Posted on 11/27/2006 11:52:20 AM PST by Mr. Silverback
You may know that Harvard University was founded to train men for the clergy. And you surely know that Harvard has long since abandoned its religious roots. But if a faculty panel has its way, religion will once again play a role in the education of Harvard students.
The faculty panel has issued a report calling for a “faith and reason” requirement at Harvard, concluding that some knowledge about religion is a necessary part of being educated. The panel noted that while “Harvard is no longer an institution with a religious mission . . . religion is a fact that Harvard’s graduates will [have to] confront in their lives.”
And confront it they will. We live in a world today in which religious forces are creating a titanic clash of civilizations, one which threatens the very existence of the free structures of the West. People cannot understand why it is that Islam wants to destroy us if we do not understand the teachings of Muhammad or the history of the 1,000-year-old conflict between Islam and the West.
Closer to home, how could we possibly understand the economic development of America without understanding the work ethic of the Protestant Reformation? How could we understand the abolition of the slave trade without knowing the story of William Wilberforce, the great Christian reformer—the film of whose life, titled Amazing Grace, will be released in February? How could anyone understand the roots of Western civilization without understanding the formative influence of Christianity, brilliantly documented in Rodney Stark’s book The Victory of Reason?
Predictably, there were those who objected to Harvard’s “faith and reason” requirement. A Harvard Crimson editorial said that the requirement gives “religious ideas” a “preeminence incommensurate with their proper place in understanding the modern world.” In other words, while religion is important, it’s just not that important, so says the postmodernist.
Besides, the Crimson argued, students can learn enough about religion from the general education requirements. Oh sure! Just as they learned what they needed to know about history from such requirements. That’s why 65 percent of seniors at elite colleges like Harvard flunked a high-school level history test, and 23 percent of them thought it was John F. Kennedy who said, “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.”
Also writing in the Crimson were two Harvard students who got it. They articulated what the editorialists could not or would not understand: “Studying religion,” they said, “involves coping with unanswerable questions, confronting humanity’s limitations, and thinking beyond oneself. No literature or science course can teach these skills.” Nor can ethics be taught without a religious base. Remember Mr. Skilling of Enron, who is heading off to prison, was a Harvard graduate.
Happily, Harvard is waking up to the reality that you can’t provide a decent education or even understand the modern world without understanding religion. Culture, after all, springs from “cult,” that is, a belief system.
And while many Christians might worry just what a university like Harvard might teach about faith and reason, we ought to welcome the opportunity for an open, free debate. Then we Christians can present the evidence of our faith’s positive effect on building the greatest civilization the world has ever known.
There are links to further information at the source document.
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Who's taking odds that Harvard isn't falling all over itself to return any contributions Mr. Skilling made to his alma mater to the broke stockholders he filched from?
I can see it now:
REG101 Why Christianity is evil
REG102 why Druidism is good
REG103 why we never, ever criticize Islam
REG104 Why smart people hate christianity
Almost. They are usually wiser than serpents:
REG101: How Christians got it wrong.
REG102: Druidism in the Old Testament.
REG103: Islamic criticism of the New Testament
REG104: Violence and Christianity in the Middle Ages
I concur with your hunch.
The lists you've posted are why I figure the "student led only" Supreme Court ruling on prayer is the best possible outcome at this point. The idea that a government school teacher who can't teach kids to read by the first grade would be teaching them to pray horrified me. Ditto for the fact that some classrooms would start with prayer and move right to a stirring reading of "Heather has Two Mommies."
bookmark
And Harvard was founded in "Christi Gloriam" and later dedicated "Christo et Ecclesiae."
The founders of Harvard believed that: All knowledge without Christ was vain.
The word Veritas,still on the college seal, means devine truth. The motto of Harvard was officially:
"For Christ and the Church."
It is no wonder that if those that hate these truths would want to burn down all of the University!!!!!
Since Nathan Hale was a Yale man, maybe it's understandable for Harvard graduates to credit JFK, since he was one of their own.
Please add me to your Chuck Colson list. I would appreciate seeing his articles.
Many thanks, Dino1955
You're added!
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