibility to see the artwork through to another stage," McCallum says. T he couple, along with Artspace, worked with Communi ty Mediation of Fair Haven to help facilitate an interracial dialogue dealing specifically with Siknce. Far from becoming embittered, Tarry and McCallum were motivated by their experience in New Haven to further explore race relations through public art. "The sequence of events that took

place in New H aven was the first step in a national project," Tarry affirms. The couple's next exhibit will travel the route of the Underground Railroad, playing the testimonies and recreating the stories of the descendants of slaves, bondsmen, and abolitionists.

Back in their Brooklyn studio, McCallum takes a deep breath as he finishes telling his own swry. "The easiest thing for Center Church to do," he reflects, "would be to wait for this all to disappear.

Just close their eyes and wait till it goes over." But Siknce has shown that the legacy of slavery will not long remain unseen.

1111 Benita Singh, a sophomore in Branford College, is on the staff ofTNJ.

AT

arxvvell

II AM ON SuNDAY, when the morning worship service is scheduled to begin, the pews at the First Calvary Baptist Church are only half full, and there are as many people fidgeting on the pulpit as there are in the congregation itself. A smaJI boy, no older than ten, sirs behind a sprawling drum ser, impatiently tapping a cymbal. In front of him, another picks at a keyboard. Several men in dark suits lounge listlessly behind a podium, glancing occasionally at gold watches or flashing subtle smiles ro members of the congregation. Then, the First Calvary Baptist Church explodes.

A choir, made up of large women with thick glasses and tiny girls with cornrows, gyrates righteously onto the stage, flowing through three rows of chairs on the right while belting out a hymn, fists raised to the roof. The choir-master is a skinny man in a green swearer, and the Spirit apparently has him possessed; he flails and gesticulates wildly, echoing his choir with arnens and hallelujahs, eyes closed, knees bent, and face turned toward God. The keyboardist pounds our gospel chords to the drum's swinging bear.

The rest of the room, as if on cue, starts ro fill up and come alive. Leather soles tap on the linoleum floor. The congreganrs-all of them black--clap their hands and swing their hips, tentatively ar fuse, and shout out the occasional "Praised be the Lord!" Toddlers bounce on the church benches, teenagers shift and giggle, hunchedover old men shake and sing. The music rises in waves of old-time religion, and as the opening hymn nears crescendo, the gangly choirmaster jigs on stage, stomping and spinning and jerking to the hoots and shouts of the congregation. There is no cross--or any

other trace of Christianity, for that matter-behind him; instead, the scene is dominated by a sound console, the drumset, and two massive, pulsating speakers on either side.

As the choir belts our "To God Be the Glory" in frantic repetition, a man in a black suit, black shirt, black tie, and gold-framed glasses rises and approaches the podium slowly and deliberately. He is not tall, but has the build of a linebacker-a thick neck and meaty hands which he periodically thrusts into the air. When he reaches the podium, he presides with quiet control. His left arm is still raised, the fist clenching and unclenching. He surveys his congregation with a subversive grin, his &arne swinging and dipping co the music. And as the organ and the wails of the choir gradually die out, the Reverend Or. Boise Kimber begins to preach.

Kimber has a perfect preaching voice, a low and raspy growl with a trace of a Southern accent. In the style of Martin Luther King, Jr., AI Sharpton, and Jesse Jackson, he seems co add an exrra syllable of emphasis to the end of every other word, affecting a cadence that builds slowly toward rapture. Bur the reverend's topic at the moment is not devotion or the Bible. He is riffing from the pulpit on politics-good, old-fashioned, lowdown-and-dirty politics.

B

ONE OF THE MOST EFFECTIVE COMMUNITY leaders and political organizers in New Haven. The local press describes him as a "kingmaker," and Mayor John DeStefano counts him as a close friend and crucial ally. But these same qualOISÂŁ KIMBER IS

Boise

e preaches

By Daniel Kurtz-Phelan ities have brought Kimber under suspicion. The New Haven AdvocatL" has labeled him a "bully," "favorite felon," and "neighborhood patronage wheeler-dealer." He heads the Greater New Haven Clergy Association and has been intimately involved in city development programs ranging from the Livable City Initiative (LCI) co the Hazel Street Development Corporation, a City Hall-sponsored nonprofit whose programs include homeownership promotion and job training. Last month, he was appointed Fire Commissioner. In a city where the clergy plays an unusually large role in politics and labor issues, Kimber is notorious for his charisma and effectiveness.

Yet over the past five years IGmber's name has been regularly associated with public scandal and government corruption. In 1998, he came under suspicion of embezzling city funds. In 1996, the reverend was convicted of stealing over $4,000 of an elderly woman's burial money while running a funeral home owned by a jailed friend.

The First Calvary Baptist Church is just one of dozens of churches on Dixwell Avenue which has made an abandoned storefront ics home. The brick building where the church now resides housed a restaurant, a cleaners, and an insurance agency before First Calvary took over. It is located in the heart ofNewhallville, a neighborhood just a few miles up Dixwell from Yale University.

Newhallville--as Kimber never hesitates to point out-has consistently ranked as one of the poorest communities in the state and, at times, in the nation.

politics from the

I am waiting to meet the reverend at First Calvary on a Sunday afternoon. Kimber pulls up co his church in a sleek silver Lincoln Continental and steps out in a black trench coat and black fedora.

He shakes my hand and leads me to his office, a small room just off the main hall with buzzing fluorescent lights. The walls are covered in photographs-Kimber shaking hands with N Sharpcon, huddling with David Dinkins and Jesse Jackson, standing next to Marion Barry. To the right of the large desk that dominates the room, there is a painting of Marcin Luther King, Jr.. Directly behind the desk hangs a painting of Kimber himself--one in which the Newhallville reverend bears a striking resemblance to the leader of the civil rights movement, whom Kimber compulsively cites as his role model.

After growing up in Alabama and attending seminary in Ohio, Kimber arrived in New Haven almost 20 years ago.

"I carne into the ministry not knowing that it would lead me into being this involved in the process of liberating people and organizing people," Kimber tells me. But from the moment he arrived in New Haven to minister at the Pitts Chapel Unified Free Will Baptist Church, the Reverend found political involvement unavoidable. "The black church," he explains, "is the largest institution that black folks have." Kimber leans back in his chair and clasps his hands together, talking with the certainty and vision of a good politician. "Some people ask, 'Why is the church involved in politics?' Well, someone has to be a voice to try to liberate people and try to help those who are disenfranchised. If we ever really get organized, we will suddenly become a force within the political arena." Most observers, however, quickly point out that that has already happened. Kimber's clergy association, a primarily black organization, mobilizes huge numbers of minoriryvoters in election years, demanding attention from local politicians. As one New

Haven mmtster said, Kimber and his cohorts are "all about getting pastors together and organizing huge press conferences." Union-affiliated ministers like Lillian Daniel and Scott Marks present a different leadership model. Heading organizations like Elm Ciry Congregations Organized and the Connecticut Center for a New Economy, these ministers are pivotal to the union organizing effort that is culminating in the acrimonious labor negotiations currently under way with Yale. As one labor organizer cold me, "The church is the . " umon.

Kimber's nororiery as a reader has stemmed from his close, and at times controversial, relationship with DeStefano.

The reverend, of course, attributes his association with the Mayor to the benefits that DeStefano has brought to New Haven. "I think he is one of the better administrators this ciry has ever had," Kimber says. "He's included people in the process. Regardless of what people have said, this mayor has been real. inclusive." Kimber, however, also tends to downplay his connection with DeStefano, painti"ng himself as a political maverick out for nobody other than the people in his comrp.uniry. "I don't work for Ciry Hall. I don't work for the state of Connecticut," Kimber emphasizes. He takes aim at ciry government, Yale, the unions-anyone, it seems, who doesn't play according to his rules. With only a little prompting, he says. "Yale has to do more chan say that it wants a relationship. You show a relationship by love, by caring, by your gifts ... The union must contribute back to this communiry also. They have an obligation that they can't ignore either."

Kimber, of course, sees it as his personal responsibiliry to ensure that they meet these obligations.

S

OON

AFTER

THE

REVEREND'S

Sunday morning preaching begins, he spots me sitting in the back row of his church and calls out ro "the strange-looking boy in the back." Just to show who is in charge, he asks me ro stand and interrogates me about my purpose--knowing full well why I am there and what I am doing.

He wears a slightly sadistic smile. "This

article--it gonna be good?" he asks, eliciting a wave of laughter from the congregation. '"Cause if it ain't, I'll sic 'em on you right now." He pauses, then bellows, "Can I get a witness?!" The congregation responds with a jubilant chorus of amens.

"You can't hide from the press," he says, "But at least I got him at church."

Kimber's pulpit polemic jumps from the state budget to Laura Bush to Governor John Rowland as the congregation shouts irs approval. He refers to recent articles from the New Haven Register and beseeches his congregation, singling out certain congregants by name, to "empower" themselves. As he continues, he flashes a smile in my direction and, ever media-savvy, adds, "And don't think I'm just talking about chis because there's a reporter here."

In the reverend's rhetoric, power struggles take on the tone of a crusade, and political opponents are cast as doomed infidels. The diplomatic reserve he shows in an interview is replaced by hellfire and brim.stone. "I met with [State Representative] Bill Dyson, and I told him we need two million dollars, and it's gonna happen," he thunders, fist in the air. "And I'm gonna sit down with Bruce Alexander and Michael Morand at Yale, and I'm gonna ask Yale to give one million dollars a year for the next ten years to the New Haven public school system. Yale's sitting over there and I'm talking about money, not people coming out here to help us." He sneers this last bit, prompting nods and grunts of agreement among his congregants, many of whom work in low-end service jobs at the University and whose kids attend failing urban public schools. Kimber corltinues.

"And I told [lead union organizers] Andrea Cole and Bobby Proto that I want them co give $10o,ooo to the New Haven Board of Education. The union dues are going to have to scan corning out here to help us."

By this point, Kimber is yelling. The tirade whips his parishioners into a frenzy of righteous empowerment and liberation.

The reverend laughs, then raises his hand in the air to quiet the congregation.

"Everyone calm down," he pleads sarcastically, smiling. "You know we got guests in the house." With this jab at the outsider among them, the congregants are suddenly . back on their feet, shouting and stomping.

THE NEW JouRNAL

Kimber is shaking with laughter. "Y'all know that we know how to act sophisticat~d. " With that, the organ starts again. "I let the Lord know: I love the Lord," he proclaims, looking my way. "I hope y'all write that into your newspaper."

influence is proof enough of his integrity.

"If people really thought that I dealt in shady deals, I would never get calls from the Attorney General, from state representatives, from aldermen, from community people," he says.

Controversy is inherent in the kind of politics Kimber practices. DeStefano looks EVERAL SCANDALS HAVE PLAGUED to him for a solid block of Newhallville the reverend since he first became votes in every election, and the reverend involved in the Livable City Initiative (LCI), delivers. He uses old fashioned tacticsa city office which promotes community vote-pulling, patronage politics, turf development, in 1995· On an almost yearly wars-that inevitably draw heavy criticism basis, he had been charged with overseeing in election years. Kimber defends his stratthe funneling of city money to his friends, egy as one of simply maintaining strong cheating contractors, and ignoring calls to relationships in the community that pay off give up his role in LCI and the Hazel Street when political battles heat up. "People have Development been able to Corporation. "Yale's sitting over there and trust me.

This ongoing People have talking about money, not been able to scandal, of course, was people coming out here to ga l vanize only comaround m e, help us." pounded by and I have the reverend's been able to influence the process and help good peo1996 felony conviction, which elicited a pledge from DeStefano to remove Kimber ple." Kimber has proclaimed himself a from all city programs. But after resigning kingmaker in the past, and the label has as head of the Hazel Street Corp., Kimber stuck. But Kimber laughs and shakes his head when I ask him about the moniker. "I simply tapped his father-in-law for the job don't want to be remembered as a kingand stayed on as a special consultant at a salary of over $5o,ooo a year. maker ... I want to be recognized as a perThose allegations are only the start of son who has tried to make things better for a laundry list of shady fmancial dealings to people in general. If that means being a which Kimber's name is linked. Still, kingmaker by putting people in power who DeStefano does not hesitate to affirm his are on the right side of justice, then so be it." own friendship with and allegiance to Kimber. And Henry Fernandez, who headIMBER'S SuNDAY MORNING ed up LCI at the time of Kimber's suspicious performance shows a side of New activities, has defended Kimber, while simultaneously shutting him out of all furHaven politics that cannot be replaced by ther financial dealings. Kimber himself has virtuous bureaucratic reformers. No memheard it all before, and denies charges that ber of the congregation is spared his attenhe has personally benefited from his tion; he refers to many by name. Afrer involvement in city development proprayer recitations and responsive readgrams. "I haven't gained anything financialings--<>ne of the few quiet stretches in the ly for myself or my family, " he claims. "I've service-the reverend steps up to the podium with a pile of papers in hand. been able to help a community grow by "Parents," he scolds. "There're still a lot of developing new houses, helping to bring new ideas to a community, helping to build you who have not yet sent me your report cards." This is a ritual Kimber undertakes schools, helping to stop people from selling every time a marking period ends in the drugs on street corners. People will always New Haven public school system. If things assume ~at you're benefiting." But on a are not going well with one of his church's more basic level, Kimber simply sees no children, Kimber will not hesitate to step need to engage his critics--his continued

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in. His intimate knowledge of "every school in Newhallville" is as much a point of pride as his association with a five-term mayor.

The microphone picks up the rustling of papers, and Kimber pulls out a sheet that he begins reading. "Now Clayton." He scans the congregation until he's found the boy, who proudly raises his hand to identify himself. "I saw your report card today, Clayton, and you my man!" Kimber pumps his fist and continues through the stack of papers, focusing on child after child, reading with apparently earnest elation such phrases as "her computer skills are good" and "Tania works very well with others." One girl who has had an especially distinguished semester is granted the privilege of holding the tithe bowl while a line of congregants drops in sealed envelopes, cash or check, to the jazzy accompaniment of the keyboard and drums. Kimber smiles, exuberant. "This gonna be the smartest church in New Haven." A chorus of amens.

By this point, the service has been in session for over two hours, but the pews are as fuU as they were for the first notes of the choir. A woman sitting in front of me turns around and whispers, "This is the h ugging part." Confused, I watch as Kimber pulls the microphone from itS stand, closes his eyes, and startS to sing, alone, without the pomp and frenzy of drums and organ and choir. The song is "Amazing Grace," sung in a deep, lilting croon, and as the first lines wash over the room, the congregantS rise, leave their pews, and mill around the hall.

And they hug. Women fervently throw their arms around one another. Men shake hands, lean together, and give a couple of manly patS on the back. Even as an outsider, I'm not free from the ritual. Like a guest going through a receiving line, I walk down the aisle and get a warm embrace from every person I pass--<>ld men in white gloves and zoot suitS, kids in athletic jerseys, middle-aged women in flowing dresses. All the while, the Reverend Boise Kimber is onstage singing the last notes of "Amazing Grace," his eyes closed and the hint of a smile on his face.

Daniel Kurtz-Phelan, a junior in· Berkeley College, is managing editor for TNJ.

THE NEW j OURNAL

FEBRUARY 2002

29

THE

LAST

CRUSADE I

N 1998, CAMPus CRUSADE FOR CHRIST AT YALE faced an identity crisis. Marginalized from the university mainstream and almost exclusively Asian, the organization resorted to a radical measure: It changed its name to Yale Students for Christ (Ysc) and sought to diversify its membership and redefme its public image.

The new YSC is almost twice the size of its previous incarnation and one of the most ethnically diverse groups at Yale. A short list of the local churches that YSC members attend is indicative of the change: Black Church at Yale, Calvary Baptist, the International Church at Yale, and Impact, among others. Yet despite its new name and composition, YSC remains a chapter of the international Campus Crusade for Christ. It sponsors the same activities, is supported by a paid Campus Crusade staff of six recent college graduates, and adheres to the same evangelist doctrine--<femanding that members share their faith and spread the gospel any chance they get.

YSC meetings on Thursday nights unfold like any other meeting on campus. A recent meeting sent the YSC staff scrambling to fetch extra chairs for the group of nearly 8o that arrived at the Dwight Hall common room. While four students set up a drum set and guitar at the front of the room, everyone else stood around talking to friends f.u past the 7 PM start time. At 7:25, someone finally came forward to begin the meeting with a short prayer. Next, a girl made the weekly announcements. The same girl might have spoken the same words at a sorority meeting. Don't forget the retreat, she reminded the group. Oh, yeah, and the great Panama Beach spring trip--hang out and enjoy evangelism, fellowship, and sun.

Following acmouncements, chairs scraped the floor in the crowded room as everybody rose to sing. The song asked God for righteousness, holiness, and faithfulness, words that ace normally taboo on the Yale campus. The guest speaker that evening was Reverend Moody, the minister at local Trinity Church. Moody suggested a theme verse for the semester-Philippians 4:9-a verse that speaks about the example that Christ sets in both his words and his actions. Bibles appeared from backpacks, sports bags, and purses as everyone followed along. Then the Yale Students for Christ left the room, the verse still in their minds, ready to do Christ's work in their lives and on campus. Moody's mild, socially aware, and positive speech exemplified the new kind of crusader that YSC hopes to encourage.

This new crusader began to appear last year, when YSC joined with five other Christian groups at Yale to publicize their mission activities, including speakers and discussions. The theme of the week's activities was the question "Do you agree with Dave?" Tshirts, spotted everywhere across campus, answered the question, saying, "I agree with Dave." The "Dave" featured on these shirts is Dave Farrell, an actual member of YSC, but his name was chosen because it is a common one, meant to represent the believer in general. YSC members considered the effort a success, sparking more talk about Christianity than the campus had seen in years. Even negative responses were taken as a good sign, proof that students were at least thinking about religion. However, one sign that read "I agree with Dave" was changed to read "I agree with Dave Koresh,"

YALE STUDENTS FOR CHRIST MARKETS A NE\N EVANGELISM THE NEW JouRNAL

BY ELLEN THOMPSON and numerous parody shirts appeared. While the members of YSC al happy message" about love she had intended. After a few officious do not believe that one person can convert another (only the Holy email readers sent her angry replies, Leah sent out an apology to the Spirit can), they hoped that by sharing their beliefs they could list. Although unable to apologiz.e for the scripture itself, which she expose more people to the gospel. But students' reactions to the "I embraces in its entirety, she apologiz.ed instead for any offense she agree with Dave" shirts demonstrated that Yale is clearly not the easmight have caused. In the next issue of Rumpus she was compared iest place to be vocal about Christian faith. to Hitler and Stalin. What that story didn't report was that after the Aaron Johanson became a Christian when he was four years exchange she received over 30 emails that supported her and spoke old. He remembers kneeling down and asking Christ into his heart. of the difficulty of being a Christian at Yale. For Leah the experiSince then, part of his life has been mission work. Now a senior, he ence was encouraging, and since that time she has felt more and has participated in YSC since his freshman year at Yale. He has been more accepted as a Christian here. Even so, Leah is the first to recon two missions, two of the four types that Campus Crusades sponognize the fundamental divide between herself and the Yale mainsors: work in inner cities, resorts, beach communities, and missions stream. She focuses on the monetary and career goals of many students and compares this with the Christian view: "We're saying that abroad. In Yellowstone, one of the "resort" sites, Aaron's mission targeted park employees. The idea is that Yellowstone employees are there is a sovereign authority that we live for." Even community seroften both rootless and looking for life direction. So ccc sends stuvice is seen as ultimately self-interested from a Christian perspective. dents there to provide Christianity as an option.

The next summe.r Aaron took on an even more challenging This February YSC begins another effort to spark spiritual dismission, one to East Asia. ccc calls this mission OEXcussion on campus in the weeks leading up to Easter, purchasing Oriental Exchange. Because of the nature of the mission's work and the potential danger for those involved, each counTHE YALE CAMPUS, try is given a code name and participants are asked not to reveal the location. The level of sensitivity and the general region reveal Aaron's likely destination to have been China. YOU'RE EITHER ATHEIST, CCC provides a week of training before students go abroad.

During training Aaron was warned to avoid political issues, in JEWISH, OR STUPID." particular the three Ts-1ibet, Taiwan, and 1iananmen.

Aside from these warnings, Aaron gave little thought to the danger he might be in. Aaron said that he had gone to share advertising space in campus newspapers and putting up a new set of an aspect of his life that is important to him. He said he would only signs to challenge the campus: "What if academics don't matter?" talk to those who seemed interested in Christianity, and discussion "What if there is a higher purpose in life?" of Christ made up only 40 percent of his conversations. When YSC wants to be heard, but does it also want to listen? For Leah, Aaron and other students who have done mission trips through ccc the apparent conflict between her own strong beliefs and those of talk about "outreach," "sharing," and "community" work, no one others can be resolved this way: "As much as you want something ever mentions "proselytizing." to be true, desire it to be true, this doesn't make it the truth. I But Aaron's mission work and the shirt he wears are complibelieve that Jesus is the Son of God and that I am sinful and need cated. Is there a difference between standing on a soapbox and comChrist-but more than anything I value truth." Leah has found her ing into a community in order to "share?" Is there a difference truth through her faith in God, but she doesn't feel that this faith between a shirt that says, "I agree with Dave" and one that reads discredits someone else's. While YSC is making an attempt to reach "Why haven't you accepted Christ?" out to the rest of campus, its challenge will be to convince a skeptiLeah Zimmerman became a Christian when she was 14. She cal student body that there is no paradox in Leah's belief. joined YSC and Yale College Council as soon as she c:ame to Yale and is a leader in both groups. Leah summed up her initial sense of the campus attitude as, "You're either atheist, Jewish, or stupid." As a 1111 Christian at Yale, she felt it was hard to "speak out."

Leah's four years at Yale have revolved around speaking out. As president of Freshman College Council she sent out a mass email to the freshman class that included a citation from the Gospel with no words. Leah had made a typo--the numbers referred to a passage Elkn Thompson, a junwr in Ezra Stiles about the punishment of lustful sinners instead of the "more generCo/kg~, is on th~ sta.lfofTNJ.

"ON

FEBRUARY 2002

31

..

The Participants:

The following conversation took place Sunday, january 27,

2002.

What role does religion, or do religious people, play in the Yale experience, and how does Yale affect the religious experiences ofits students and faculty?

TNJ:

jon Butler, the chair ofYale's History Department, is co-director ofthe Institute for the Advanced Study of Religion at Yale.

Gabriela Karabelnik, a senior in Calhoun Col~ge, was raised in a "culturally jewish" family, but became a Christian at the age ofz8. At Yale she belongs to an Orthodax Presbyterian church. She is engaged to be married in june 2002; her fiance is studying to be a pastor.

Stephen Kobasa, a I972 graduate ofthe Yale Graduate School ofArts and Sciences with a degree in religious stu~ ies, is a member ofthe Connecticut Coalition for Peace and a parishoner of St. Thomas More Catholic Church.

Ethan Guillen, a senior in Berkeley College, grew up with a Mexican Catholic father and an evangelical Christian mother. He adopted evangeLical Christianity in high school. He now describes himselfas an atheist.

Abhimanyu Sud, a junior in Timothy Dwight CoLlege, was raised in a secular Hindu environment. He describes himselfas a humanist.

fEBRUARY 2002

KArabelnik:: I think Yale has brought me to a greater understanding of my faith ... I came in looking for Christian fellowship and engagement ... and I was very stimulated by people that I saw living out their faith.

Sud: I haven't experienced that at all. I think that for the most part there is an assumption of atheism, especially in the academic context. There isn't any possibility ofa debate on any consideration of faith. .

Kobasa: "When I was here the idea that someone would be publicly religious was at best a curiosity. Though there were at the time historical images of political radicalism that were religious like [former Yale chaplain] Reverend William Sloane Coffin who was extraordinarily powerful not just within the local community but nationally.

There was a sense that there was a community of faith that was combative in the highest moral sense with regard to that time, which was the time of the civil rights movement and Vietnam.

Those were voices that were sought out here and honored in some degree, not that that was a universal acceptance. And I suppose I was touched by that.

Butler: I don't think [religion] does have an impact here. My own view is, if you mean personal commitment, I don't think it'plays out in any particular way ... I'm chair of the [history] department, and I have no idea of the religious persuasions of four-fifths of my colleagues. And I only know about the others by accident.

Kobasa: So no one would deliberately ask another member of the faculty about their faith?

Butler: I think that would be regarded as inappropriate.

KArabelnik: I think what Professor Butler is talking about is largely also a factor of how subjectivized religion has become. It's a matter of personal faith. And I really came into Yale wanting to see if there was another way of approaching it. Ifl'm in a New Testament class and there's someone tdljng me, "Well, see, these texts aren't reliable, look at these lies here, look at this," I wanted to allow it tO

THE NEW JouRNAL

be a threat to my faith, and I think that's where the most fruitful engagement has come.

But I think generally in the religious studies department that's not the way it's presented. "Your personal faith is a matter for your personal life ... faith can be bracketed in your intellectual pursuits"

Guillen: I'm just trying to flesh out what you were saying, Gabriela. I remember as a Christian freshman year, coming from the California tradition of Christianiry where you have the belief that everything in the Bible is true. It's infallible. And I remember taking a class with Ivan Marcus where so much of the Bible is challenged. That certainly, to most people, provides a big challenge to personal faith if they're willing to engage in those terms. And I have to say . . . one thing that was very influential to me was that it seemed dispassionate. It didn't seem as though he had any sort of bent, that he was trying to convert Christians to atheism or anything like that.

Km-abelnik: I guess that's where I'd be more in line with the postmodern view that no approach is neutral.

TNJ:

What about th~ qu~stion oftokranu-what do you do whm your into conflict with others?

that's largely the position that most of Western culture took.

Sud: I understand tolerance as a very active process, which implies a very different understanding of a relationship--not having the relationship depend upon beliefs. I take great pride in being able to disagree with someone fundamentally and not have it interfere at all with the assumption of uniry between people.

KobiU4: I think Christianiry was better off when it wasn't tolerated. When it was a dangerous thing to be Christian, people's decisions about that, over and against the threat of the state, had a very different, I think, implication ... You know, afrer September II, for example, anyone who would have suggested [from a religious point of view] that we should not respond with violence to ... the attack on the World Trade Center would have been looked on as a betrayer of what was essential about American patriotism. You were either with us or you were against us. Where does religion stand on that?

And maybe it was true that that was the choice. Though there weren't many who cared to make it.

So I think for myself maybe, the place where my own faith falls short is that I haven't had the experience of that kind of risk that really defines faith, where you have to put yourself on the line.

vi~s com~

Guillen: I have a lot of trouble with fundamentalists, especially when they're involved in politics ... k long as others are willing to accept my beliefs, it's not too much of a problem for me. /Gzrabelnik: A lot of the issues that you're raising are very interesting to me, because I guess in your terms I would be the fi.mdamentalist of the group ... The issue of tolerance is one that I sometimes experience as a threat, because I think it can be used against people like me who believe in religious absolutes. Tolerance can become an issue where it's fine for you to believe what you believe as long as you don't believe that what you believe is.the truth.

Guillen: I have no trouble with you. You're not crusading to convert me.

B.aler: It is important to remember that tolerance, even as a historical minimum, has been most useful. It's taken the edge off the other way, which is open oppression, oppression without any guilt, oppression without any qualification. And until the x8th century

FEBRUARY 2002

TNJ: Can oth" p~opk talk about mommts ofa pusonal crisis in foith, putting youru/fon th~ lim?

Guillen: Well, for me, that was, I guess, fall semester sophomore year, or even during Christmas break. I was following the intellectual pursuit of God. I guess I started out first with Christianiry and Bible marters--d.oes the Bible hold truth? Is it historically accurate?

And if it's not, does it matter at all? And that was a very dark and hard time, where I was sort oflosing the grounding that I had. Even the Catholicism I had, which was my background-MexicanCatholic.

And so my exploration and studying of the Bible, in a more dispassionate way ... brought me to a place where I felt like I couldn't believe Christianiry anymore. And from that followed a more philosophical search afrer God. Even lacking any sort of intellectual grounding, was there any reason just to h,ave faith in God? Had I ever had any sort of faith experience of God, where I felt the presence of God, or something supernatural that would make me think there was a God? And I carne to the decision that I hadn't ... I had always grounded (my faith] in a hope that there was some sort of

33

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intellectual explanation for what was going on in the world, in God and in the Bible.

And so it took a long time to emerge from that, to build up a new philosophy of life and regain purpose. And I guess in some ways I still battle with that, how to build a basis for morality and a sense of what's to come.

TN]: Can you talk a little more about the process? Did you read, did you pray, did you stay up at night, talk to your friends, your family?

Guillen: About all of those things, yeah. I started off just reading the Bible again, just cover to cover, everything . . . I actually emailed professors just asking them if they believed in God and why. I got some interesting answers. Bur nothing that was incredibly satisfying. A lot of them were things like, "Well, I just never thought about the possibility that there wasn't a God." So that wasn't incredibly helpful.

And so I talked to grad students. I read grad students' theses that they had written.

There were many nights where I just didn't sleep. I was deeply depressed.

Karabelnik: I also went through a period of depression and a lot of doubt. ActuaUy the first semester freshman year, right when I got here. I just really descended into a vicious cycle of self-hatred, self-deprecating thoughts, and that affected my faith ... I thought, "Well, I don't feel God. I don't feel like a Christian. I don't feel like I'm worthy of God's love." All those things, just very self-.directed.

And it got so bad that I went home. I was thinking about not corning back to Yale. My parents sent me to their psychologist and I went and she really tried to get m e to hope, to believe in myself, to believe in the Jungian psychology she was presenting me with, and it was actually the realization that I couldn't have faith in what she was saying that brought me back to my faith. I realized that everyone operates on the basis of faith. There is no neutral worldview to fall back on. The key was shifring my focus away from myself to the source of my faith, which is God. How did these moments of crisis affict your family relationships?

Guillen: There was some letdown of my TNJ:

34

dad. I don't really know why-his Catholicism is very Mexican-Catholic, Mary's always there, but it doesn't really have any bearing on his life. The first difficult point was back in high school when I wasn't confirmed . . . But then I feel like when I told him I was an atheist that somehow transformed him and he became more religious. My mom, as well, . . . her faith didn't really have any bearing on her until I abandoned it.

Karabelnik: It's definitely been a conflict.

My family is more culturally Jewish than anything else, but when I was twelve I was supposed to have a Bat Mitzva9~ and I said, "I just can't say I believe in this, I'm not going just to do something for the sake of doing it." And the whole synagogue culture had turned me off, because I hadn't encountered what I was looking for in terms of authentic faith that affected all of life . . . My family first of all just felt like they had failed in bringing me up to embrace, not necessarily religious values, but an appreciation for my heritage and for the liberal values that they had brought me up with. And my father, for instance, said, "I would be just as upset if you became Ortho<;lox Jewish as what you're doing now, the same fundamentalism that I can't relate to." The hardest has been my grandmother because she's a Holocaust survivor and for her "Christian" is equated with "Nazi."

How can I betray the family? How can I do this and bring such shame upon everyone? What I really try to do is just live out my faith to show them that it has made me a better person. That I'm able to love them more than I ever have ... And my mother, she's supportive as much as she can be. She doesn't understand, but she says, you know, you have children and you have to be willing to accept the fact that they might be very different from you.

I'm getting married this summer and my fiance is in training to become a pastor and that doesn't help things. [Giggle] The sphere that I will be in will be very hard for them to understand, and my Yale education will be put to use in a way they can't understand.

Karabelnile: Oh yeah, she's like, "Just wait till you have kids!"

KobtUa: My parents were more upset that I became too Catholic when I declared myself a conscientious objector for religious reasons ... It's still sort of a struggle for them because it's meant having to deal with things like me being arrested, going to jail, going to courts, and that's difficult for any parent no matter what the justification is ... My mother's 84 and there are points where some article will come up, and someone will say to her, "Is that your son?" and she will say. "Yes. It is." [Laught~ There is a sense that underneath it all there's a recognition.

Could you state for the record what it is that you put your faith in?

TNJ:

Stul: I have faith in the sdf as an embodiment of an ultimate unity.

G1Uikn: I put my faith in the evolution of man socially.

Butler: I'm going to pass.

Karabemile: I have faith in the saving work of Christ through his death on the cross.

KobtUa: I would go with what the Catholic worker community says, which is that Grace is what the measure of the world is ...

Because that's the only place where meaning comes, you know, even when the struggle is marked by failure, it's not futile ... I think, at least in the generic sense, most faiths claim to give you som~ sense of what's meaningful about human existence and activity, given the fact that you die.

Kob~U~Z: Of course it means that your mother's words might be taken not only as a statement of acceptance but as a warning. [!.aught~

THE NEW JouRNAL

A Yale University Lecture and Discussion Series .------

Sunday February 10

Sunday February 17

Upcoming Events:

Work, War, and Democracy John Wilhelm, Yale '67; President, HEREIU (Hotel Employees Restaurant Employees International Union) 7PM Law School Auditorium

Art and Catastrophe Yale Professors David Connell (Music), Toni Dorfman and Jay Winter (History) 7PM Law School Auditorium

Sunday February 24

TN-~,

Political and Moral Implications of Postmodem Thought In the Wake of 9/11 Stanley Fish, Dean of Academic Affairs, Unive~ of lllinoi• ~~-~ Chicago; Response by Yale Professor David Bromwich 7PM Law SChool Auditorium

Monday April 1

The Sacred and the Secular Yale ProfesSQrs Seyal Benhabib (Political Scitnce), Jon '"""'•VII!; (History). and Lamin Sanneh (Divinity Schodl) 7PM Law School Auditorium

Tuesday April 9

f

I I IEsJE l ll A ll li !hJV\/ lE l J

By Blake Wilson

][ I

J

~ ou MAY NOT KNOW IT, but you are living in America's first

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:heme park. The tall Gothic buildings arching over you, the quatrefoil traceries cut into their battlements, the leaded glass and coats of arms-all smoke and mirrors. Look around Branford's Great Courryard, and what do you see? A four-man touch f~otball game on the lawn; a couple of naked beeches; an old elm letting her smaller branches hang down like hair. And Oxford, or maybe Cambridge, in the background. Five stone towers rise above you, right out of a storybook.

But come a little higher, and look again. That beautiful English slate roof isn't made of slate at all-bloody nicks in the shingles reveal red day hiding beneath the gray-green stain. W'rexham â&#x20AC;˘of the quad, looks a little out of place: Its Tower, on the

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sryle and scale don't quite match. This makes sense, though, because the architect, James Gamble Rogers, plucked the design out of a tiny photograph of St. Giles Church in Wales, which just happens to look out over the graveyard where Elihu Yale is buried. In Branford's tower, a water tank used to be hidden where the bells were hung in the Welsh original. Now the facade conceals ventilation systems; from above you can see the steel vents spinning.

Rogers does not rank as an important enough architect to have had a book written about him, or even an entry in a standard encyclopedia of American architecture. He knew Frank Uoyd Wright and Louis Sullivan, and he apprenticed at one of the firms that first raised modern skyscrapers over Chicago. But Rogers found success as a sentimental architect, working fluently and happily in old vernaculars, dressing up practical plans and modern building tech~iques in Georgian or Gothic skins. His work at Yale has a timeless qualiry in part because the buildings are not really written in the architectural language of any one period: Renaissance flourish sneaks into the medieval doorways and arches at almost every turn in Branford, and a subtle fusion of sryles is visible in the seven other colleges he built as well. Rogers was more concerned with his buildings' impact than any ideology. Besides, a foreign element can.sometimes make a thing look more like itself; it can bring out the full flavor, like salt on food.

Now ook around Yale and point to the churches. From Harkness, you can see the three on the Green, as well as the steeple of St. Mary's, and you might catch Battell Chapel wedged into the corner of Old Campus, peeking out like an afterthought between Farnham and Durfee. And there's Dwight Hall, where occasional services and weddings

\-f~~\;;;;;;;ii~Jt----...---"""!~n~iiiii-J~~Jlt:=;~~5~ _....._..

are still held. It was Yale's first Gothic building, but despite its pinnacles and vaulting chapel hall, it was not built for worship--it was the library. Up Science Hill and out of -A~-----~.__-----~ sight, the Divinity School marks one far end ofYale's cam-----......,~-.-.,;.~---.:.-----if-S---c:'::'"""------- pus; Christ Church¡ and St. Thomas More flirt with its ----P~---------------1-1--~-----v>'estern frontier. And while the center campus is curious-

-

THE NEW JoURNAL

ly empty of churches for an old Puritan college, Yale looks like a Christian town from above. We have two great cathedrals: the library and the gym. Steeples rise above the dining halls and stained glass glints everywhere.

But there is a danger in the Hollywood Gothic, specifically in the religious symbolism appliqued to the architecture that frames our college life. Yale should, at the very least, teach us the difference between the authentic and the winking knock-off, and nor all of its buildings do. We are taught by Rogers to value above all the picturesque, ro be aesthetes rather than historians or churchgoers. Bur all of this architecture originally meant¡something to the medieval Christians who invented it. Every statue and bit of colored glass told a story; every arch supported weight and every tracery was cut to let in light. What makes these features resonate so deeply remains a mystery, but the power that they have is real. A cross, blue and silver, the octagonal shape of a baptistery, and the sound of an echo in a sacred place--they all pull at us in a way that we cannot completely qualify. It is an imprecise science, and even pure Venetian Gothic had to borrow many of its decorative conceits and structural principles from other traditions to have its effect. But while the best strains of religious architecture may be hybrids, at least their motive and object is pure: worship.

This tradition, in its glory and its folly, is obscured by Rogers.

And it is not only in our century that this vocabulary has been twisted or used too liberally. New Haven's colonial churches are flatceilinged and unornamented because Protestants believed that statuary had ceased to teach and begun to be worshipped; for many, the cathedrals had become more attractive than the God. Perhaps the severe values of Old Yale are best discarded. But we still shouldn't be perfectly at ease in the calcified campus handed down to us, or allow the faux-Papist splendor to blind us so that we cannot even tell which building was originally used for worship.

Too high up on Harkness Tower to make out from the street, James Gamble Rogers left statues of Euclid, Aristotle, and Homer to watch quietly over the campus. This was Rogers at his sentimental best, and it is a gesture that we can respect for its integrity and its symbolism. He was a good architect and a devoted son of Eli, but he erred in much of what he built. He lacked a respect for history and for the sacred-a respect that we should all fear to lose. This University was not built so that we can script cabaret revues of the classics, nor should it be itself the stage for such a show. At its best, its architecture is sublime. At its worst, it is a truth twisted grotesquely for our convenience, or for a picture-perfect view. We owe it to ourselves to learn the difference. laJ

Blake Wilson, a senior in Branford College, is associate editor for TNJ.

FEBRUARY 2002

37

U

I

It is a sin to think words no others think and to put them down upon a paper no others are to see." By invoking the words of Equality 7-2521, the hero of Ayn Rand's Anthem, I hope to channel her energy, to feel the firm ground of rational egoism beneath my feet. My newfound belief in the guiding light¡ of self-interest will not last long, though. At the Objectivist Study Group at Yale (OSGAY) I might fin~ friends, but few Objectivist supporters.

And all too soon, I myself will be deprogrammed.

The OSGAY meeting was small the night of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, the night my brief affair with objectivism bloomed and faded. Just seven of us sitting around a seminar table, chatting before the me~ting officially began. "You want to run around putting up weird posters about Martin Luther King after this?" Lukas Halim asked the group.

Little enthusiasm in response.

The gathering slipped easily from casual banter to informal debate. At issue this week was the meaning of objectivity. Irina Manta, OSGAY's president, presented Ayn Rand's position: that truly objective reasoning demands the rational integration of all available knowledge about an object or situation. Based on the total information you have, you can reason objectively and determine that something is true, but you can still be wrong if you have any misinformation. "Object to that," she challenged, and we were off: nearly two hours of impenetrable talk about "stolen concepts" and "secret selves." Rand's ideas started the discussion, as they do each week, but soon everything became debatable, from the value of human life to the comparative merits of "dialogue" {which is "a wuss word," according to Lukas) and "dialectic" (clearly a more robust term). The quips and rebuttals came fast; if my mind wandered for even a few seconds, I nearly lost track of the argument.

Ostensibly, we were making progress on the issue, but it was hard to tell.

My rapid disillusionment with Objectivism was not a rare reaction. "A lot of people come to the Objectivist Study Group and stop being Objectivists," explained former follower David Barnes. "When you actually sit down and analyze Rand's writing ... you realize that a lot of her assumptions about human nature don't work out." Most Yale Objectivists alter their outlook quickly. When new students come to OSGAY, the non-Objectivist majorT IS A SIN TO WRITE THIS.

icy illuminates the shortcomings of Rand's philosophy. "We try to deprogram Randians and half of them find the truth; the others just wander," explained Daniel Kornfield at the meeting. Lukas disagreed. "We engage in a dialectic, and they deprogram themselves."

Some newly disillusioned objectivists align themselves with other conservative ideologies. Others find guidance in the absolutism of organized religion-when rigid rationalism fails, they fall back on faith. osGAY meetings are a chance to debate abstract ideas with friends from the Party of the Right-libertarians, anarcho-capitalists, conservative Christians. Notably absent at OSGAY, however, are Conservative Party members, who frequent the rival Ayn Rand Society. That was founded in 2000 as a non-YPU . . . . . . . . . . . .~ ¡ organization, but quickly came to be dominated by Yale Conservative Party members. Nearly absent at OSGAY, as well, are orthodox Objectivists. All but Irina are nonbelievers.

"Ifyou believe that you've found the system that is true," Irina told me, "that's going to be more important than agreeing with people all the time." When Rand comes under attack in OSGAY, Irina explicates, rebuts, and defends. Her convictions run deep, but she takes nothing on faith. Irina discovered Rand's books at home in Swinerland. Her father became an Objectivist when she was ten. "We fled communist Romania. My parents had been indoctrinated [by the Party] their whole lives, but they knew something was wrong." For Irina and her father, Rand's philosophy gave structure to the anti-collectivist sentiments they had always shared. "It really made sense. It already corresponded to things I had believed all along." Objectivism organizes Irina's life to some extent-she goes to the occasional conservative protest, and participated in the December "Walk for Capitalism" in New York-but on the whole, her ideology is private. It's not a religion, but a philosophy that runs as deep. On occasion she feels the isolation of her belie&. "Sometimes there is this loneliness that can come into it," she admitted. "There's obviously few of us. It's kind of sad."

Heading home after the meeting, I thought about Irina's sadness, and that of her entire group. T hey were a lonely, motley band of rugged individualists, h uddled like survivors on a deserted island of conservatism in the sea of liberal ideologies that is Yale.

Would their measured debates eventually succeed in bringing more eager minds into the fold? Objectively speaking, I doubt it.

Nadia Sussman, a junior in Berkeley College, is on the staffofTNI.

FEBRUARY I I

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FEBRUARY 21

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24

Paul Steiger Managing Editor of the Wall Street ]ourtUtl Berkeley Master's Tea

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