The Bun-Fight Revival

It was enough to make old-style intellectuals blink. Of all people, the majority of Oxford undergraduates (51% of the men and 62% of the women) are going to church regularly, praying and thinking about God. Not only that, according to a survey by Cherwell, an undergraduate magazine, but 29% of the men and 45% of the women in the university say that their faith had been strengthened while they were at Oxford. "It does seem," editorialized Cherwell, "that there has been a religious revival."

So it does. Each Sunday the services at St. Ebbe's, St. Aldate's, St. Mary Magdalene, Pusey House and the Wesley Memorial Church are packed with young Oxonians. Sunday evening sermons at St. Mary the Virgin, the university church, are drawing record crowds, and 200-300 mimeographed copies of a sermon are likely to be snatched up within a few hours of delivery. About one student in six is estimated to be a member of one of the denominational societies, and about 80 undergraduates are being confirmed at the university each year. Says the Rev. Roy Stuart Lee, vicar of St. Mary the Virgin: "The best minds are turning most seriously to religion."

The faculty has joined in the new mood --notably the scientists. "Religion used to be disreputable--a slur on the intellect," says History Don Harry Pitt, fellow of Worcester College. "We now feel that the brain need not be pulpy to embrace religion."

For all the facts and figures. Oxonians were arguing last week--among the believers themselves--as to whether a real revival was going on. Said third-year student Tony Jaffe: "Religion is just the fashionable thing nowadays, keeping up with the Joneses. The churches are becoming sociable meeting places. Anyone who pretends to be anyone just has to go. There is more interest in the humor of the preacher than in the purpose of the congregation. Perhaps it's a release from neurosis as well. The pace of Oxford life is killing."

Some feel this reticence about admitting a resurgence of religion results from understandable self-consciousness about Oxford's identification with past movements, i.e., the Oxford Movement (Keble, Newman, Pusey), the Frank Buchman "Oxford Group"--Moral Re-Armament, the pacifism of the '30s. Whatever the reticence, churchgoing is at a new high level. "It's quite a relief," said one staunch Anglican last week. "Let them have all the bun fights they want. At least, nobody any longer believes that religion is the haven of anti-intellectual obscurantism."

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