Faith and freethinkers

I loved reading “Keeping the Faith” in the Dec. 17 issue of PAW, describing the varied religious expressions going on at today’s Princeton. It’s a nice contrast to my years at Princeton during the Eisenhower ’50s, when there was compulsory chapel, overt (and widely condoned) racial and religious prejudice, and a monochromatic undergraduate experience.  

I’m glad Princeton now is multichromatic and that it apparently encourages multivariant religious expression.  

Some of my darkest memories of ’50s Princeton were being compelled to troop in to chapel, where at a minimum of twice monthly, we had to listen to sonorous Scottish-inflected sermons assuming as a given that all of us were there to exalt the Presbyterian version of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. I wasn’t then the confirmed secular humanist that I am now, but I certainly didn’t hear anything in chapel that brought me closer to religion.

All in all, Princeton is a much different and better place today than when I went there.  

Congratulations to the various religious coordinators and to President Tilghman for their leadership.