Article February 24, 1997 Issue

Harvard undergraduates eager to learn about spirituality and healing

by Kim Shippey

A few months ago, Dr. Harvey Cox, Professor of Divinity at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, gave an informal talk to a group of staff members in the Administration building of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston. Dr. Cox has been at Harvard for more than thirty years. He teaches half his time in the divinity school and the other half in the program in religious studies in the faculty of arts and sciences, where he delights in exposure to undergraduate students—many of them "Generation Xers" between twenty–two and thirty–five years of age.

Here are some of the observations he shared on the "winsome mixture of eagerness and caution" with which these undergraduates approach religious and spiritual issues, including spiritual healing.

They haven't yet learned not to ask embarrassing questions," said Dr. Cox with a wry smile. "They ask very basic questions, they tend to be very critical, they tend to be enormously enthusiastic, and they are willing to work very hard.

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