The Setting
• The sample population consisted of members and leaders of Christian student organizations at St. Olaf College, participant observation being carried out primarily in two groups: meetings of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and meetings of the Progressive Christian Fellowship, groups chosen because they fall on different ends of the sociopolitical religious spectrum.
The Problem
• This research investigates how St. Olaf students who identify themselves as Christians perceive their religious values in relationship to a variety of social behaviors, and focuses on the universality of Christian symbols and the effect of their various interpretations on the imagined community of Christianity.
Methodology
• This research uses in depth interviews with individual students and aprticipant oberservation to understand the differences in discourse amongst individuals and groups within the broader Christian community.
Findings
• Despite acknowldeged differences in interpreting Christian values, most Christians operate with the presupposition of unity within the Christian community.
• This presupposed community is holds certain symbols as being of central value: the Bible, the idea of sacrifice. Sacrifice as a symobl broke down into the ideas of service, fincancial giving, and love.
• Love functioned as a multifaceted symbol, and was talked about predominantly as Love for God or as love for others. While there are elements of both displayed in all groups and interviews, those who value love for God tend to have a spiritual life that is focused on person actions like prayer, while those who talk more about lvoe for others often value acts of service or the cause of social justice to be central to their spiritual life.
Summary and Conclusions
• Because Christians from various backgrounds and apporaches to their spiritual lives displayed many of the same central values, this research finds that the differences displayed between groups of Christian students is more an example of a looking glass self phenomenon than a fundamental difference of beliefs, and that love is a central and universal symbol in discussing Christian values for Christian St. Olaf Students.
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