According to The Tuscaloosa News, there are more than 500 churches in Tuscaloosa County. Churches in Alabama are like Starbucks in New York City–you can’t stand on a street corner without seeing at least three of them.
However, there’s no question that the way people view religion and God is changing. According to the American Religious Identification Survey, which surveyed 54,000 American adults in 2008, 15% of Americans now identify themselves as non-religious. That’s up from 8% in 1990, and it actually eclipses every religious group in the U.S. except Catholics and Baptists.
The world is growing increasingly secular, and for many young adults, their first true interaction with “the world,” unfettered by parental oversight, is the day they step foot on a college campus.
College is a period that will shape the worldviews of many students as they enter adulthood. For some, it is a time of religious discovery and growth. For others, it brings a realization that religion and spirituality are not an important or necessary part of their lives.
At a school as large as the University of Alabama, with an increasingly diverse student body, it’s important to recognize and respect the entire religious spectrum, from the faithful to the faithless. We have tried to bring you the stories and images that reach across this spectrum, from the frenetic spiritual energy of an Unashamed meeting, to the simple battle for name recognition in the Bahai Faith, to the story behind the creation of the University’s first group for atheists and agnostics.
As a staff, we are extremely grateful to these individuals who allowed us a window into this very intimate aspect of their lives. We hope that their stories will help you, the reader, to understand backgrounds and perspectives that are different from your own.
Hopefully these stories can help all of us to apply the American ideals of equality and understanding in our daily lives and make the University of Alabama a more accepting place for people of every religious denomination and for those who choose not to practice religion.
Please e-mail your thoughts on this topic to changethetide@gmail.com or comment right here on the blog. It should be an exciting two weeks for Changing Tides!
