Ten Thousand Saints of Harvard
Finding God at Harvard: Spiritual Journeys of Christian Thinkers, Kelly Monroe
John S. Gardner
April 1, 1996
Finding God at Harvard: Spiritual Journeys of Christian Thinkers, Kelly Monroe, ed. (Zondervan, 1996), 361 pp. It was, perhaps unfairly, called "Godless Harvard" after becoming the first private university in America to abolish compulsory chapel. Later, it was nicknamed the "Kremlin on the Charles," its faculty derided as less fit to govern than the first two thousand people in the Boston telephone directory. Rightly or wrongly, Harvard has exercised a special hold on American intellectual life since before the Revolution. Harvard began with a strong Christian foundation: "Let every student … consider well the main end of his life and studies is to know God and Jesus Christ which is eternal life," read the College Laws of 1642. Yet for centuries, there has been a strong popular perception that Harvard's influence has frequently been exerted in ways opposed to orthodox Christianity and favorable to what the nineteenth century termed "liberal religion" and, even more alarmingly, to secularism in the twentieth century. This book aims to change some of that. It is a series of short essays by alumni of Harvard, Radcliffe, and the graduate schools on their Christian experiences in some way connected with their time at Harvard. (The book also includes a few selections from remarks at Harvard by speakers such as Mother Teresa and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.) It is, in short, a latter-day compilation of that New England literary invention, the spiritual biography; these are primarily stories of personal conversion and witness. The book's point is to show that, whatever the popular perception may be, God is at work in the halls of Harvard, in people's hearts. I'm an alumnus of Harvard and of its undergraduate and graduate Christian fellowships, ...
Like the preview? To read this complete article
and 18,013 more in the archive—JOIN NOW!
Easily find high-quality, well-researched materials that provide a Christian perspective on topics ranging from headlines to history.
Start using this invaluable tool TODAY for preparing your Bible studies, presentations, class lectures, sermons, meetings, and more.
|
It's easy and quick to join:
Brought to You by Christianity Today Int'l |  |
|
| 
Find similar articles
E-mail this page
