To Be Safe and Seen: BIPOC Gen Z Engagement in Evangelical Campus Ministries

Abstract

This paper investigates the Gen Z counter-demographic of the religious nones on college and university campuses by focusing on BIPOC students and the stories that they tell about why they actively engage in evangelical campus ministries during their college years. This is carried out by being attentive to the racially segregated campus ministry context and the preponderance of “white spaces” in colleges and universities, including in campus ministries. Data for this study come from the Landscape Study of Chaplaincy and Campus Ministry (LSCCM 2019–2022) in the United States. Like other students in campus ministries, we find that BIPOC students who are “churched” with a Christian upbringing seek out campus ministries that function as a “home away from home”, where they can find authentic belonging—genuine connections and acceptance among like-minded Christians. For BIPOC students, however, this search for authentic belonging included a search for a campus ministry where they could be “safe and seen” for both their ethnoracial and Christian selves.