Chapel Times

Intended Publication: The Index 

*Author's Note: This piece is incomplete, since my first interview two days ago I was only able to pull together what I have thus far, I apologize for the lack.*

On a clear sunny day in the largest city of South West Michigan, if your elevation allows, you can soak in the skyline of Kalamazoo. If you’re pointed in the right direction you can usually glean a snippet of the symbol for Kalamazoo College poking out among the tree tops. It marks the small liberal campus that is hidden in the sea of Western Michigan University the surrounds it. On a cloudier day the bell tower of Stetson Chapel stands stark against the gray sky. Several times a day, hundreds of students cross the green quadrangle that unfolds before it, yet, many of those students pass by without a glance or a thought toward its evolution.

In the fall of 1928, the President of Kalamazoo College, Allen Hoben, requested the construction of the chapel from his board, to match the then recently endowed library. Founded as the Michigan and Huron Institute by a judge, and a Baptist Minister, in 1833, four years before Michigan was granted Statehood, the college’s name changed to Kalamazoo College in 1855. By its 99^th birthday President Hoben’s request was granted.

Seeking to realize a college noted for its scholarship and Christian standards of life, President Hoben insisted that a campus chapel was an essential addition to the college. In his letter to the Chairman in 1928 he writes, “It is no secret that a college of our type needs above everything else literally, practically, morally and imperatively a Chapel. There is nothing so formative important and central in the education which we aspire to give.” Dedicated to Herbert Lee Stetson, the “grand old man” of Kalamazoo College, Stetson Chapel is the emblem of a history formed with two aims of thought—religion and education. 

            My education centers on ‘K’. I am one of those students, walking swiftly by, until recently, unaware of the prominence of Stetson Chapel. It is a holy space. I have been both consciously and unconsciously avoiding hallowed places since I left home three years ago to attend Kalamazoo College. For me, a church, or the smaller equivalent, called a chapel, holds many meanings. I grew up in and around church—church services, church camps, church youth group, and a church family. In the Congregational church of my childhood I wrestled with my beliefs and by the time I left for college I had successfully beaten down most of my conservative protestant upbringing. However, a piece of that history remains, and I as I walk across the grand threshold of Stetson Chapel seeking to realize its meaning, I am captivated by its presence.

            The Chapel’s architecture speaks of a simpler time. It is a grand structure yet far from being grandiose. Like the church I used to know, it has small spaces to explore. There is a door on the right that leads to the tight practice space of the change ringers. To the left are the stairs, one set spirals up and the others go straight down.     

Stetson was constructed with a specific intentionality. On the symbolism of Stetson Chapel, Rev. T. Torrance Phelps, D.D. wrote, ‘this Chapel came out of the Puritan epoch. The Puritans very consciously tried to build an austere ecclesiastical structure. The unadorned ceiling and white walls are a survival of that spirit of austerity.’ The large windows let in the sunlight of the day, designed to be open—open for worship as well as for views of the outside world.

In an article titled, “If Stetson Chapel Could Talk”, the dissonance between my thoughts on modern spirituality and my view of the chapel, a symbol of an older idea of religion that’s stifling, is addressed in these words from an issue of Encore, ‘Just as [the Chapel’s] architecture reflects the college’s ideals, its events have reflected changes in our American culture’, changes that are discussed in the open article of Psychology Today sitting on my desk. It addresses the ‘atheist in the pew next to you’ by profiling a young family attending a Unitarian Universalist church. Such churches, in existence since the 1960s, are a good example of our cultures shift toward religion as a free and responsible search for truth and meaning.

What all of this means for Kalamazoo’s Stetson Chapel is elucidated by Jeanne Hess, Kalamazoo College Volleyball coach and chair of the Department of Physical Education at K-College. Among other important contributions to the college Hess was Associate Chaplain for the chapel from 2001 through 2008. The Chapel speaks to Jeanne of the past, but also of the present and future. For Jeanne the chapel is a bricks and mortar symbol of the spiritual and its evolution.  Hess sees the chapel as a place whose meanings have evolved and whose presence is as relevant as ever.

“I have been on both ends of the spectrum, of being there and saying this is an important message and the community needs to be here and gather round and hear this and celebrate this, to oh my god I’m so overwhelmed just like what the students are doing, that’s what I would hear from students, was ‘I have so much to do’, and we got in this culture of stress. I am seeing this culture of stress permeate everyone.”

            Hess reveals that the chapel is not a place of dogma and judgment but the scene of an essential movement that aims to support the whole of a person here in our Kalamazoo College community. It is a holy place. Its presence welcomes its students to be whole.