School Spirituality

An architect’s vision for a long-anticipated, $4.5-million interfaith chapel--designed to be home to Catholics and Protestants, Jews and Muslims, Mormons and Wiccans--will be unveiled today at Chapman University.

The 250-seat Wallace All Faiths Chapel on the Orange campus will be absent any permanent religious symbols. Even the center altar, on a hydraulic lift, will disappear into the floor at the flick of a switch.

Religious objects such as crosses, arks and sacred writings will be in individual storage closets at the chapel, allowing various faiths to quickly make over the worship space according to their traditions.

“It’s about time,” said longtime trustee Harmon Wilkinson, whose family has pushed for a campus chapel for more than 40 years. “It’s long overdue that the campus pay attention to this aspect of life.”

The chapel architect is David Martin of Los Angeles, who also designed Chapman’s law school and Camarillo’s Padre Serra Parish Church, which won the American Institute of Architects’ Religious Art and Architecture Design Award.

Martin said that creating a place of worship for an eclectic mix of religions wasn’t especially difficult.

“I’ve been to churches, mosques, synagogues and religious spaces around the world,” Martin said. “There are common elements to spiritual space.”

Throughout the 12,000-square-foot complex, Martin used universal religious themes of light, water and nature.

The chapel will feature dramatic lighting and skylights, an indoor/outdoor fountain, a pool and lily pond, and an outdoor garden landscaped to look like a wooded grove.

“The idea is to take you on a spiritual journey,” said professor Ronald Farmer, the chapel’s dean. “The architecture will create that notion of sacred space.”

Farmer said the chapel’s stylish, modern design fits in well with the newer buildings on the north side of campus. It will be situated across the street from Beckman Hall on property that now serves as a parking lot.

The project has not been without controversy.

In 1998, Chapman officials held a “ground blessing” at the site of the future chapel, but a dispute arose over whether non-Christian religious groups such as Wiccans, who worship God as revealed through nature, should have been allowed to participate, given that the university is affiliated with the Disciples of Christ.

The chapel’s first design, by renowned church architect Fay Jones, was scrapped 18 months ago, Farmer said, after proving to be too inflexible, too small and too costly.

Also, the chapel’s interfaith mission has come under attack by conservative Christians on campus.

“We don’t believe all roads, all religions are viable pathways that lead to God,” said Jeff Szolomayer, pastor of Refuge Christian Fellowship, a 50-member campus organization that will not worship in the chapel. “I don’t think the God I serve would be happy with me if I condoned” the concept of the interfaith chapel.

But Farmer said the school is trying to promote religious pluralism, which fosters an understanding of diverse faiths. Religious syncretism, on the other hand, blends all religions together and ignores their differences and contradictions, he said.

“The college has always been very ecumenical,” Farmer said. “We like to promote interfaith dialogue and appreciation of diversity.”

Selena Fitch, a Chapman senior and a Christian, said she believes the chapel is a perfect fit for the university.

“Spirituality is an important part of what makes Chapman different than other schools,” Fitch said. “The idea of the All Faiths Chapel really, really embodies what Chapman is about by celebrating diversity.”

The chapel will be named in honor of the Rev. Ray Wallace, a Disciples of Christ minister, and his late wife, Pauline.

Groundbreaking is planned for late spring, with construction expected to take about a year.

Open to the public, today’s unveiling of the chapel design and a talk by the architect will take place starting at 4 p.m. in the Irvine Lecture Hall on the Chapman campus, 333 N. Glassell St., Orange.