Background: American Universities and Edwards

 

Christianity and the American University

By Dr. Roger Schultz / Monday, October 30, 2023

https://www.standingforfreedom.com/2023/10/christianity-and-the-american-university/?twclid=26zan8hmhboh4o3k32qdjdnpze 

One hundred years ago, American universities still formally affirmed their Christian character and Christian values had a natural and expected place in American higher education. What happened?

American higher education rests upon the foundation of biblical Christianity. From their beginnings, American colleges emphasized scriptural literacy, Christian moral principles, salvation through Jesus Christ, and a biblical worldview. While these initial commitments may have shifted over time, the foundations are rock-solid.

Puritans established Harvard College in 1636, shortly after arriving in Massachusetts Bay. Harvard’s mission statement, given in 1642, was clearly evangelical: “Everyone shall consider as the main end of his life and studies, to know God and Jesus Christ, which is eternal life. John 17:3.” The Harvard motto, from 1650, emphasized its core Christian commitment: “In Christi Gloriam” (“For the glory of Christ).” Over long decades, conservative Puritan ministers served as Harvard’s presidents.

Almost all Ivy League institutions had similar beginnings. They were established by conservative Connecticut Congregationalists (Yale), pro-Awakening New Jersey Presbyterians (Princeton), devout Rhode Island Baptists (Brown), and mission-minded New Hampshire evangelicals (Dartmouth). These schools shared common commitments to the authority of the Word of God, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and the need for a Christian influence in society.

These early schools promoted a broad sense of calling and service. Many were designed to train faithful clergy. Massachusetts Puritans established Harvard, for instance, “dreading to leave an illiterate ministry to the churches, when our present ministers shall lie in the dust.” But Christian colleges also prepared students for careers in business, law, medicine, and education.

American colleges also encouraged independence and patriotism. During the American Revolution, British leaders complained that colleges were “seedbeds of sedition.” Longtime Princeton president John Witherspoon was a member of Congress, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and an advocate for American freedom. He was also a dedicated churchman and evangelist. His 1776 “Dominion of Providence over the Passions of Men,” the most famous sermon of the Revolutionary generation, included a passionate call for salvation before weighing any political considerations.

Early colleges were anchored in the American evangelical tradition. Great American evangelist and theologian Jonathan Edwards enthusiastically supported the pro-revival College of New Jersey (Princeton) and, at the end of his life, served as its president. Edwards’ grandson Timothy Dwight served as president of Yale College and, in 1802, was the catalyst for a remarkable campus awakening. The Yale Revival was a key component of the Second Great Awakening that transformed American society in the early 19th century. New Christian colleges popped up across the American frontier, founded by denominations born or invigorated by the Awakening.

Even public institutions had a vigorous Christian influence. The Rev. William McGuffey served as professor of moral philosophy at the University of Virginia. Best known for his “McGuffey’s Readers,” used to educate untold millions of American schoolchildren, he also taught essential elements of Christian morality and doctrine to students at Mr. Jefferson’s college.

Americans held a common conviction that true education rested, somehow, upon a biblical foundation and Christian principles. The great American universities, which grew to prominence in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, shared traditional mainline Protestant standards. James Duke’s great endowment of 1924 included a clear mission statement: “The aims of Duke University are to assert a faith in the eternal union of knowledge and religion set forth in the teachings and character of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”

One hundred years ago, American universities still formally affirmed their Christian character.

Then things changed. Prior to the 20th century, Christian values had a natural and expected place in American higher education. Over the next century, colleges and universities abandoned or muted the spiritual and religious messages of their founders. Increasingly committed to liberalism, secularism, humanism, and statism, cultural elites grew hostile to biblical Christianity. Some modernists now argue that faith-based institutions are antithetical to the spirit of American education.

In the midst of this cultural deterioration, Liberty University is refreshingly unique. Its Christian mission is clear. Its fundamental standards are unaltered. Its purpose — to Train Champions for Christ — remains constant. The doctrinal fidelity and Christian focus that make Liberty exceptional today was once commonplace in early American colleges. Liberty University resolutely stands on the biblical principles and Christian commitments that made our nation great.

Rational gospel knowledge

 

The more you have of a rational knowledge of the things of the gospel, the more opportunity will there be, when the Spirit shall be breathed into your heart, to see the excellency of these things, and to taste the sweetness of them. 

The heathens, who have no rational knowledge of the things of the gospel, have no opportunity to see the excellency of them; and therefore the more rational knowledge of these things you have, the more opportunity and advantage you have to see the divine excellency and glory of them.

Again, the more knowledge you have of divine things, the better will you know your duty; your knowledge will be of great use to direct you as to your duty in particular cases. 

You will also be the better furnished against the temptations of the devil. For the devil often takes the advantage of persons' ignorance to ply them with temptations, which otherwise would have no hold of them.

By having much knowledge, you will be under greater advantages to conduct yourselves with prudence and discretion in your Christian course, and so to live much more to the honor of God and religion. 

Many who mean well, and are full of a good spirit, yet, for want of prudence, conduct themselves so as to wound religion. 

Many have a zeal of God, which does more hurt than good, because it is “not according to knowledge” (Romans 10:2). 

The reason why many good men behave no better in many instances, is not so much that they want grace, as that they want knowledge.

Beside, an increase of knowledge would be a great help to profitable conversation. It would supply you with matter for conversation when you come together, or when you visit your neighbors: and so you would have less temptation to spend the time in such conversation as tends to your own and others' hurt.

Mist of darkness

A letter from Jonathan Edwards.

Stockbridge, October 30, 1755Madam,

I have very lately seen a gentleman, who has, not long since, been in London and Norwich in England, and conversed with many persons of note in each place, and with those of your particular acquaintance in the latter. 

And from the informations he has given me, concerning what he heard in both those places, especially in Norwich, I have reason to think that you have wrote and sent thither, that which has been much to the disadvantage of my reputation: which is the occasion of my writing this letter to you, the design of which is not to demand satisfaction, or to testify my resentment; but in calmness and charity to say something for myself, and in meekness to plead my cause, with one whom (however she has thought and spoke ill of me, and I have suffered much by her means, without cause) I can embrace in my charity, as a true follower of the Blessed Lamb of God. 

I am so sensible of the exceeding infirmity, we are the subjects of in the present state, that what I have heard lately and formerly of what you have expressed with warmth of spirit, to the disadvantage of my character (as I think unjustly) don't make it difficult with me to make large allowance, for what I know of the circumstances you have been in, since you came into this part of the world, greatly tending to prejudice you; 

and to introduce, and fix in your mind the most disadvantageous ideas of my temper and conduct, in many respects. 

I suppose I am well sensible, what has been abundantly said of me, by some persons, concerning my natural temper; and the light in which my behavior, in many instances of it, has been continually represented. Nor am I insensible, what parts of my conduct, both before and since I have been at Stockbridge, but especially since, have been looked upon as chiefly obnoxious to censure, by those whose representations you have been most in the way of.

'Tis no part of my present aim, to detract in the least from the character of those persons, or to endeavor to restore and support my own character on the spoils of theirs; but only to entreat you, Madam, sedately to consider, what may come to pass, through the general great infirmity of mankind, in this present state of imperfection, darkness and confusion; 

what diverse, and even opposite opinions of persons and things, men, even of good character, often receive, and strongly and zealously maintain. 

And especially, how often this happens in their opinions of persons that have acted in a public capacity, and very important station; 

and in the passages and incidents of whose lives, have occurred things that have been extraordinary, and beside the common course of events, and which have made much noise in the world, unusually attracting the observation, and engaging the attention and conversation of a country, and that in this case, it will be hard to form a right judgment: 

especially if such a person's conduct is so much, and so long the subject of talk, that in the issue, there is a division into different parties, of opposite opinions concerning the matter, and the affair is clouded with the dust of controversy, managed with zeal and earnestness; 

as often is the case. 

And that also sometimes things fall out exceeding unhappily between persons and families, in the general of good character, so that misunderstandings arise, prejudices are strangely imbibed, and strongly fixed. 

And though there be no real, or at least no great foundation, still the prejudice subsists; and by some means or other, a kind of mist of darkness is maintained, causing things to be viewed on each side in very false colors: in which, probably, the grand enemy of the peace and welfare of mankind has a great hand.

It is not hard to conceive that in such case, it may be next to impossible for a stranger, that comes from a far country, and falls wholly among one of these opposing parties, or misunderstanding families and at the very juncture when the controversy is at the greatest height; 

to view things in a true and clear light, or to avoid being greatly blinded, and strongly prejudiced, in the first forming and fixing a judgment of the affair; 

especially if it be fixed soon, without time for much circumspection, or any long deliberation. 

A person, Madam, of your discerning, and who has had your opportunities, must needs have observed much of this kind in the world. 

Therefore I would entreat you to consider whether this may not possibly be your case with respect to me. 

So it has pleased God to order in his providence, that my life has been attended with a succession of such incidents of various kinds, as have, for more than twenty years past, been the subjects of much noise in the country; 

about which others have been divided in their sentiments, and men's spirits have been engaged, with no small warmth, especially in some families. 

And I would pray you, Madam, to consider that you are a stranger in the country; and therefore cannot judge of such affairs, as if you had always lived in the country, and had, from the beginning, been acquainted with its affairs; the rise of different parties, the tempers, views, interests and manners of different combinations and families; the first original of misunderstandings, which are subsisting between persons of various sorts and sets; and that your lot, from your first arrival hither, or rather before your arrival, was cast among (or rather in union with) those who have been on one side, with regard to my affairs; and that you never have properly had any opportunity to hear what I have to say for myself, or to know how things would appear to you, if I were to have opportunity of free and full conversation with you.

If this had been, and I had been heard with candor, and you had a view of the story of my life, from the beginning, with all the circumstances of those passages of it, about which so much has been said, and with relation to which I have been so much blamed by some; 

you might probably have had quite other thoughts; 

and many things which now appear very dark and mysterious, might have been explained, and have appeared very intelligible to you; 

and you might be convinced that you have truly misapprehended facts, and misconceived of the principles and spirit from which I have acted, in many instances. 

Not that I am so vain as to pretend that my conduct has been so pure, that I have had no cause of self-reflection and humiliation before God. 

But this he knows, who searches my heart; that I have long made it my great care to approve myself to him, and to act in such a manner, and from such principles, as have been prescribed in the excellent rules which have been given, and the amiable and perfect example which has been set by him who is the Lamb of God, and light of the world. 

And this I know, that if, in the important business I am employed in, I have acted, as some suppose, from private resentment, from implacableness of spirit, or stiffness and willfulness of temper, or an assuming disposition, and fondness of rule and authority, or any principle of a like kind; 

I must have acted very contrary to the spirit and nature of the Christian religion, and extremely unbecoming the character of a minister of Jesus Christ; and never can expect to be justified before my great Master and judge.

But I forbear; perhaps any expressions which may seem to denote a confidence of my own integrity, may be thought to arise from ignorance of my own heart. 

And I confess that experience teaches me, the need of constantly maintaining of a watchful and jealous eye over my own heart, with humble prayer to God for light to enable me to judge truly of myself. 

But this I will venture to affirm with confidence, that if I have acted from such unchristian principles, and without an hatred of all remains of 'em in myself and habitual, earnest hungerings and thirstings after that righteousness, and true Christian piety and virtue, which consists in the contrary amiable dispositions of heart; 

attended with earnest cries to God, with many tears, as the infinite fountain and sovereign bestower of such precious endowments; 

it must be because I have been extremely and totally blinded concerning myself. 

My desire is, and has long been, that God would search me and prove my heart, and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. 

I desire to speak and act at all times, as having in view the account which I have shortly to give to that omniscient and righteous judge, who is not liable to be blinded by vain pretenses and professions, nor mislead by prejudices and misinformations.

I doubt not, Madam, but that you thought you had sufficient grounds for the judgment you have formed of my temper and conduct, and the report you have made of them. 

But I would entreat that there may yet be room for reflection and consideration, whether it is not possible that you may have apprehended things much worse than they are. If you should still think it your duty to persist in the same representations, which you have heretofore made to my disadvantage; and it should happen hereafter by divine providence that you should, by some means, come to be convinced, that you had wounded and greatly wronged an innocent person, and a minister of Jesus Christ; 

who, notwithstanding all that had been judged and said by others concerning him, had indeed been acting in the fear of God, with tenderness of conscience, endeavoring in all things to acquit himself to the divine acceptance; 

and was influenced by quite other principles than you imagined; 

would not this deeply affect a mind endowed with a truly Christian humility, candor and benevolence of heart, such as I charitably believe you are possessed of? 

However, if you never should have this conviction in this world of darkness, as possibly you may not I hope I shall always feel the same readiness to forgive you, which hitherto I have found; 

though I know myself to be much injured, and may perhaps greatly suffer through your report to my disadvantage. 

I shall comfort myself with hopes of the time when all God's people shall meet together in an unembarrassed, unalloyed charity, in a world of such clear and perfect light as shall abolish all misunderstandings, and even the strongest prejudices and dissipate the thickest clouds, through which many of them now view one another [under a] very false and disadvantageous light.

I know not, Madam, what construction you may put upon my writing as I now do. I know, when once persons have imbibed a deep prejudice against others, it has a tendency to cause them to look on everything they say or do in quite another light, than otherwise they would do. 

But I ask your candor; and I ask your prayers, that God would take away what he sees amiss in my heart. If I am so ill a person as you have conceived, I need your prayers the more.

I condole with you the loss you have sustained in the death of Col. [Elisha] Williams, your honorable consort; for whose sake you left your dear native land and crossed a vast ocean, to dwell in a strange land; and who doubtless, was under God, the greatest support and comfort of your life. 

That God would now appear as your mighty support and comforter, in your bereaved, desolate circumstances and sanctify the late death of this your nearest relation, and other relations, to you and me, is the sincere prayer of, Madam,

Your most respectful and humble servant,Jonathan Edwards.

http://edwards.yale.edu/archive?path=aHR0cDovL2Vkd2FyZHMueWFsZS5lZHUvY2dpLWJpbi9uZXdwaGlsby9nZXRvYmplY3QucGw/Yy4xNTo0OC53amVvLjE4NTA3NDguMTg1MDc1My4xODUwNzU2

Restoration of the Church in the latter days.

 

Most of the remarkable deliverances and restorations of the church of God, that we have account of in the Scripture, were in answer to prayer. 

So was the redemption of the church of God from the Egyptian bondage (Exodus 2:23 and Exodus 3:7). The great restoration of the church in the latter day, is often spoken of as resembled by this; as in Isaiah 64:1–4, Isaiah 11:11, Isaiah 11:15–16, Isaiah 43:2–3, Isaiah 43:16–19, Isaiah 51:10–11, Isaiah 51:15, Isaiah 63:11–13; Zechariah 10:10–11; Hosea 2:14–15. 

It was in answer to prayer, that the sun stood still over Gibeon, and the moon in the valley of Aijalon [Joshua 10:12], and God's people obtained that great victory over their enemies: in which wonderful miracle, God seemed to have some respect to a future more glorious event to be accomplished for the Christian church, in the day of her victory over her enemies, in the latter days; even that event foretold Isaiah 60:20. "Thy sun shall no more go down, neither shall thy moon withdraw itself." 

It was in answer to prayer, that God delivered his church from the mighty host of the Assyrians, in Hezekiah's time; which dispensation is abundantly made use of, as a type of the great things God will do for the Christian church in the latter days, in the prophecies of Isaiah. 

The restoration of the church of God from the Babylonish captivity, as abundantly appears both by scripture prophecies and histories, was in answer to extraordinary prayer; see Jeremiah 29:10–14, and Jeremiah 50:4–5; Daniel 9 throughout; Ezra 8:21 ff.; Nehemiah 1:4–11, Nehemiah 4:4–5, and Nehemiah 9 throughout. 

This restoration of the Jewish church, after the destruction of Babylon, is evidently a type of the glorious restoration of the Christian church, after the destruction of the kingdom of Antichrist; which (as all know) is abundantly spoken of in the Revelation of St. John, as the antitype of Babylon. Samson, out of weakness, received strength to pull down Dagon's temple, through prayer [Judges 16:28–30]. 

So the people of God, in the latter days, will out of weakness be made strong, and will become the instruments of pulling down the kingdom of Satan, by prayer.

...

As 'tis the glory of the church of Christ, that she, in all her members, however dispersed, is thus one, one holy society, one city, one family, one body; so it is very desirable, that this union should be manifested, and become visible; and so, that her distant members should act as one, in those things that concern the common interest of the whole body, and in those duties and exercises wherein they have to do with their common Lord and Head, as seeking of him the common prosperity. 

It becomes all the members of a particular family, who are so strictly united, and have in so many respects one common interest, to unite in prayer to God for the things they need: it becomes a nation, in days of prayer, appointed by national authority, at certain seasons, visibly to unite in Prayer for those public mercies that concern the interest of the whole nation: so it becomes the church of Christ, which is one holy nation, a Peculiar people, one heavenly family, more strictly united, in many respects, and having infinitely greater interests that are common to the

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whole, than any other society; I say, it especially becomes this society, visibly to unite, and expressly to agree together in prayer to God for the common prosperity; and above all, that common prosperity and advancement that is so unspeakably great and glorious, which God hath so abundantly promised to fulfill in the latter days.

It is becoming of Christians, with whose character a narrow selfish spirit, above all others, disagrees, to be much in prayer for that public mercy, wherein consists the welfare and happiness of the whole body of Christ, of which they are members, and the greatest good of mankind. And union or agreement in prayer is especially becoming, when Christians pray for that mercy, which above all other things concerns them unitedly, and tends to the relief, prosperity and glory of the whole body, as well as of each individual member.

.....

If these things that have been spoken of, are intended in the prophecy of the sixth vial, it affords, as I conceive, great reason to hope that the beginning of that glorious work of God's Spirit, which in the progress and issue of it, will overthrow Antichrist, and introduce the glory of the latter days, is not very far off.

http://edwards.yale.edu/archive?path=aHR0cDovL2Vkd2FyZHMueWFsZS5lZHUvY2dpLWJpbi9uZXdwaGlsby9nZXRvYmplY3QucGw/Yy40OjUud2plby4xMTIyMDUz