DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARBULLETIN.COM
Robert Ganung's World Religion class at Punahou starts with a brief meditation. Students include Rachel Lopez, left, Lisa Nakasone, Cathy Schmitt, April Hail and Anton Glamb.
Punahou students research the world's
belief systems to find their similarities
The bell chimed once, calling the class to order. Eighteen teen-agers sat with eyes closed, still and silent to hear a spiritual reflection read aloud.
Not likely in this day and age?
Sounds like a movie scene about a 19th-century classroom: timid scholars fearing stern discipline?
The World Religions class at Punahou School is a very real 21st-century phenomenon. When senior Chaz Kekipi struck the bronze gong at the Wednesday session, it was a traditional Zen Buddhist call to introspection.
The reading by sophomore Cindy Fisher was not a familiar scriptural text, but the words of Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Buddhist teacher, author and poet.
The meditative moment ended, and the volume rose as the youths created posters expressing their individual research on eight major religions. The Christian faith of the private school's missionary founders was in the mix, and so were symbols and information from Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Taoist and Buddhist belief systems, and even the rare Jainism and Zoroastrianism.
Their artwork previews the grand finale of the class. Teacher Robert Ganung and his students will present a symposium at 7 p.m. May 13 on "One God, Many Names: Finding Common Ground Among the Religions of the World."
Muslim Saleem Ahmed and representatives of several other religions will speak in the program at Thurston Chapel on the Makiki campus. It is free and open to the public.
DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARBULLETIN.COM
Having a light moment while preparing and organizing their ideas for Robert Banung's World Religions class are Palona Jackson, left, Stacy Brossy and Crystal Arnote.
"I think of the world religions as living wisdom traditions, not static but growing and developing," said Ganung, a Methodist minister and a Punahou campus chaplain. "To understand a civilization, a culture, you need to know about their religion.
"For the first time ever, religions are living side by side in America where they didn't live side by side in other countries. People need to understand one another and not be frightened about differences."
The interfaith survey class has been in place at Punahou for several years and is similar to courses offered by college prep schools on the mainland, said Ganung, who came to Hawaii last year after teaching for five years at Milton Academy near Boston.
Lively verbal interaction is the rhythm of the class, with students questioning the teacher, correcting each others' facts and expressing opinions.
"Like Christianity, the message is be as good as you can," said senior Anton Glamb, describing his research on Zoroastrianism which, he learned, is at least 2,500 years old, contains elements shared by Judaism and Christianity, and has 13,000 followers in America.
"It was one of the first monotheistic religions," said senior April Hail, the other half of Team Zoroaster. "Through life, good and bad deeds are tallied. At the end of time, the good, supreme god will rule all, and people will be released from hell."
Glamb said: "We're not trying to memorize things for this class. I feel we have learned about religion itself. The core is that they all acknowledge that there is something greater than themselves."
Fisher identified herself as an agnostic.
"But I love religion," she said. "It's fascinating. I'm interested in the way humans are fascinated with a supreme being but they cannot prove it exists, why humans need God, the psychology of it."
Senior Rachel Lopez said the class was a natural progression after taking Asian history, which touched on Buddhism, Taoism and Hinduism. Her project was Christianity, a familiar subject since "I'm a Christian myself, my parents were missionaries in the Philippines, I went to Christian school." Nevertheless, in her research, she said, "I learned a lot more about Catholicism than I knew before."
Sophomore Spencer Garrod, whose research was on the Baha'i Faith, said, "The more I learn about religion, the more I recognize my spirituality."
She and senior Kathy Viernes, a Catholic whose project was polytheistic Hinduism, engaged in a dialogue about the similarities and differences between Hindus, who "choose certain gods to pray to for different things," and Catholics, who believe in "a different saint for each different problem."
"They're different gods, but they're all incarnations of the One Being," said senior Chris Nicholson, also on Team Hindu.
A large percentage of teenagers are not churchgoers, Ganung said. But that doesn't rule out their interest in the beliefs and ethics that are based in the great world religions.
"Students are hungering for information, curious about the similarities and differences," he said.
The open survey of religions begged for comparison with the Hawaii Jesus Project under way at Punahou and other school campuses, an evangelizing effort with Christian students distributing New Testaments and other literature in "Student Survival Kits."
"They are very devout Christians with a view of spreading their faith, a strong faith, very sincere. I can respect them for that. The school is open to that," said Ganung.
It's a dichotomy that chaplains encounter in planning the weekly chapel programs at the school. This year's lineup has included a Muslim, a gay Christian minister talking about tolerance and hate crimes, another pastor exploring Christianity in the African-American culture, and an ongoing series on Hawaiian spiritual values. Coming up are Buddhist and Jewish speakers.
He said it is with the blessing of the trustees that the accent is on education rather than evangelization.
The emphasis on interfaith education is not as distant from Punahou's missionary roots as some might think, Ganung said.
"They came from New England not just to evangelize, but to make social change, in education, in medicine. The United Church of Christ has evolved into one of the most liberal, progressive Protestant denominations.
"Different faith traditions can enrich one another by being in dialogue and listening deeply to one another. Only then can they find common ground and build community."
Click for online
calendars and events.
