Early on most Friday evenings while many Harvard students are resting up for big nights of partying, a certain number of undergraduates gather together in a brightly colored room in the University Lutheran Church, a modern building next to Pinnochio's Pizza, for a somewhat less likely weekend activity. Every week, about 50 Harvard and Radcliffe students join together in that room to praise Jesus Christ.

They just call themselves Christians. Others at Harvard, like those who practice different religions, or who consider themselves Christians of a more conventional kind, might call them a "Born Again" or fundamentalist group. They have been "born again" because most of them feel they have been spiritually renewed by accepting Christ into their hearts. Their fundamentalism comes with a highly literal reading of the Bible, an unusual belief in a secular, scientific community such as Harvard. These Christians, who tend to group around the Harvard-Radcliffe Christian Fellowship (HRCF), often say they would use the term "born again," a phrase found in the Book of John, if it hadn't been distorted in recent years by misuse.

Even if they are somewhat unsure what to call themselves, there is one thing of which they are absolutely sure. They think they are the only true Christians, and although they try not to judge others harshly, they know that only those who have become followers of Christ will be saved.

It's difficult to tell how many "born again" Christians there are in pagan Harvard, although HRCF figures help a little. Fellowship executives estimate there are about 70 to 100 core members of the group. Since one of the strong corollaries of the Christians' creed is the desirability of sharing their faith with others, they are most likely to be found in one or another of the University religious organizations, like a new Christian athletes group, small Bible seminars, a "discipleship" organized by the Fellowship, or in a more diverse group like the Catholic Student Center.

Numbers of Christians at Harvard seem to be increasing along with the recent national publicity prompted by the election of Jimmy Carter, although given the nature of the Christian belief the two phenomena are unlikely to be related. Stephen Crist '78, this year's fellowship president, says that more freshmen than ever before are answering HRCF mass mailings and signing up at registration, although he notes there has been no astronomical growth in the realtively large organization.

The fundamentals of Harvard Christians' beliefs are clear and straight forward, and those who say they are following Christ have no hesitation in discussing them, despite occasional sneers from fellow students. John Duff '78 says it is particularly important to face the questions of non-Christians. "We are at Harvard and there are an awful lot of people who think what we believe is a lot of baloney and that we're backward. It's an atmosphere in which people are questioning our beliefs all the time and we have to face those questions," he says.

They believe in the deity and humanity of Jesus, the integrity and authority of the Bible, and the historic fact of the resurrection of Jesus, to paraphrase the HRCF constitution.

Christians live up to their self-assumed name in that they often seem to discuss Jesus as much as God. "Jesus is the best," as Kathryn Donovan '77, a Hollis Hall proctor, puts it. Crist says, "Truth is a person, not just a logical process."

Becoming a Christian means accepting Christ as a living presence and, Donovan says, making a "total commitment, becoming a tool for the kingdom." Many Christians also believe in the second coming of Christ, although Christians have differences of opinion about this. Daniel Pierce '78 explains his view on the second coming, which he characterizes as conservative and based directly on a reading of the Corinthians section of the Bible. First, there will be rapture, he says. "All the Christians on earth will disappear. We will be caught up to meet Him in the air." A seven year period of tribulation will follow the rapture. During that time, "a lot of Israelis will be converted to Christianity." At the end of seven years, great armies will attack Palestine, the bastion of Christianity--Pierce suggests the Soviet Union may be involved--and then Christ will reappear on earth with an army of saints to begin a thousand year reign. Pierce says, "It can take place at any moment. You can see the situation in the Middle East. It's by no means infeasible."

Pierce gets his information about the second coming directly from the Bible. Although Crist points out Christians understand much of the Bible is meant to be taken symbolically, these Harvard students tend to be like Donovan, who says she "lives out of the Bible." They accept it as the word of God and a factual, historical document.

The resurrection is the central theme. Crist says, "A lot of people are positive that science has disproved that man can rise from the dead. I don't rebutt that. Science only describes something the way it normally happens. A miracle isn't normal. You can also look at the New Testament as a historical document. I'm very impressed with the evidence for that. This summer I ran into somebody who believed the Bible was written years after the events to oppress the poor. That's not an informed opinion. The Book of John was written by an eyewitness."

Genesis is another potentially sore spot for Christians. If there's one thing most non-Christians at Harvard hold sacred, it's Darwin. Yet "born again" Christians have doubts. Donovan says the literal truth of the Adam and Eve story doesn't matter. "What matters is that man took his own path and departed from God." This is the source of the world's current misery.

Pierce, an Engineering concentrator, takes a somewhat harder line. He says, "I don't buy this stuff about man being descended from apes and monkeys. That's very dehumanizing. Evolution is only a theory and there's as much evidence for creation as for evolution."

Openmindedness about Genesis can cause problems at Harvard. Dwight Fletcher '79, who has started a Christian athletes discipleship group with his roommate Steve Brannan '79, says he occasionally found George Wald's lectures in Nat. Sci. 5, "The Nature of Living Things," offensive. "During one of his lectures last year he said God didn't create man, but man created God. I hissed him when he said that, but then immediately I felt bad about doing it."

An extension of the conviction that the Bible is the word of God, and of the complete truth of Christianity, is a belief in evangelism, the practice of spreading the word of Christ. Some shy away from the word because of its forceful connotation. "More people have been lost by a pushy evangelist than have been saved," Joanna Jones '79 says. Duff says the word connotes, "holider than thou, and my dumping my trip on you." He prefers to think of its as letting the good news be visible, and imitating Christ in one's own life.