Video Of Harvard Panel Discussion Thriving

March 1, 2009

Author: Steve Fidel

Source: Mormon Times

http://www.mormontimes.com/people_news/people_church/?id=6515

The viral nature of a popular online video was not on Harvard undergraduate Rachel Esplin's mind when she participated in a campus panel discussion in September about faith.

A high school background in speech and debate, a service trip to Mexico last spring with Jewish campus organization Harvard Hillel and experience on Harvard's interfaith council are among the experiences that made Rachel very comfortable accepting Hillel's invitation to participate on a student panel moderated by The Washington Post's Sally Quinn, a co-moderator of the newsweek.washingtonpost.com blog "On Faith."

The 20-year-old junior from Blackfoot, Idaho, signed a media release and knew the panel was being videotaped. But she gave little thought to that as the moderator's questions started coming -- about the church, missions, garments, religious diversity, the priesthood and the church's view on women. For more than 20 minutes, Rachel's delivery was as unstoppable as the incoming tide.

"It was really awesome that (Quinn) directly asked me, 'What is your relationship with Christ?' It was my favorite question," Rachel said in a phone interview from Cambridge, Mass., last week.

Absent was any hint of confrontation or suggestion of a doctrinal or cultural ambush, something Rachel credits to a "genuine curiosity" that is part of the dialogue in the Harvard community. "There are virtues to that. There is a certain permissiveness here, but also a tolerance."