However, others point out that to study religion fully, a student must take into account such other areas as history, society and government that have both influenced and been influenced by religion. Having faculty proficient in other related fields, some feel, actually gives the concentration a needed breadth.

"Religion can't be isolated from the rest of the culture," says Diana L. Eck, professor of comparative religion and Indian studies and chair of the Committee. "People who put together a major in religion will have to study a wide range of intellectual fields."

"The Commitee on the Study of Religion, while not a department, functions in every way as an interdisciplinary department, with both an undergraduate concentration and a doctoral program of 140 doctoral students," Eck adds.

Religion concentrator Rachel L. Burger '92, like many students in the field, has a dual concentration--in her case, religion and women's studies, a combination that would probably astonish Harvard's Puritan founders.

My attempts to write papers about monasticism have been very encouraging--maybe because no one writes about nuns," says Burger, who spent a semester last year living in a Benedictine convent in France.

Once, Harvard was dedicated to producing learned Protestant ministers. However, today Buffey Professor of Historical Theology Margaret R. Miles says that even at the Divinity School, the study of religion is as much about values and issues as it is about rules and creeds.

"I think people here learn to respect religion because they're around people of so many different religions," she says. "Some become more religious but also in a more sophisticated and examined way."

Religion and Real Life

However, these relatively new freedoms in religion at Harvard have not come without price. Spirituality here is sometimes attacked, according to some students.

"People tend to be real scoffing and cynical about the idea of spirituality here," says Mary T. Teichert '93, president of the Catholic Students Association. "They tend to dismiss spirituality as being a substitute for real thinking."

She says that she has sometimes been treated in a patronizing manner because of her religion. "People tend to think that because I am Catholic I buy hook, line and sinker everything the Pope ever said," says Teichert.

Karl E. Wirth '93, a member of Harvard-Radcliffe Christian Fellowship, says that God is often ignored in the classroom. "A lot of the time in classes it seems as though God is outdated. In reality a lot of people are thinking about and struggling with [faith]," he says.

Both students say that they look for supportfrom their religious communities. "A vital aspectof being Christian is being with otherpeople--reading the Bible, praying with otherpeople," says Wirth. "I've definitely learned alot and become closer to God since I got here."

Despite the University's official religiousneutrality, it has made a number of attempts inrecent years to recognize the role that religionplays in the lives of some students. For example,chaplains are now an official part of the "crisisreference network" that the University makes useof.

Such interdenominational organizations as theUnited Ministry attempt to treat various religionswith sensitivity and to better relations betweenthe different faiths.

However, Barnes points out that the growingnotice of religion at Harvard is not without itsdifficulties. "A long-range issue must be somehowresolved--the issue of the Christian founding ofthe University and the rapidly increasingdiversity of religious expression," he says.