College students believe in more than right to party

College students may not make it to religious services as often as they did in high school, but their interest in spiritual and ethical issues often increases as they go through college, a new UCLA study shows.

From the freshman to junior years, growing percentages of students express a desire to explore the meaning and purpose of life, to help other people and to make spirituality part of their lives, according to the findings, the latest from a long-term study of undergraduates and their beliefs.

The study, a project of UCLA’s Higher Education Research Institute, was based on a survey of more than 14,000 college students on 136 campuses nationwide. The students were interviewed as freshmen in fall 2004 and again as juniors in spring 2007.

“The students grow during college in ways that warm my heart,” said Helen S. Astin, an emeritus UCLA education professor and the study’s co-author. “They become more caring, they develop a better perspective as global citizens and they grow in spirituality and related areas.”

Astin served as co-principal investigator for the project with her husband, Alexander W. Astin, also an emeritus UCLA education professor and the founding director of the Higher Education Research Institute.

The findings appear to refute the notion that colleges -- and their students -- are bastions of secularism, Alexander Astin said. “We found great interest in spiritual and religious issues among students and that many are on a spiritual quest,” he said.

But the study also found that college students’ interest in spirituality did not translate to more regular attendance at religious services. Among incoming freshmen, 43.7% said they frequently attended services; that fell to 25.4% by the end of junior year.

The researchers said that reasons for the decline weren’t clear but that one factor might be that undergraduates are pressed for time as they try to balance schoolwork and jobs.

More information about the study is available at the project’s website: www.spirituality.ucla.edu.

Same-sex blessing

In an unusual action, one Los Angeles-area Presbyterian church has filed a formal complaint against another, trying to stop a same-sex blessing ceremony scheduled for Sunday.

The “stay of action” requested by Bel Air Presbyterian against Brentwood Presbyterian was denied by a church judicial commission, and the blessing will proceed, leaders of both said.

“We’re not trying to make an ecclesiastical statement,” the Rev. Charles Svendsen, interim pastor of Brentwood Presbyterian, said of the planned ceremony for the Rev. Lisa Bove and Renna Killen. “We’re doing this to extend pastoral care to two people who have been part of our faith community for many years.”

Bove, an ordained Presbyterian pastor now employed as a medical social worker, and Killen, a bone marrow transplant nurse, have been attending Brentwood Presbyterian almost eight years, Svendsen said. They asked the church to hold the ceremony to celebrate their 10-year relationship and their family, which includes 9- and 6-year-old daughters who take part in the church’s programs.

The service for more than 200 guests was planned partly with the girls in mind, Bove said. “To them, it’s an important symbol of the church blessing our relationship and our family,” she said.

Presbyterians, along with members of other denominations including Episcopalians and Lutherans, are deeply divided over issues related to homosexuality and biblical authority, including same-sex blessings and the role of gay clergy. Under current Presbyterian guidelines, same-sex weddings are prohibited, but blessings are permitted in certain circumstances.

The Rev. Mark Brewer, pastor of Bel Air Presbyterian, said that despite a long friendship with Svendsen, he and other leaders of his congregation felt obliged to file the complaint, even though the ceremony is not a wedding. “Our feeling was that the service was so close to a wedding that not to file would be compromising our understanding of Scripture,” Brewer said.

“It’s like calling a cop on a neighbor you’re good friends with,” Brewer conceded. “But because of our friendship, we also felt we could do this without a lot of acrimony. It’s not personal. It’s a theological thing.”

Brewer, who said there were no plans to disrupt the ceremony, added that a decision had not yet been made about whether to appeal the judicial commission’s ruling.

Bove said she and Killen were happy the ceremony could proceed, but saddened by Bel Air Presbyterian’s action. “It’s devastating to think that someone wanted to stop us from having this in our own church,” she said.

Epiphany celebrated

Sunday is Epiphany, the feast to celebrate the birth of Christ as the manifestation of God.

In many churches, ministers and priests will be mentioning the visit of the three wise men, or Magi, from the East. In others, the focus will be on the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River and the miracle of Christ turning water into wine.

Theologians say Epiphany is significant because it was the first occasion of non-Jews, the wise men, to recognize Jesus as their savior.

“Epiphany celebrates the fact that that gift [of Jesus] was open to all human beings,” said the Rev. Mark R. Kowalewski, dean of St. John’s (Episcopal) Cathedral near downtown. “That’s why we celebrate Epiphany with such great joy in the church. No matter who you are, where you come from, whatever your background, you are called to this wonderful kingdom of God that Jesus came to announce.”

Kowalewski points out that the only record in the Bible of the wise men’s visit to the baby Jesus is in the Gospel of Matthew, which says the Magi were led by a star to Bethlehem.

When they saw the baby, they bowed down and worshiped him, and opened their treasures of gold, frankincense and myrrh.

St. John’s Sunday “Mass for the Epiphany of Our Lord Jesus Christ” will be held at 10 a.m. with a reading from Matthew 2. The cathedral also has a shorter 8 a.m. service.

Gracing the cover of the 19-page worship program is a reproduction of an icon -- prominently displayed inside the ornate cathedral -- that is a Nativity scene depicting Mary, Joseph, Jesus, the Magi and shepherds.

“The symbolism of the icon is that all people are invited to come and worship the Christ child,” Kowalewski said. He added that an icon is a “window” through which one enters into the mystery of Christ’s coming to the world.

“We all are those wise men and women,” he said. “We all come from varying places with our own stories, with our own journeys, and we all are journeying to see the gift that the child brings, which is the announcement of God’s kingdom of justice and peace for all humanity. . . . “

A second message, Kowalewski said, is that Christians are called to emulate Christ in their lives.

“We are all supposed to reflect that light of Christ in our own lives by . . . giving of our time, of ourselves to others so that others can see within that the generosity of God, the truth that is in us.”

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connie.kang@latimes.com

rebecca.trounson@latimes.com