The fall of Harvard

They say the Enlightenment is what caused Christian colleges like Harvard, Williams, Bowdoin, Middlebury, and Amherst to fall from grace. I have never entirely bought that proposition. It is not that I dispute the identity of the proximate irritant to faith; I dispute whether the Enlightenment could have made a dent in the faith if the faith had been firmly established.

Harvard, of course, was founded in 1636 by Puritan Congregationalists for the purpose of training ministers. One of the school’s presidents, Joseph Willard, who died in 1804, was a good guy, but his influence was short-lived, leading to the appointment in 1805 of Henry Ware, a slipping-away guy, to lead Harvard Divinity School. At that time, Harvard was losing hold of God but Christian lingo still lingered a while. By 1838 the defection was nearly complete. That’s when Ralph Waldo Emerson delivered an address to Divinity School graduates full of heresy: Moral sense is better guide to life than biblical doctrine; miracles are doubtful.

It is easy to see what happened to Harvard if you think about what you yourself are tempted to do at a gathering of people who fancy themselves intellectuals and regard Christians as dumb. No one likes to look dumb. When the person sipping wine next to you starts to talk about the useful idiot Christian Right, you feel outnumbered, and you decide you will mention God but won’t mention Jesus—that would take more courage than you have. A crowd now gathers discussing the proofs of modern science and the ignorant bigotry of Christians regarding homosexuals, global warming, and the social causes of poverty. You are too embarrassed to speak up. Like Jesus said, you are “ashamed of me and of my words.”

The point is this: The Enlightenment never caused a single soul to fall. There is no one who can cause a Christian—or a Christian school or a Christian church—to fall except the Christian himself. The winds of heresy may buffet, but if a person is grounded in the truth and expects the buffeting ahead of time and has made up his mind to stand his ground, he will not fall.

Failing that, the warning of Jesus still stands:

“Nevertheless, many even of the authorities believed in him, but for fear of the Pharisees they did not confess it, so that they would not be put out of the synagogue; for they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God” (John 12:42–43, ESV).

Harvard evidently loved the glory of men. Its leaders “feared” to “be put out of the synagogue” of the fellowship of bastions of intellectualism, as it were, and so they stopped confessing Christ. This is how Christian colleges can become purveyors of liberal pishposh, how ministries to homosexuals can become homosexual apologists, and how Young Men’s Christian Associations can become second-rate swimming pool emporiums.

“… If you are not firm in faith, you will not be firm at all” (Isaiah 7:9, ESV).

Andrée Seu Peterson’s Won’t Let You Go Unless You Bless Me, regularly $12.95, is now available from WORLD for only $5.95.