I was pleased to be invited to write an article for Sofia, but rather daunted when I sat down and looked at my brief. As editor of the Student Christian Movement’s magazine movement, I’ve been asked to talk about not just SCM and the magazine, but more broadly about modern students’ attitudes to religious belief.
In an increasingly diverse and pluralist society, one could probably find as many answers to this question as there are students – but I’ll try to give the best overview I can from my experiences working for SCM over the past five years.
I imagine many readers of Sofia, coming from or remaining within a liberal Christian tradition, may be familiar with SCM from their own student days. I’m continually surprised and delighted by the number of people I meet in the Christian world (and the world of radical politics!) who are eager to share their warm memories of being part of the movement. But for the benefit of those who may be less familiar with the movement, I’ll start by briefly sketching the historical background against which SCM operates today.
A Divided History SCM was founded in the late nineteenth century as a missionary society for higher education students. Initially drawing its membership mainly from the evangelical wing of the Anglican church, it soon developed a more open and ecumenical character, and its focus shifted from overseas mission so that it became more of a fellowship for students in this country. As one of the oldest student organisations in the UK, it played a role in founding the National Union of Students. It was also a founding member of the World Student Christian Federation (WSCF), a global network of movements sharing similar values and vision. SCM and WSCF together were instrumental in setting up the 1910 conference in Edinburgh which gave birth to the World Council of Churches and the modern ecumenical movement.
At the same time, SCM conferences and events were reflecting a growing interest in liberal approaches, such as the higher criticism of the Bible. This caused tension with some of the more conservative and evangelical groups within the movement. SCM leadership also became concerned that some of these same conservative factions were not as democratic as the movement would want them to be. All of this eventually came to a head when the local group in Cambridge ‘seceded’ from the national movement over these disagreements, saying that SCM had ‘apostasised from the truths on which it had been founded’ (David M Thompson, Same Difference? Liberals and Conservatives in the Student Movement, SCM, 1990).
The split set the tone for student Christianity for much of the rest of the century. The Cambridge Inter-Collegiate Christian Union eventually became the starting point for a separate network of Christian societies, nowadays called the Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship (UCCF).
UCCF’s member groups, Christian Unions, are expected to be exclusively evangelical in character, requiring all leaders and speakers to sign up to their statement of doctrine, with the main focus of their work being the evangelisation of non-Christians. SCM, meanwhile, retained its ecumenical and open nature, and emphasised debate and social action in its work. For much of the twentieth century, these differences often caused confrontation and conflict between groups on campus.
SCM was also engaged in confrontation on other fronts.
Members’ emphasis on social justice led them to ‘challenge the powers’ with increasingly direct action. In the sixties and seventies, the movement was openly Marxist, emphasising political activism and famously creating an intentional community near Bristol as its new headquarters.
Meanwhile, however, the national network dwindled.
Christian Unions became the dominant expression of Christianity on university campuses; today, they have more members than any other student society in Britain.
The Modern Campus Context But this history of Christian division is just a small part of the whole picture of religious belief for modern students.
Today’s student community is postmodern, pluralist and diverse. Outside of the minority who are active members of religious groups, students, like young people in general, tend towards an individualistic, detached approach.
Increasing work commitments mean that they often don’t have the time to commit to organised activities – but many wouldn’t have the inclination even if they did have the time. Fewer students than ever before seem to be committed to causes of any kind, whether religious, social or political – and they’re often not interested in having strong opinions about other people’s beliefs either. In 2004, Students and Religion Fewer students than ever before seem to be committed to causes of any kind, says Liam Purcell and asks what religion means to students in Britain today.
Today’s student community is postmodern, pluralist and diverse. writer and student worker Howard Ingham explored responses to Christian Unions’ evangelisation on campus.
He found that most students simply couldn’t care less: ‘Ten years ago, you’d try and hand a copy of a Gospel to someone and they’d likely snarl at you for pushing your beliefs onto them. Now, everyone’s fine with it – if it makes you happy’ (Howard Ingham, ‘The unimportance of being earnest’, www.johnheronproject.com).
Are these the children of Thatcher’s world, only interested in themselves? Are they, as politicians might want us to believe, apathetic and disaffected? I think there’s a third explanation, which has been explored by theologian Gordon Lynch in his book After Religion: Generation X and the Search for Meaning (DLT, 2002). Lynch identifies two characteristic attitudes in young people: a postmodern distrust of metanarratives (the big overarching stories, like organised religions, which try to explain everything); but also a continuing personal search for spiritual meaning – which may be located in friends, community, alternative spiritualities, clubbing, films, pop culture or elsewhere. It’s individualistic but it’s not apathetic and it’s not necessarily selfish. Lynch’s more recent work (featured in the Spring 2006 issue of movement) is exploring how emerging forms of spirituality – from pagan eco-activism to radical Christian communities – can provide a more open framework for this exploration of meaning.
This open-minded approach and respect for the individual is not just characteristic of secular, ‘unaffiliated’ students. It’s increasingly common even amongst those who still choose to affiliate themselves to some kind of religious organisation. Many students today are quite comfortable being part of both a Christian Union and an SCM group, acknowledging that the organisations have different strengths without seeing any need for conflict.
While there are local tensions, the old rivalries are not the defining issue they used to be. And the openness extends beyond faith communities – we at SCM have found that secular campaigning organisations are increasingly happy to work together with faith groups on social justice issues.
In the past, both sides might have been more distrustful of one another, more defensive about their own ideological positions.
The postmodern distrust of institutions means that the students who lead SCM today are instinctively ecumenical, having grown up in a context where the old denominational boundaries are irrelevant. There are hopeful signs that the institutional churches are recognising this too. Last summer, an article in the Methodist Recorder discussed the decline of the Methodist church’s own student ministry, saying that the future lay in an SCM-style ecumenical approach. A Methodist chaplain commented: ‘The vast majority of student societies in HE are postdenominational and have been for a long time. In my experience, the emphasis among Christian students is not based upon denominational adherence as such but upon theological position.’ Beyond simple ecumenism, SCM groups are forming inter-faith links too, exploring their common ground with members of other traditions but also celebrating diversity.
Grounds For Optimism As a movement, SCM has responded to this changing context in all kinds of ways, and has grown to a healthy size again after the losses of the seventies. Our emphasis these days is on the movement’s inclusive and welcoming nature, and the value of the space it provides for openminded debate. We’re making changes to our structure that increase involvement and grassroots decision-making. As students increasingly don’t have the time to run their own formal groups, we’re relating to them more through chaplaincies – which are more and more likely to be ecumenical, or even inter-faith, in nature. At a national level, we’re strengthening links with other faith and interfaith groups. There are promising moves being made towards an inter-faith network for groups working in higher education.
While we may not have the confrontational spirit of the Marxist SCMers of the past, students are still committed to putting their faith into action; we played an active role in the MakePovertyHistory coalition and are currently taking action as part of the Student StopAIDS Campaign. And the magazine I edit, movement, has a remit to expose our members to radical and challenging ideas in theology, politics and culture. It’s the only place where most students can find such an open-minded approach to religious, social and political issues.
In all of this, we’re staying true to an important insight: praxis – what we do together as a community – is ultimately more important than orthodoxy – what we believe. I’ve come across this insight in all kinds of places, from emerging church and alternative worship communities to people working in inter-faith relations. It gives me hope that students and young people will really be able to develop progressive forms of spirituality and religious community that can continue to be relevant in the twentyfirst century.
Liam Purcell is SCM Co-ordinator and editor of movement magazine. movement, SCM’s termly magazine, is available to non-student subscribers.The spring 2006 issue on the theme of ‘post Christianity’ covered many topics that are touched on in this article and may be of interest to Sofia readers. If you’d like to become a Friend, subscribe to movement or just find out more about SCM, please contact: Student Christian Movement, Unit 308F The Big Peg, 120Vyse Street,The Jewellery Quarter, Birmingham B18 6NF.0121 200 3355.