Despite the plethora of religious freedoms represented in religious clubs on campus, when UMB junior Jesse Ghoman tried to start a non-denominational Bible group on campus, he was denied club status by the student senate.

“The idea behind our organization is that we are a group of students who believe in the Bible and finding people who want to know more about it,” Ghoman said. “This sounds like a normal idea and one that many organizations on campus at UMB surely have in their religious organizations.”

Ghoman said the reason he was denied club-status was because the student senate didn’t want more on-campus Christian groups whose principles overlapped.

“The reason was that there are other Christian groups on campus who do the same things that we do and they did not want to support another club to do the same things,” he said.

For Ghoman, though, his non-denominational beliefs are unique to any religious philosophy currently being offered on campus.

“I feel that there are a few different Christian groups on campus, but there are over 20,000 different denominations of Christianity in America today and these other groups do not believe the same things that we believe,” Ghoman said. “It is like telling the Muslim society that they already have different religious groups on campus and that they cannot support another one. They have different beliefs than the other Christian groups and so do we in some ways,” said Ghoman.

However difficult the struggle, Ghoman said he is refusing to give up on the establishment of his Bible study as an on-campus group-an effort that has been ongoing since his freshman year at UMB. Ghoman said he plans on completely reinventing the focus of his organization into more of an active club instead of just a discussion group.

He said he wants to incorporate Sunday masses, Christian concerts, a God and Science class taught by PhD professors, and debates between people of different beliefs into the club. Not only does Ghoman want to reinvent his organization with fresh ideas for the senate to re-consider, he said his aim is also to create a more inviting and spirited experience for anyone interested in participating.

“I think that it is a way to get people who commute back on campus, and to have some very awesome Christian events for students who are interested.”

Ghoman’s group meets every Thursday at 3:15 P.M. in the Campus Center cafeteria.