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(Biblically) illiterate in the Ivy League
Jewish World Review ^ | Dec. 20, 2006 | Paul Greenberg

Posted on 12/20/2006 10:05:13 AM PST by Caleb1411

Even the Ivy League schools seem to have noticed: Their students are not only arriving biblically illiterate but leaving pretty much the same way.

So a faculty committee at Harvard has considered making a course in religion part of the school's core curriculum.

The course would deal with "reason and faith," and touch on topics like the relation between religion and American democracy. Goodness, why not just have the students read and discuss Tocqueville's "Democracy in America"? Nobody's ever done it better. Except maybe Daniel Boorstin in "The Genius of American Politics."

But that would be too much like studying history for what it can tell us instead of for what we can read into it. It's not as if the past had an existence of its own apart from what we make of it. A usable past, that's what's we need, right?

G-d may not matter all that much to Harvard's well-gated community, but He seems to matter a great deal to a lot of us out here in the grubby world. Therefore, if America's oldest university is going to turn out graduates who'll be able to communicate with the rest of us, even lead us, they'll need to be religiously knowledgeable. At last religion would be usable.

There's an old name for this approach: profanation.

A more tactful term for it is instrumentalism. And it's not limited to academicians. People who consider themselves defenders of the faith have been known to justify theirs by pointing out all the worldly benefits of religion, from strong families to charitable giving to the work ethic, aka the Puritan ethic.

It's all enough to bring to mind what Edward Gibbon, in his "Decline and Fall," said of religion in another empire: "The various modes of worship which prevailed in the Roman world

(Excerpt) Read more at jewishworldreview.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; US: Massachusetts
KEYWORDS: academia; godandmanatharvard; harvard; religion; secularprogressives
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To: sleepy_hollow

What do you mean, "there are no absolutes"? There is Absolut, then Absolut citron, Absolut peppar, Absolut kurant, and the bunch of other flavors. Surely they are, at about $25 a bottle. And today universities peddle not so much ideas as more or less applied training in specialized disciplines. [One could argue that this is what they have always been doing, just the menu of the disciplines shifted away from theology and canon law]. The trouble with them is that they peddle a substandard product.


21 posted on 12/20/2006 11:31:57 AM PST by GSlob
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To: Caleb1411
Actually, Greenberg seems to have missed the more practical part of making Bible knowledge part of the core curriculum.

I have a good friend who is a Literature professor at one of the local colleges, and her observation is this: her students simply cannot understand where classic authors are coming from, unless you first understand their religious backgrounds. She finds that in her lectures, she must first provide that Biblical background, and she thereby "loses" about 20% of her class time.

Dante would make no sense whatever. Gibbon likewise loses a lot of its context simply because students cannot understand the basis of his essentially anti-religious bent.

22 posted on 12/20/2006 11:35:25 AM PST by r9etb
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To: qam1
Not really a good example considering Gibbon pretty much mostly blames Christianity for the fall of the Roman Empire

Case in point ... how can one actually evaluate his claims without understanding Christianity and its Biblical basis?

23 posted on 12/20/2006 11:36:38 AM PST by r9etb
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To: wastedyears

I believe that most of the Ivy League schools started out as christian schools but over time, northeastern do-gooders shut down the religious aspects and made the schools totally secular in purpose.


24 posted on 12/20/2006 11:42:05 AM PST by rabidralph
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To: GSlob

I prefer Lagavulin single malt myself, but in this realm, I am convinced it is personal taste that matters. In the realm of education, facts and truth and reason and logic matter. Otherwise there could be no Absolut or Lagavulin since no one would be able to make the stuff being completely muddleheaded already without the benefit of the spirits.

On the subject of ideas vs. training at universities, I would point to C. S. Lewis as the best example of a modern thinker who was university trained in the ideas of history, not the practical skills of the world (if that is what you meant).

Now, if only I could be helf as literate as he in one subject area. I believe he met the true spirit of the meaning of Doctor of Philospohy. That is what separates learning from vocation training. (Again, I am making assumptions about your meaning.)


25 posted on 12/20/2006 11:47:30 AM PST by sleepy_hollow
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To: sleepy_hollow

The Muslims are right about one thing: If the Koran really is the Word of God, then what it says is true forever.


26 posted on 12/20/2006 11:50:57 AM PST by RobbyS ( CHI)
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To: RobbyS

Well, that is a huge "if" in my opinon.

Since the Koran is basically upside down and backwards, hard to say. By that I mean it is in the order from longest saying of Mohammed to shortest, which roughly equates to reverse cronological order - sort of. It starts later in his life when he was famous and loved the sound of his own voice and progresses backwards to when he was simply a little shaver spouting cute aphorisms.


27 posted on 12/20/2006 11:59:13 AM PST by sleepy_hollow
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To: sleepy_hollow

Progressivism is, however, a secularization of Christianity. They have lached onto to Marx's historicism which looks forward to a scientific utopia ala "Startrek,". The Mussies at least don't suffer from that delusion.


28 posted on 12/20/2006 12:09:05 PM PST by RobbyS ( CHI)
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To: Caleb1411

"I've got a B.A. and a M.B.A. and a M.S. and a P.H.D. but I've got no G.O.D.."

For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God's sight-1 Cor. 3:9


29 posted on 12/20/2006 12:27:39 PM PST by 444Flyer ("Yes, we smell a rat close by!"--The three little kittens.)
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To: wastedyears

Harvard and Yale BEGAN as religious schools.


30 posted on 12/20/2006 12:30:54 PM PST by Robert A Cook PE (I can only donate monthly, but Hillary's ABBCNNBCBS continue to lie every day!)
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To: Caleb1411
Throughout the 90s, one of Harvard's most well-attended undergrad courses was "Bible" by Prof. James Kugel. It was a very "straight" (no PC agenda, no post-modernist lit crit) look at the Hebrew Scriptures. Further, Prof. Kugel was an Orthodox Jew. The year I took it, it had so many students that the lecture portions of the class were held in Sanders Theater, which can hold 700+. The courses are there, and people seek them out.

Philosophically, I'm opposed to instituting any required courses whatsoever at Harvard. You can be a good Christian (or Jew, or whatever) and simply decide to take Intro to Korean instead of a religion course. Or sleep late because you're hungover! Such foundations should be laid in other venues, such as high school or the home. But I am cognizant of the fact that, far too often, they are not.

Ultimately: (a) it's your money, so it should be your schedule; and (b) if you can get into Harvard, you should be able recognize what you need to learn in order to be an "educated citizen."

31 posted on 12/20/2006 1:11:30 PM PST by BroncosFan ("Now we grieve, 'cause now it's gone / But things were good when we were young.")
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To: sleepy_hollow

My meaning is literal: education is the training of the tomorrow's workforce, nothing more and nothing less. Thus it is, and has always been, all vocational. The list of specialties and their relative prominence changes along with development in time. So-called "liberal education", if that is what you mean, in this model is seen as criminal waste.


32 posted on 12/20/2006 1:19:52 PM PST by GSlob
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To: massgopguy

This is interesting. I was talking to a friend who is a philosopher teaching at a small college. She the ultimate Niechie groupie, discussed how difficult it was to teach the incoming students becasue the kids had no background in the foundational religion of western civilization. She said, at one time she could at least count on the Catholic kids to have the knowledge, but in the past 10 years even the Catholics do not know the history and stories of their faith.

One cannot learn English lit, Western Art, philosphy, languages, or science without understanding the foundation of Christian philosophy and religion.


33 posted on 12/20/2006 1:40:58 PM PST by Chickensoup (If you don't go to the holy war, the holy war will come to you.)
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To: BroncosFan

You can be a good Christian (or Jew, or whatever) and simply decide to take Intro to Korean instead of a religion course. Or sleep late because you're hungover! Such foundations should be laid in other venues, such as high school or the home. But I am cognizant of the fact that, far too often, they are not.



You may be able to be a Good Christian or whatever, but you WON'T be an educated person. And that is the agenda here.


34 posted on 12/20/2006 1:43:57 PM PST by Chickensoup (If you don't go to the holy war, the holy war will come to you.)
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To: Chickensoup

The system does not allow us to change replies.


35 posted on 12/20/2006 1:51:46 PM PST by Admin Moderator
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To: qam1; r9etb
Not really a good example considering Gibbon pretty much mostly blames Christianity for the fall of the Roman Empire

I've read his work and do not recall that conclusion. Can you cite chapter and verse?

36 posted on 12/20/2006 2:27:20 PM PST by Jacquerie (When a Democrat swears to support the Constitution, you can bet he'll lie about other things.)
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To: BroncosFan

Nietzsche

Pardon my spelling


37 posted on 12/20/2006 2:41:15 PM PST by Chickensoup (If you don't go to the holy war, the holy war will come to you.)
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To: Jacquerie

He doesn't blame it for the fall of Rome. He is, however, extremely dismissive of Christianity. Can't give you chapter and verse ... but in my Great Books version, it's about half to 3/4 of the way through the first volume.


38 posted on 12/20/2006 6:31:36 PM PST by r9etb
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To: 444Flyer

"I've got a B.A. and a M.B.A. and a M.S. and a P.H.D. but I've got no G.O.D.."

For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God's sight-1 Cor. 3:9




And that is the truth!

Eternity is a long time ... .


39 posted on 12/20/2006 8:46:19 PM PST by nmh (Intelligent people recognize Intelligent Design (God) .)
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To: Jacquerie

Chapter 38 (General Observations Of The Fall In The West)
As the happiness of a future life is the great object of religion, we may hear without surprise or scandal that the introduction, or at least the abuse of Christianity, had some influence on the decline and fall of the Roman empire. The clergy successfully preached the doctrines of patience and pusillanimity; the active virtues of society were discouraged; and the last remains of the military spirit were buried in the cloister; a large portion of public and private wealth was consecrated to the specious demands of charity and devotion; and the soldiers' pay was lavished on the useless multitudes of both sexes, who could only plead the merits of abstinence and chastity. Faith, zeal, curiosity, and the more earthly passions of malice and ambition kindled the flame of theological discord; the church, and even the state, were distracted by religious factions, whose conflicts were sometimes bloody, and always implacable; the attention of the emperors was diverted from camps to synods; the Roman world was oppressed by a new species of tyranny; and the persecuted sects became the secret enemies of their country.


Chapter 71 - final conclusion (fall of Eastern Empire)
The various causes and progressive effects are connected with many of the events most interesting in human annals: the artful policy of the Caesars, who long maintained the name and image of a free republic; the disorders of military despotism; the rise, establishment, and sects of Christianity; the foundation of Constantinople; the division of the monarchy; the invasion and settlements of the Barbarians of Germany and Scythia; the institutions of the civil law; the character and religion of Mahomet; the temporal sovereignty of the popes; the restoration and decay of the Western empire of Charlemagne; the crusades of the Latins in the East: the conquests of the Saracens and Turks; the ruin of the Greek empire; the state and revolutions of Rome in the middle age.


40 posted on 12/20/2006 9:24:21 PM PST by qam1 (There's been a huge party. All plates and the bottles are empty, all that's left is the bill to pay)
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