Spirituality is a core dimension of holistic health, uniquely woven into the life of every individual.
Senior Brent Long deepened his faith through campus community and academic classes. Senior Helena Mekuanint was baptized after her sorority sister led her to better know Christ. Law student Caroline Lewis found home in a local Roman Catholic church and the Christian Legal Society’s Bible studies. Sophomore Gabby Cabai found her voice — literally — as a song leader at Vintage Malibu church and as a chaplain in her sorority. Others, like senior Francesca Nucci, took a step back from organized religion because of cultural differences.
What these students all have in common is they are on a journey to figure out who they are and what they believe. For those seeking deeper spiritual health, that journey includes periods of deconstructing and reconstructing their faith and living out their faith through personal study and community life.
“I would say spiritual health for me [is] being able to look at Christ or look at God and believe in Him in the highs and in the lows,” Long said. “Because if you’re continuing, keeping your eyes on the light and not being distracted by darkness, you are able to balance health in the midst of hardship.”
Pepperdine’s Religious Make Up
Falon Barton, campus minister of the University Church of Christ at Pepperdine, said there is a diversity of religious belief and spiritual engagement on campus.
“There are students who, of course, believe religiously in Christianity,” Barton said. “They have a sense of being Christian but might engage with that spirituality in a wide variety of ways.”
Similarly, there are people who identify with other religions and people who don’t identify with any religion at all. Some might consider themselves spiritual, but not religious, or not spiritual at all. Barton said it’s pretty rare she meets students who don’t identify with any sort of spirituality.
Pepperdine is rooted in the Churches of Christ, but only 5% of Seaver students come from that tradition. More than 57% of undergraduate students identified as a different Protestant denomination at the time of their application, according to Pepperdine’s Office of Institutional Effectiveness in fall 2024, and most are nondenominational Christians. Roughly 4% of students identified as none/no faith identity and 8% were undeclared.
In her own life, Barton said she uses the terms holistic health and spiritual health almost interchangeably. She emphasized that definitions of spiritual health differ for each individual and across denominations.
“It is an indicator of the sense of self and the core things that define who we are, who we want to be, who is God, what kind of God do I believe in and other significant questions,” Barton said. “Spiritual health, regardless of one’s religious beliefs, is a useful term because it encapsulates that idea of core identity. How we answer those questions is core to how we are going to view ourselves, and then how we are going to interact with the world around us.”
A spiritually healthy person, Barton said, will have answers to those questions and a sense of their identity. However, she emphasized that students who don’t yet have the answers to those questions or who may feel unstable are not sinful and should not confuse unhealth with “badness.”
Barton said it is common for students to be in a space where they are trying to discern what they believe and why they believe it.
“If a student is apathetic, that probably means something is happening, that these questions are overwhelming,” Barton said. “It’s easier to withdraw and disconnect from these really important questions than it is to engage.”
Barton compared this to when someone gets a paper cut or a virus. Those cases are an indicator that something needs to be addressed and healed within the body.
“Regardless of where students are on their spiritual journey, they’re asking further in the background questions that are informing more foundational questions,” Barton said.
Tim Spivey, vice president for Spiritual Life, said Pepperdine has a lot of resources to help students get the most out of their spiritual health in college. For example, chaplains in Greek Life and across campus provide spiritual support, lead Bible studies and offer guidance to students.
“My own sense is that the spiritual climate on the campus is trending north,” Spivey said. “For instance, if you think about Greek life on campus, most fraternities and sororities at this point have a chaplain. We have a student-led ministry called Greek IV. When I was [a student] here, none of that existed.”
President Jim Gash’s focus is on better integrating the Christian mission throughout the entire university and all aspects of life, Spivey said. This requires asking what Christianity within each area of Pepperdine looks like.
“That’s going to be baked into the curriculum and baked into the values of the people we hire as faculty and deans, so we can live out our Christian mission as we try to be a premier academic institution at the same time,” Spivey said. “We don’t see those as separate. We see them as natural partners and married together in a beautiful way.”
Spivey said he tries to engage students of all Christian backgrounds through love.
“We can’t do God’s part, but we can do whatever we can to bring that encounter that maybe lights a spark,” Spivey said.
Finding Faith at Pepperdine
Long said he did not grow up in a Christian household, but found his faith in his junior year of high school. He found a supportive Christian community that eventually led him to Christ and becoming a Religion major in college.
At Pepperdine, community is something that Long has sought out in his fraternity, Alpha Tau Omega, and friendships. He attends The Gathering in Malibu, a nondenominational Reformed church, and Waves Church, a Church of Christ, on Sundays.
“We [my roommates and I] have dinner every Wednesday night, where we talk about real things and how each of us are truly doing,” Long said. “Those dinners have been pretty beneficial for me. Having a mentor or relationships in general, someone who really seeks out my best interest, has been good for my spiritual health.”
Helena Mekuanint, senior and president of Greek Intervarsity at Pepperdine, said she grew up in the Christian church, but felt like her faith was missing something. Pepperdine helped her meet Jesus while also providing a safe space for reconstruction. She currently attends Vintage Malibu church.
“I wanted to wait until I was ‘the perfect Christian’ in order to get baptized,” Mekuanint said. “But then at this [Greek IV] retreat, I was getting prayed over and she [a retreat leader] taught me that there is freedom in following Jesus, and it isn’t supposed to just look like checking boxes.”
As a nondenominational Christian, Mekuanint said a main goal she came to Pepperdine with was growing deeper in her faith with people who were in the same stage of life. She said she hoped to find community in those going through the same struggles.
“Coming to Pepperdine, I was kind of shaken up a little bit,” Mekuanint said. “In the sense of, like, I chose it because I wanted to go to a Christian school, but I think it was hard at first seeing people go to church on Sundays, but then do other things on the weekends.”
Things began to turn around for Mekuanint when she met her big in her sorority, Kappa Kappa Gamma, alumna Hope Dease (’22).
“[Hope] really embodies that first question of like, ‘What did it look like to live like Jesus, and to bring His kingdom down to earth?’ Mekuanint said. “The way she loved others so selflessly, I was like ‘Whoa, we both are following Jesus, but like, you’re worshiping Him and following Him from a different place that I don’t think I’ve been yet.’
Mekuanint said she then began to search deeper for what it looks like to live like Jesus, as opposed to the Bible-as-a-rulebook, routine faith she had been pursuing before.
Caroline Lewis, Caruso School of Law first-year and a Roman Catholic, said her faith thrives on routine. Her decision to come to Pepperdine, after obtaining her undergraduate degree at the University of Mississippi, was with hopes to find a “baseline Christian community” that wouldn’t be present at many other schools.
“I figured law school would be really stressful, and I was right,” Lewis said. “I think a sense of calmness, I feel like, when you’re involved in a faith of any kind, you’re able to have a lot more peace in your everyday life.”
Lewis said working toward a higher purpose within the community is important to her. She also had to rely on her faith during the Franklin, Palisades and Eaton fires all within her first year on campus.
“I think that night, relying on my faith was helpful because there was nothing else to do,” Lewis said. “And I think having friends who are like, ‘I’m just gonna pray,’ helped calm me down a little.”
Gabby Cabai, a sophomore and a Presbyterian Christian who leans nondenominational, said she came to Pepperdine with an already strong foundation of faith that she built in high school.
“During COVID, me and my best friend Lily decided to do FaceTime Bible studies, and that provided me a lot of comfort,” Cabai said. “After that was my freshman year of high school, and I really just think that I came into my faith super strongly after that.”
In just two years, Cabai has served as chaplain in her sorority, Pi Beta Phi, and as a worship singer at Vintage. She said she is able to maintain her faith in college through spiritual mindfulness.
“Just taking care of where your faith is, where your walk with the Lord is and taking inventory of that,” Cabai said. “On day-to-day, just kind of doing little check-ins with myself and figuring out how I’m feeling with God and how I’m feeling with myself.”
Questioning of Faith
Along with her colleague Rachel Collins, a former Hub for Spiritual Life chaplain and visiting instructor of Religion, Barton is conducting a research study called, “Why are the done’s done, and how do we care for them?” She said the purpose of this study was to survey and conduct focus groups with students who identified as “done with the church,” specifically considering Pepperdine’s Christian heritage.
A goal of this research was to understand how a religiously-affiliated institution can support students regardless of where they might be in their spiritual lives. Students were asked about how they defined spiritual health, and Barton said their answers often revolved around community and being connected with other people.
“They really connected spiritual health and social health, which are, of course, very connected,” Barton said.
Barton said the study also focused on the “nones,” or students who have never felt a connection with the church. These students pointed to hypocrisy and judgment within religious spaces for why they chose not to belong.
Senior Francesca Nucci said that much of her skepticism about Roman Catholicism and religion stems from her all-girls, private Catholic high school in Mexico City. She felt that religion was “imposed” on her through strict rules like school uniforms.
“There have been religious leaders in my community that have brought pain to our Catholic community,” Nucci said.
The pain Nucci felt from religion in Mexico led her to distance herself from the church upon arriving at Pepperdine. She also said she did not find a religious connection to the school because of cultural differences.
“I feel like I did not approach religion,” Nucci said. “I’m originally a Catholic from Mexico City, so there’s not a lot of worshiping like the Well — it’s very different from what I am used to.”
Nucci said she still believes in God, but finds ways to connect with Him outside of formal religion.
“I don’t think you need a religion to worship God in general,” Nucci said. “I think you can find your own ways of connecting with spirituality, connecting with whatever you believe.”
In her role at Pepperdine, Barton tries to help students, regardless of where they are on their spiritual journey, through a lens of curiosity. She said it allows her to better understand what is resonating with students, because usually that is where God can be found.
The spiritual resources Pepperdine has to offer today are far broader and deeper than what he had as a Pepperdine student in the 1990s, Spivey said.
“Our particular niche is in the spiritual realm,” Spivey said. “Sometimes people will have a crisis of faith. They’ll go through, their parents will split up there and they’re wondering, ‘OK, what am I supposed to do? Where was God when this happened? And is God mad at me? Is that what happened here?’ Those kind of questions, we’ll help them with that.”
Even as the president of a Christian club on campus, Mekuanint said her faith journey has included times of deconstruction.
After her baptism, Mekuanint said she had a newfound freedom and intimacy with Christ. She was “on fire for God” and felt that He was right by her side at all times. However, after a few months, she no longer felt like she could feel God’s presence as she once did.
This led to questioning and confusion for Mekuanint.
“It was almost like a 180,” she said, “and felt like I was talking to a void.”
During this time, Mekuanint said she sought out prayer at another Greek IV retreat.
“I signed up for a [prayer] slot because I was just like, I need to, I can’t hold this anymore,” Mekuanint said. “The only way to go about this, really, was to seek counsel from other people and be ministered to by people who are older than me, who probably have gone through similar things.”
Mekuanint said she learned that spiritual warfare is real, and it happens. She said she learned what she was going through could happen to anyone, at any time.
“Then you go through this sort of, like, faith deconstruction and like, at the end of it, the Lord takes the devil’s works and turns it on its head for good,” Mekuanint said. “And it was just like I felt this peace and sound-mind and clear-headedness that I hadn’t felt in months after talking to them.”
Long said he turns to Scripture in times of struggle, emphasizing that struggle and questioning builds endurance and spiritual health.
“We have text and Scripture that talks about suffering, and suffering actually produces endurance, which then produces spiritual health,” Long said. “Being spiritually healthy and suffering are not opposites. They can coexist even though it may be hard.”
A key aspect that Long said helped develop his spiritual health is being critical of his faith. Contradictions and uncertainty about whether to believe some things he hears and reads has led him to figure out what he truly believes.
Mekuanint said that not putting her emotions on a pedestal, but really surrendering them to the Lord and trusting in who He is and His character, gave her a different perspective and mindset to approach her struggles.
“My biggest faith takeaway from being at Pepperdine is just getting to love people like Jesus does,” Mekuanint said. “We’ve gone through a lot, time and time again, and the way people have shown up for each other, not thinking about themselves first, but the interconnectedness of it all is something so beautiful to see.”
Practices That Develop Faith
Lewis attended church and Bible study in undergrad, which she said allowed her to think differently and more in depth about religion with peers. She recently started attending St. Mel Parish in Woodland Hills to maintain this routine.
Faith looks different at the law school compared to what it looks like in undergrad, Lewis said.
“I think at the law school, there’s not a lot of faith on the daily,” Lewis said. “You pick and you choose, but I think there’s an overall culture that’s very kind and very focused on community, which I think is rooted in the faith aspect.”
Law school is competitive, but Lewis said at Pepperdine, people are always smiling and chatting.
“People are always hugging,” Lewis said. “I don’t know if undergrad is like that, but everyone’s hugging all the time.”
The Christian Legal Society facilitates a Bible study that Lewis attends every Wednesday. She said she enjoys meeting people and hearing about other people’s perspectives on faith and the law, and learning more about how the two intersect.
Similarly, Cabai said she enjoys the community and people college has brought her.
“I served as my sorority, Pi Phi’s, chaplain last year, which was really intimidating as a freshman, but it was so sweet and a wonderful opportunity,” Cabai said.
Attending Vintage Malibu church has also allowed Cabai to grow her faith in community with people of all ages, and to learn from those who are older than her.
“There’s so much sweetness in, I think, like different age groups coming together just to have one common goal of worshiping Jesus and leading people closer to Him,” Cabai said. “One of the things that has been on my heart in that [singing at church] and also in leading Bible study, is just reminding myself that it’s all for an audience of One.”
Cabai said taking care of her spiritual health looks like spending 30 to 45 minutes reading her Bible in prayer every day. However, a key part of her routine is being honest with herself. When she isn’t able to spend that much time in the Word every single day, she aims for at least a little every morning, even if it is just a verse.
“On my busier days, in the busier weeks, I will literally, just like say prayers in my head and talk on the way to class,” Cabai said.
Long explained balancing his faith is difficult in college, and he has failed at it many times. However, his community and foundation bring him back to where he tries to be. The Great Books sequence at Pepperdine influenced the foundation of Long’s faith, especially philosophers like Plato, Aristotle and Augustine.
“I give credit to Augustine and Great Books, but I kind of adapted it to myself, where I’m like, above the line is the kingdom of God. I am living in the transformation that God has called me to be in. I want to live above the line,” Long said. “So how I’ve built that foundation is categorizing things above and below the line. Building my Christian faith on a different foundation than in the past was super beneficial.”
Long said a core part of his spiritual health and community is when his roommates and friends help him “stay above the line.”
A core passage that Long subscribes his faith to is John 15.
“To follow Jesus is, in essence, like a communion between me abiding with Christ and being transformed by His Spirit,” Long said. “An overarching theme would be self-sacrificial, putting others before yourself. It portrays an essence of when you’re continually being transformed into the image of God.”
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Contact Kylie Kowalski via email: kylie.kowalski@pepperdine.edu
