Spirituality without physicality: toll of COVID-19 on religious groups

With many religious institutions continuing exclusively in a virtual format, faithful students and staff elaborate on their experience coping during the pandemic. Photo courtesy of Jen Ruby.

Chapman University’s Fish Interfaith Center has yet to open its door for students to congregate in person, compelling staff to take individual, creative approaches on educating and providing a safe space for students. Despite varying in their religious backgrounds, the staff agree on one thing: the sustained importance of community-based faith, even in a remote setting. 

“I almost feel like it’s asking too much of our students to tune in one more time,” said Rabbi Corie Yutkin, director of Jewish Life. “There’s Zoom fatigue and students are just tired of looking at a screen … But, even if our attendance isn’t super high (for virtual events), it’s just about creating a sacred space for students to connect.”

Yutkin and Chaplain Shaykh Jibreel Speight, director of Muslim Life, both acknowledged the increasing sense of apathy among students in regards to attending extracurricular activities outside of their daily course load. For Speight, promoting the Muslim faith isn’t just a problem of apathy, but ignorance in the midst of racial and political tension toward the Middle East and the burden of combatting stereotypes.

“The reality is that having or being a representative of a religion that is viewed as alien, foreign and lately violent – that in and by itself is a challenge,” Speight said. “Especially since the university is, in many aspects, still very conservative as far as thinking goes, and it’s right in the heart of Orange County … It’s asked of me to represent Islam and to represent the Muslim faith in an environment where students and faculty might not have heard of it.”

Rather than being deterred, Speight continues to host weekly Quran commentary and introductory courses open to the general student body. Yutkin also facilitates Jewish-related Zoom social events Wednesday through Friday, such as “Torah and Tech,” “Caffeine and Quarantine” and “Shabbat Shmooze.” Catholic mass will take place virtually every Wednesday afternoon, and in addition to evening worship, Bible study will occur every Thursday and a prayer gathering will be held every Friday.

Although local synagogues still remain closed, select churches and mosques are starting to reopen locally with occupation restrictions and social distancing protocol, Speight and Yutkin confirmed. Fish Interfaith Center staff also will be meeting later this week to discuss potentially reopening the on-campus building.

Speight elaborated that being able to gather in a physical space again is critical from an Islamic standpoint in “the uplifting of someone’s psyche.”

“The mosque itself is a very essential piece of a Muslim’s life,” Speight said. “You may not be able to go pray all five prayers there, but praying at least one prayer there, having a sense of community, having a congressional prayer (and) catching up with people … those things are really taken for granted.”

Reverend Nancy Brink, director of Church Relations, further elaborated on the significance of a physical worship space in Christianity. She said there’s a shared impact felt among worshippers who can no longer sing together. Instead of the full choir being able to participate, Brink explained that due to internet lag, students are encouraged mute themselves and follow along with one primary singer.

Similarly, Yutkin also expressed lament at not being able to break bread in person with students, a Jewish blessing often performed before the start of a meal. The symbolic gesture is only one of many limitations that Jewish followers had to adapt to – with Sept. 27 to Sept. 28 marking Yom Kippur. During the Day of Atonement, synagogue holiday services took place in a completely virtual format. Yutkin said online services come as a trial for rabbis and clergy members alike, who oftentimes rely on the energy of an in-person audience to know how to lead their congregation.

However, senior integrated educational studies major and Campus Crusade for Christ (Cru) president Ally Zolner believes that positives can be taken from the remote environment’s circumstances. Zolner pointed to the ability for students in religious organizations to connect with people they otherwise wouldn’t have normally by utilizing Zoom breakout rooms. This, in turn, allows freshmen to still connect with upperclassmen in the organization, despite being denied their first-year, on-campus experience.

“I was supposed to go on a summer-long mission trip which got cancelled,” Zolner told The Panther, opening up on her plans pre-quarantine. “I was confused why God would have called me to do that mission trip if it wasn’t going to happen … (But), it actually pushed me to dive deeper into my faith because I had more time.”

Fueling her sense of spirituality through deep immersion in literature like the Bible and other Christian works, Zolner emphasized that this time can be used to expand one’s individual faith rather than collective faith.

As students and staff both attempt to grapple with the new social normal, motifs of spirituality and solidarity are apparent in the Fish Interfaith Center’s efforts, regardless of religious focus. However students engage with their faith at this time, virtual events will continue to be held weekly to create religious community spaces.

“(Fish Interfaith Center staff) are accessible all the time, and people need to know that they are not alone,” Yutkin said. “There is support that is there and available for them.”