He was quoting Perry Miller, and he went on to describe Pietism, a late 17th- and 18th-century evangelical reaction against the intellectualization of religion. ''The dichotomy between the heart and the head intensifies in this period,'' the professor said.

In America, Pietism influenced the Great Awakening, the 18th-century religious revival that looked for God more with the heart than the head. It was a kind of sacred inebriation, in some ways not too different from the more recent great awakening, which began among God-drunk hippies (who rephrased the trust in the heart by asserting ''all you need is love'') and which, changing political course, has now manifested itself among born-again Christians, many of whom distrust the kind of intellectualism for which Union Theological Seminary stands.

Handy warned the students against oversimplifying the split, reminding them that any conflict between heart and head is always relative: ''Human beings have both. Where does the tilt in religion shift to the heart? Where does it shift to the head?'' It is the issue that rests at the heart of Jeffrey's education.

During his three years at Union leading to his Master of Divinity degree, Jeffrey will take academic courses in the Bible, history and theology, but his curriculum will include practical courses as well, such as Voice Building, and seminars in which the students explore their feelings about their calling. Since its founding, the school's mandate has changed from educating Presbyterian ministers exclusively to include training missionaries, social workers, scholars, teachers, and people who may eventually go into fields traditionally seen as being alien to the ministry, such as psychoanalysis and business. Religion can inform and deepen any endeavor. (Fees have, of course, risen, from weekly charges in 1838 of $1.50 for board and annual charges of $5 for fuel and $4 for laundry to approximately $14,000 a year for tuition, housing, food and other expenses for ministry students, and approximately $17,000 for doctoral candidates.) Much of what Jeffrey and his classmates study can seem dry to an outsider. But for the students at Union the dry facts are clues that can help solve some internal mystery, the questions posed by the questing heart and mind. In the first two weeks of classes, Jeffrey says, he felt not only bombarded with facts, explanations, biblical criticism; he also felt challenged: the virgin birth, the divinity of Christ - what did he really believe in? And what are the everyday and personal applications of real faith?

Early in his first semester, Jeffrey went with his Practical Theology 101 class to see Penn and Teller, a comic magic act playing Off Broadway. It led in the students' next seminar to a discussion of the concept of the Trickster in theology.

Although traditionally, the Trickster conjures up notions of the Devil, Jeffrey says that ''in order to deal with the inexplicability of life, you have to have an element of the Trickster in you - and accept it.'' Which means accepting his own fallen nature as a human in a sinful world.

He wonders, for example, if, as a divinity student, it is proper for him to play rock music - and, if so, how loud? He has decided it is O.K. -at least, it is O.K. to play the kind of music he likes. Not the demonic heavy-metal bands, but Bruce Springsteen, Motown, the Ramones, Bob Dylan, some of the folk music from the early 1960's, the Talking Heads. He likes the Rolling Stones, but then he thinks: What do you do about songs like ''Sympathy for the Devil''?