NEWSWEEK ON HARVARD'S CRISIS OF FAITH---by Lisa Miller

Read Lisa Miller's VERY INTERESTING article HERE.

Lisa says the Harvard faculty seem "unable to cope with religion." The faculty fought about this issue in 2006 in a discussion of curriculum reform. One prestigious prof argued that under-grads should be required to take a class in a category of courses called "Reason and Faith." His opponent argued, Miller said, that "the primary goal of a Harvard education is the pursuit of truth through rational inquiry, and that religion has no place in that."

How ridiculous on HIS part! Religious inquiry is also a search for truth. In the case of Jesus Christ we have a historical account of a resurrected man who died on a cross and said He was the Truth. Most people would believe a sinless, resurrected man when He talks to them about the after-life and how to reach and know and please a Creator-God. I hope I would have had the good sense to believe the teachings and miracles of Jesus if I had been there.

Christian schools DO teach a rationale for faith, and while a secular school might not do that, and usually can't be trusted with religious topics if they don't have faith themselves, nevertheless, secular grads ought to know what it is that Christians and Muslims, et al, BELIEVE. Otherwise, they are not educated about one of the largest aspects of human existance and history. They will be ignorant, in fact.

Ironically, as Lisa points out, Harvard's motto before 1843 was: Christo et Ecclesiae ("For Christ and the Church").

She notes that "the study of religion at Harvard is uniquely dysfunctional," in not having a religion department on a par with other departments. While Columbia U. is one of the only Ivy League schools that requires a religion course for under-grads, the others do have religion departments, apparently. There are religion classes at Harvard, but their faculty complain that they can't attract the greatest minds and talent as religion students because of the 2nd class status of the department. They have only 33 religion majors now. Their courses have to be patched together from several departments. The top scholar of World Religions, Diana Eck, runs their "program," such as it is, with the religious studies courses offered in other departments.

The whole article deserves a read. Lisa notes there is an active evangelical presence at Harvard. And some people think all believers are stupid, ignorant, deluded kool-aid drinkers. So how do they get in at Harvard, I wonder??? or on to the faculty? Mind-boggling? I don't think so. Great minds and diligent scholars can also have rational faith in the historicity of Christ, the Bible and the Early Church.



"God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance and have eternal life."--the Bible