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Harvard's True Colors
I could hardly believe the news report when I first saw it. In the summer of 2021, with forty religious leaders voting Yes, prestigious Harvard University designated an atheist as their school’s “chaplain.” Obviously, I first thought, they don’t know what that word means.
In a perceptive article about this shocking academic decision, Fletch Daniels called it “this grotesque travesty.” But he acknowledged that, while unthinkable, this action may be a display of honesty by schools like Harvard—schools that for several decades now have been “post-Christian” discretely, but in truth unflinchingly and increasingly hostile to Christianity.
A headline such as this revived a lurking fear I have tried to suppress and ignore but can’t seem to remove from my heart. I can’t keep from being afraid that by attending highly lauded universities and sitting at the feet of distinguished but unbelieving academicians, my dozen-plus grandchildren could have their faith forever stunted or eradicated. Long after I’m gone, will they embrace my faith in the Lord or the agnosticism of their sharpest and most winsome professors?
Like most grandparents, I crow about my grandkids. Over half of them already are doctors, lawyers, engineers, teachers, corporate leaders, or graduate students in highly demanding fields, and several of the younger ones are enrolled in top universities. When one after the other they have received scholarships to distinguished schools, I have bragged and applauded. But I must confess that my pride in their educational achievements gets muffled a bit when I realize what some of their most persuasive teachers have tried to teach them.
When I came across that news report that Harvard’s new chaplain was an atheist, Harvard got erased from my list of schools I would ever recommend to any Christian student. Now I have a second blacklist to go along with the one of sports events not to watch because they are ashamed to be Americans.
Come to think of it, though, Harvard’s now-public decision may have a positive result. Could it be that naming a God-denier as chaplain will turn out be Harvard’s unintentional acknowledgment that atheism actually is another religion—one that is at odds with those who honor and obey God? In universities all across America, in recent decades, religion increasingly has been throttled and professions of faith have been belittled or banned. Now, for all the world to hear, they have confessed their true religion.
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