Reaching Out to Religious Communities
Religion Professor Takes Class into West Philly

At the end of the Second World War, the neighborhoods west of campus consisted of middle-class Jewish, Catholic, and mainline Protestant families. Today the synagogues–there were 60–are gone from a largely African-American community. Some of the traditional Christian institutions remain, but residents now worship in growing numbers of Pentecostal churches, mosques, and small storefront chapels.

In the fall about 30 undergraduates met weekly in a salmon-colored seminar room in Civic House to explore the changing religious traditions and communities in West Philadelphia. Weekly discussions were interspersed with frequent visits to places of worship and interviews with congregations and their leaders.

"West Philadelphia is a patchwork of neighborhoods, all of which have a slightly different story," remarks Professor E. Ann Matter, the instructor for Religious Studies 310: Religious Diversity in West Philadelphia. "Most of the communities we visited weren’t there 50 years ago. We went to a Baptist church that used to be a synagogue," and an elderly woman who spoke with the class once attended a Methodist church that is now a mosque. Matter is a medievalist and studies the history of Christianity, what she calls the "footprint" left by the religion in culture. "I’m interested in how religions work and what they mean to people."

Matter developed the course with the help of academic interns funded by the Program in Universities, Communities of Faith, Schools and Neighborhood Organizations (see "Reaching Out Together"). Most of the students, she says, come to the course with strong religious convictions. The frequent visits to diverse faith communities have helped break open clichéd views and stereotypes many hold regarding traditions outside their own. Speaking directly to people in the local community, feeling the authenticity and vitality of their devotion, challenges assumptions in a way large lecture courses do not. "I couldn’t have told them [many of the things they learned]–they would never have believed me–but they saw it for themselves. . . . A course like this gets students into the neighborhoods, and they see things they wouldn’t normally see in the path between the library, the lecture hall, and the dormitory."