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Yasmin Kahan-Groves is out on Low Steps with some friends. This would be ordinary on any other spring afternoon, but today it’s a chilly 42 degrees, and they’re the only ones braving the cold.

The Columbia College sophomore is coordinating Recharge on the Steps, a two-day event during which Christians at Columbia gather in front of Low Library. They play music and distribute candy to get people excited for Easter Sunday. The playlist includes secular artists like Marvin Gaye, Gnarls Barkley, and The Beatles, as well as contemporary Christian musicians.

The event on the steps, new this year, is Yasmin’s brainchild. She wants to share the meaning of Easter, which she says “is all about the world being one way and then a new sense of life coming into the world.” Yet despite the entreaties, most students who walk past show no interest in the free food.

Two days after Recharge, on Good Friday, Remnant Christian Fellowship erected a white cross in front of Alma Mater from noon to 3 p.m. When Bwog posted a photograph of the event, commenters swarmed. In the comment thread, one student decried the fellowship for presuming it was “on everyone’s mind that it’s Good Friday.” Others had harsh words for the Christian faith itself: “isn’t Jesus just a tiny bit presumptuous to go dying for my sins, when I wasn’t even to be born for another two thousand years?”

Because we rarely think of Christians as a minority, it’s easy to dismiss these comments as the harmless mutterings of the anonymous masses. But at Columbia, devout Christians are not a large group, and they are often disparaged. In a Contemporary Civilization discussion on Christian writers like Paul or Augustine, the tenor of the discourse is critical, if not openly hostile to the articles of Christian faith. Occasionally, a student will speak up to defend Aquinas’ theology, or to explain his belief in God. But for the most part, Christians remain a silent minority.

Yet for all the classroom badgering and comment-thread abuse, the Christian community, small and silent, maintains a robust faith. Adversity defines the Christian experience at Columbia: To be a Christian here is to question one’s faith and to be questioned about it. For Yasmin, and for the three other students profiled in this article, that questioning cuts to the core of their beliefs. But it also strengthens them.

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A few days before Holy Week, about 100 students gather together to worship at St. Paul’s. The students give the century-old chapel—modeled after the churches of the Italian Renaissance—a distinctly 21st-century feel. A band plays contemporary Christian music for the praise portion of the event and speakers touch on a variety of topics that might appeal to the modern Christian—social justice, interfaith dialogue, environmentalism.

One of the attendees is Sy Hoekstra, a junior in Columbia College and a member of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. To keep it simple, Sy will tell you he is from New Jersey. Though he lived for the longest time there, he was born in North Dakota and went to high school in Switzerland. Sy attended an international school, one of only two English-speaking schools in Zurich. He wanted to come back to the U.S. for college, and chose Columbia for the academics—religion did not play a role in his decision.

When asked about his faith, he responds deliberately, in a sure, attentive baritone. Although Sy comes from a Christian family, he says he didn’t care much about religion in his early years: “I was very much what I would call a nominal Christian. Just sort of culturally I went to church, I went to youth group.” It was during time in Europe that Sy found God.

“At some point in 10th grade I started realizing that ... I said I believed in God and I said I believed in Jesus’ resurrection and all these other things—but I didn’t do anything about them.” So Sy took an IB introductory philosophy course and started reading some Christian books—by C. S. Lewis, Charles Colson, and others—that his father had given him. He joined a service project to help impoverished Eastern Europeans. But he felt the other participants were, like him, Christian in name only.

So he did something radical: He decided to try being Christian for a week. He acknowledges now that “it was a naïve way to go about it,” but by the end of the week, on April 10, 2005—he remembers the date—he got down on his knees to pray. On that day, Sy says, he became a Christian. He was born again.

He continued to develop his faith throughout high school, but, he insists, the process was not easy. Sy particularly struggled to accept the doctrine of hell. How could a loving God, he asked, condemn his creation to eternal suffering? It’s a question with which Sy still grapples. He admits it “doesn’t make any sense” to him, but believes that “ultimately, God has a bigger perspective.”

Theological puzzles—like the existence of hell—have profoundly shaped Sy’s faith. He places a premium on the intellectual rigor of his beliefs. That’s one reason he’s the chair of the Veritas Forum at Columbia, a thoroughgoing, nationally sponsored student group that holds three weekly “study breaks” where members come together to discuss or debate religion. Group leaders center each conversation on a question, which can run from the mundane (What did you do this week?) to the profound (Does God exist?).

Monday nights, you’ll find Sy in the lounge of 2A Hartley. Tonight he has his walking cane, though in most rooms he’s familiar with—like the nave at St. Paul’s—he doesn’t need it. Were the campus less congested, he says, he would be able to get around without the cane. Sy is blind in one eye. He sees poorly out of the other.

The question at tonight’s discussion: What’s in a name? His surname, “Hoekstra,” isn’t thrilling: Dutch for “those living at the corner of the street.”

While Veritas is a Christian organization, all undergraduates are encouraged to attend. In fact, only three of the roughly 10 regulars at Monday night’s group are Christian. The purpose of these forums is to debate philosophical and practical issues and a point is made that the conversation remain cordial. But those who are not Christian are still outspoken. “They’re not afraid to challenge what I think,” Sy says. “And I actually like that.”

These group discussions, he says, allow him to explore his beliefs both spiritually and intellectually. Columbia’s academics too have provided him a chance to contemplate his faith. In Contemporary Civilization, he was introduced to a range of interpretations of Christianity. When his peers objected to articles of Christian faith, Sy was forced to analyze and sharpen his own beliefs.

“It kind of revitalizes what you do and what you believe when you’re a minority because you’re sort of forced to be smarter with your faith,” he says. “You’re going to have to answer them at least enough to satisfy yourself.”

Two summers ago, Sy worked for a fellowship that rehabilitates prisoners and ex-convicts. Last year, he spent the summer at the New York City Urban Project, which advocates for the city’s homeless and poor.

He enjoyed that work, but like most Columbians, he is still not sure what he’ll do after graduation. “Sometimes I want to go to seminary, sometimes I want to do grad student work in history, sometimes I want to do Teach for America. I have lots of different options and I’m kind of just waiting for God to tell me where to go.”

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The song begins with a rattling, then a humming, soon recognizable as a saxophone. The sax plays over some tribal music from an old record. It meanders into dissonance, and abruptly stops. A classical melody rises and the song swings back and forth, between snippets of vernacular and classical music.

Jerome Ellis, a sophomore in CC, composed this patchwork of Renaissance hymns, Southern gospel, and South American worship music. He calls it “Hymnal.” Earlier this year, he performed the piece at an art auction in Atlanta. He’ll play it again later this April at Earl Hall and it’s scheduled to hit the airwaves in the near future on WKCR.

“Hymnal” is inspired from a book of Baptist hymns Jerome’s mother gave to him, though the song does not include any hymns. “The piece,” Jerome says, “is really about how people use sound to worship—to go higher in a sense.” It incorporates two distinct ways of worshipping through song: percussive, ritual chants of South America, and somber, prayerful classical music of the Renaissance. The careful weaving of these musical strands speaks to the power of music to inspire faith, and Jerome hopes that his composition is “an act of love, to give this gift to whoever’s listening.”

Jerome came to Columbia, in part, because he has family in the city—his grandfather runs the Faith Redeeming Church of God in Brooklyn. When he was young, religion was something Jerome practiced “by default,” but by the end of high school he began to take his faith more seriously. Now that he’s in New York, he has the chance to attend services at Faith Redeeming. “It’s really amazing,” he says, to hear his grandfather “deliver the Word ... with the same fervor he’s been doing for 60 years.” On Sundays, after church, Jerome joins his family for dinner at his grandparents’.

During the week, though, he faces a campus that’s not always friendly to his faith. He senses an antagonism here, but thinks that it is symptomatic of Columbians’ general cynicism, that “the campus is hostile towards everything.” But he also takes issue with the way many Christians treat others. “I think Christians often go about interacting with people in the wrong way,” he says. “Often they’ll be openly judgmental towards people who aren’t Christians.” And while a few Christians’ actions don’t necessarily give the whole religion a bad name, Jerome thinks they do affect outsiders’ perception.

At Columbia, then, Jerome is cautious not to alienate his peers. In Contemporary Civilization, for example, he has been exposed to the Christian writings, but also to rancor from his classmates. He’s found much value in writers like Kant, who discuss Scripture outside the context of religion. However, he chooses to distance himself from taking a theist stance when talking about Christian authors. “I would defend, or try to defend, what they were trying to say but I wouldn’t make it personal,” he says. “I don’t see it as a matter of hiding it, but I don’t think in those discussions it’s always necessary to bring yourself into it.”

That sort of expression is something Jerome saves for his music. “I think the most important part of my faith would be pouring God’s love on everybody,” he says. “I really believe in Jesus’ two commandments about loving God with all your heart and soul and mind and your neighbor—I thinks that’s the most important thing—and I’d begun to see music like that.”

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At St. Paul’s, Yasmin sways in the aisles to the house band. She dances to Stevie Wonder on Low Steps. On a campus so often filled with discontent, her warmth is striking.

A few days after Recharge, curled in Lerner Hall’s piano lounge, she waves several times mid-sentence to half a dozen passers-by. Her gentle smile puts you at ease, a reflection of her faith. “One of the things that Jesus talks about in the Gospel,” she says, “is that your faith should show up in the way that you act.” It’s about the life you live, not the dogma you follow. Though she accepts the tenets of Christianity, Yasmin shuns the term “religious, ” which she says only suggests the “structure of things”—the laws to obey and rituals to follow. She prefers the word “spiritual,” which is not quite so fraught with connotation.

Raised in Virginia Beach, where she attended Princess Anne High School with Jerome Ellis, Yasmin comes from a family that, for most for her life, took a casual approach to religion. Her mother is a Lutheran, but was never “deeply spiritual.” It was her father who formed the backbone of her faith. She says she “found his wisdom drew me in to ask more questions about what God’s character was like.”

Then, on her first day of high school, Yasmin’s father died. Her mother now had to manage a family of seven alone and going to church was one of the things that fell by the wayside. It was only during her junior year, when a friend invited her to his church, that she began to take her faith more seriously.

Today Yasmin is helping her mother reconnect with Christ. Some days, her mom will excitedly call Yasmin to talk about a Bible passage that has inspired her. Her mother’s experience, she says, is “just evidence of how powerful God can be.”
At Columbia, she seeks outlets to share that powerful message. She leads a first-year women’s Bible study that looks not only to study scripture, but also to apply it to everyday life. Sometimes she will invite her friends to InterVarsity events, reminding them God is open to their prayers. “My faith in God is very important to me and God has definitely touched parts of my life and healed things,” she says. “I think it’s worth offering that to people if they’re wanting to hear it.”

Her group of friends is an even mix of Christians and non-Christians, which she believes is essential to a person of faith: “I don’t think there’s a real value to being Christian if you only surround yourself with Christians.” Sometimes, her peers will dispute points of faith, but their conversations don’t get confrontational. People’s anger, she says, arises from an inability to believe “that a God could be good when the world is so clearly broken.” Yasmin understands that mentality, but remains confident in her faith.

She brings that confidence to the classroom, where she doesn’t hesitate to discuss her beliefs. Her perspective is most valuable when the class has few people of faith, often the case at Columbia. In that environment, Yasmin’s task is to explain loaded terms like “faith” and “grace” to an audience unfamiliar with them. There are often language barriers, she says, between Christians and the outside world, which can lead to misunderstanding and distrust. Learning to break the barriers down buttresses her own faith.

The divide is not always easy to bridge, but Yasmin—with her charm, and her patient awareness that acceptance takes time—strives to close it.

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On the balmy Saturday after Easter, Columbia revels in Bacchanal, an annual celebration for undergraduates inspired by Bacchus, the Roman god of wine. And while most Columbians heed Bacchus’ advice and have nights of drunken revelry, 20 or so dedicated Catholics gather for a Benediction service at the Church of Notre Dame. The church is a hidden jewel of Morningside Heights, laden in marble, save for the space behind the altar, where a grotto-like rock wall bears a statue of Mary.

It’s the eve of Divine Mercy Sunday. For more than three hours the congregants sing psalms and ancient Latin verse—no contemporary music here—and worship a consecrated host, what Catholics believe to be the body of Christ. Most of the worshippers sit in the first few rows of pews next to the altar; some of the more steadfast kneel on wooden kneelers.
Lauren Ely, a junior at Barnard, sits on the ground with about seven others, leading the group in song. As she prays, her face is somber, but after the vigil, it softens into a shy smile.

She was raised Catholic, her mother’s religion, although her father is Baptist. Growing up, almost all of her friends were Christian because she went to a Catholic high school, so part of the adjustment to college was meeting people from different backgrounds. She thinks the transition has been valuable for her because “the real world is that way and you can’t stay in a little Catholic bubble.”

But that doesn’t mean she has abandoned her faith. Next year, she will be president of the Columbia Catholic Undergrads, a group that ministers to the Catholic faithful at the University. CCU coordinates Bible studies, weekly prayer groups, and most importantly, Mass for Columbia’s Catholics. With 15 to 20 members attending events (not including Mass), CCU has a more intimate feel than a group like InterVarsity. According to Lauren, the organization’s size gives members a better chance to develop “one-on-one, personal relationships.”

Kinship like this helps students manage the daily grind of college life and the challenges it presents for a student of faith. Lauren remarks that here, there are no hovering parents reminding her to go to Mass. The girls she lives with, most of whom aren’t Catholic, often do not see eye-to-eye with the Catholic Church, and philosophical disagreements do arise.

She says, though, that discussions are always civil. And she sees the challenges to her beliefs as a fortifying test of faith.
In responding to questions or criticisms about Catholicism, she strives not to evangelize, but to better understand her own creed. If, she offers by way of example, a friend “has a really strong opinion on abortion and says ‘Why does the Church teach this?’ I want to be able, for myself, to give a good answer ... not because I need to defend myself to them, but just for myself to be able to say ‘This is what I believe.’”

Some call church orthodoxy restrictive, but for Lauren, it’s just the opposite: “From Christ comes this radical freedom, and so the truth is that you’re free.”

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Halfway through the vigil some of the worshipers go down into the basement of the church for coffee and snacks. One of the parish’s fathers explains how in the ’80s the diocese of New York chose Notre Dame to minister to Columbia’s Catholics. Other universities house priests on campus, but Columbia doesn’t have the space to accommodate clergymen. It’s only two blocks from the corner of campus to Notre Dame, but the walk feels farther.

Christians at Columbia are often isolated, often misunderstood. Most students don’t realize that Christians here make a conscious choice to follow Christ, that students like Lauren find a remarkable freedom in religion. Their faith grows in the face of tremendous skepticism, as they rigorously examine it, and explain why they believe what they do.

Faith begins with what Lauren calls an “initial kernel” of inspiration. But beyond that, you just have to believe.

Perhaps Sy says it best: “You can’t really know anything with 100 percent certainty because in order to do that you would have to know everything there is to know. You would essentially have to be God himself.”