About a year ago, when a friend told Weinberg senior Dana Taradash about the Bible study she attended, Taradash made fun of it. But after some nudging, she decided to go. She was raised Catholic, but says it was at that Bible study that she first understood who Jesus was. “Before becoming a Christian I thought of reading the Bible like eating a salad – I know it’s good for me but I don’t want anything to do with it,” she says. “Now I view it like chocolate. I crave it because every time I read it, I learn something new about the secrets of life and who God is.” At Northwestern, there are more than 30 different religious and spiritual groups, from the Fellowship of Christian Athletes to the Buddhist Study Group, offering students opportunities to discover their religious niche, such as Bible studies, prayer or even bagels and lox. When Weinberg freshman Stephanie Behnke was transitioning to college last fall, she signed up for retreats with Cru, formerly Campus Crusade for Christ. While at their Christmas Conference, she began to notice changes in her outlook. What she used to dismiss as a fight with friends she now sees as God’s challenge. “I used to go along with things reacting to my feelings and not my faith,” Behnke says. “But now I see God in everything.”

Taradash continued to go to Bible study on weekdays but filled her weekends with friends, guys and parties. “I wanted to believe that I could save myself, that MTV and other forms of pop culture were true guides to fulfillment,” she says. “If only I followed this formula I would get there: Be beautiful, be with the right people, be at the right places, be desired.” But something changed along the way; though Taradash still socializes, she says if she drinks “it will be for fellowship or with a meal.”

Taradash says that when one of her Christian friends asked if she wanted to pray last spring, it was the first time she prayed sincerely. “The very next day I couldn’t judge others any longer,” she says. “I used to make fun of these people … I used to say that the girl who invited me to the Bible study was a total weirdo. She joined my sorority and I told people, ‘Don’t bring the Jesus freak around me.’ And look at me now! I didn’t produce the change in my heart, God did.”