ANDERSON, Ind. — In the wake of this year’s contentious and often rancorous political rhetoric, which culminated this week with the election of Donald Trump as the nation’s 45th president, Thursday’s chapel convocation at Anderson University in Indiana was supposed to be about peace and reconciliation.

And for many students at the small, private Christian liberal arts school located about 40 miles northeast of Indianapolis, it was.

“Most powerful chapel I’ve ever been to,” tweeted Isaac Wonderland.

“What an amazing and relevant chapel,” said another student.

Other people sitting in the back of Reardon Auditorium came away from the mandatory twice-weekly prayer meeting shaken and uneasy.

Organized by students in the university’s Peace and Conflict Transformation — or PACT — program, the idea was to begin healing after the bitterly fought presidential election.

One of the co-leaders, a black woman, confessed she disliked Trump supporters, and that was a fault she wanted to correct. Seeking grace and forgiveness, she asked students to come forward and pray.

Following her comments, a male student sitting in the back of the auditorium responded with “an inappropriate comment that was both political and included a racial slur,” according to a statement released Friday by university spokesman Chris Williams.

“Many of our faculty and staff, including our dean of students (Dr. Chris Confer), were present and heard the comments,” Williams said.

Senior Ryan Grondalh was just four seats away from the student, who has not been identified. Grondalh took a picture of the student and posted it on Twitter.

He said the young man was agitated but spoke in a regular tone of voice. He called the woman a profane name, adding that “I’m sick of all this Christian liberal media.” He also used the n-word.

“For Anderson University, this is an isolated event,” said Grondalh, a member of the student government association. “I wanted to give a face and confirm that racism does exists — even at a Christian college.”

The chapel convocation was the first following the announcement of results in the presidential election, in which Trump, A Republican, won over Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Another student who witnessed the event, freshman Troyer Goldman, said the comment “was just aggressive and vulgar. I wasn’t ready for that.”

A female friend of Goldman’s asked the student to stop and be respectful, Goldman said. “She grabbed my hand and was shaking and crying by the time we got to the prayer altar.”

Goldman added that he’s had an uneasy feeling, a sense of disconnect with his fellow students who supported Trump.

“Just yesterday I was told I was not an educated voter because I didn’t know how to handle an AR-15,” he told the Anderson, Indiana Herald Bulletin.

The university would not identify the student who disrupted the chapel convocation and would not discuss possible disciplinary action.

“The individual does not represent the AU community or the behavior of our students,” Williams said. “We encourage discussion and civil discourse. But we do not, under any circumstances, tolerate discrimination or racial slurs.”

Hirsch writes for the Anderson, Indiana Herald Bulletin.