One thing I didn’t expect from Stanford was a major upheaval in my religious beliefs.

I’d been raised Episcopalian.  It’s a very non-fanatical faith.   Its broad-mindedness is pretty much what you’d expect, given that its founding was based on the dictates of a king who’d chopped off the head of a bishop who’d been imprudent enough to stand in his way when he wanted to marry yet another woman in his long quest for a male heir.
 
After I left high school, my churchgoing fell into line with that of distinguished historical Episcopalians like George Washington, who on any given Sunday was far more likely to be found riding to hounds than confined to a stuffy pew.  The only times I sat in a college church pew were (1) when I heard an organist practicing dark, complex Bach in Stanford’s Memorial Church while I was passing by, and stepped inside to listen for a few minutes; (2) when a friend of mine got married; and (3) when the cartoonist Charles Schulz came to tell us all about “The Gospel According to Peanuts.”

But as a transfer student, I was required to take a freshman-level course in the history of Western Civilization, and I found myself randomly assigned to a section led by a teaching assistant who was determined to open our eyes to the real origins of Christianity.

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