MEETING JESUS AT UNIVERSITY
Rites of passage and student evangelicals
By Edward Dutton. Ashgate Press. 164 pages. £45.00.
ISBN978-0-7546-6520-5
This volume is a popularised version of a PhD in social anthropology. Dr. Dutton compares and contrasts evangelical student groups in six universities: Oxford, Aberdeen, Trinidad, USA, Leiden and Oulu-Finland.
He considers the role such universities play in providing rites of passage for students (liminality), a transitional rite moving through from one phase to another. Such phases can lead to a sense of ‘belonging’ or communitas to a particular group or institution, so that, at a university such as Oxford, which is highly structured (college system, formal dinners, sub fusc attire, etc.) and traumatic (one-to-one tutorials, entrance exams, intense competition), this creates a sense of crisis and stress for some students, as well as opportunity for social elevation for others, especially from state schools. This is similar to the rites of initiation which the Ndemby people of Zambia undergo.
