2008 Woodie Awards
Challange your Faith
Ethan Moore
Issue date: 1/27/06 Section: Opinion
Anyone who attended the MLK chapel service a week ago Wednesday was lucky enough to hear the remarks made by E.C. Maltbia, the pastor of the True Holiness Saints Center here in Conway.
As I listened to what he had to say, it got me thinking both about my own faith and religious experiences as well of those of most Hendrix students. When I came to Hendrix, I was someone who was raised as an Orthodox Christian and had never attended a regular service at any other non-Orthodox church.
I was also fairly agnostic at the time though, and did not go to church until the second semester of my freshman year, when a friend of mine convinced me to try going to an Episcopalian church, an experience which I highly enjoyed and went several times during the semester as I slowly started to think about my faith more and more.
This past summer when my father unexpectedly passed away, I had many conversations with my Orthodox priest back home about religion, and following that experience I, for the first time in my life, became a deeply religious Orthodox Christian. Upon my return to Hendrix, I began attending the Orthodox church in Little Rock for a while until a car accident limited my transportation.
Since then (and on a few occasions when I did have transportation), I have also attended Methodist and Baptist services, and I plan on attending some Catholic services this next semester until I am able to return to my Orthodox church.
I am no longer agnostic and questioning my faith, and I am not searching for any other religion, I am quite passionate about my own and have a hard time seeing myself converting to another faith; I consider myself an evangelical in some ways.
As I observe Hendrix students, it seems like there are a lot of students who were born and raised in one faith, and are set in their faiths and are highly reluctant to journey out of their comfort zone and experience a new faith, no matter how set in their faith they are; attending another church of a different sect does not have to mean one is looking to convert.
While I am set in my beliefs (and naturally tolerant of others'), I have immensely benefited from attending services outside of my faith and I believe that it is something that everyone can benefit from, seeing the traditions and ways of a faith other than their own.
And as a college located in the Bible Belt, there certainly is no dearth of churches to attend. The Conway Online Web site lists 112 churches (a number likely somewhat inflated by the listings of religious centers that are not churches) in Conway and the surrounding area.
Part of being a good Christian (or any other religion) is the ability to firsthand comprehend the ways and traditions of faiths other than one's own, and using a Sunday to attend a different church is one of the best ways to help achieve this.
As I listened to what he had to say, it got me thinking both about my own faith and religious experiences as well of those of most Hendrix students. When I came to Hendrix, I was someone who was raised as an Orthodox Christian and had never attended a regular service at any other non-Orthodox church.
I was also fairly agnostic at the time though, and did not go to church until the second semester of my freshman year, when a friend of mine convinced me to try going to an Episcopalian church, an experience which I highly enjoyed and went several times during the semester as I slowly started to think about my faith more and more.
This past summer when my father unexpectedly passed away, I had many conversations with my Orthodox priest back home about religion, and following that experience I, for the first time in my life, became a deeply religious Orthodox Christian. Upon my return to Hendrix, I began attending the Orthodox church in Little Rock for a while until a car accident limited my transportation.
Since then (and on a few occasions when I did have transportation), I have also attended Methodist and Baptist services, and I plan on attending some Catholic services this next semester until I am able to return to my Orthodox church.
I am no longer agnostic and questioning my faith, and I am not searching for any other religion, I am quite passionate about my own and have a hard time seeing myself converting to another faith; I consider myself an evangelical in some ways.
As I observe Hendrix students, it seems like there are a lot of students who were born and raised in one faith, and are set in their faiths and are highly reluctant to journey out of their comfort zone and experience a new faith, no matter how set in their faith they are; attending another church of a different sect does not have to mean one is looking to convert.
While I am set in my beliefs (and naturally tolerant of others'), I have immensely benefited from attending services outside of my faith and I believe that it is something that everyone can benefit from, seeing the traditions and ways of a faith other than their own.
And as a college located in the Bible Belt, there certainly is no dearth of churches to attend. The Conway Online Web site lists 112 churches (a number likely somewhat inflated by the listings of religious centers that are not churches) in Conway and the surrounding area.
Part of being a good Christian (or any other religion) is the ability to firsthand comprehend the ways and traditions of faiths other than one's own, and using a Sunday to attend a different church is one of the best ways to help achieve this.