Harvard was founded in 1636 as a Christian seminary. For generations it trained ministers and leaders for Massachusetts and the young American nation. The Puritan divines were well educated, their writing precise and often eloquent. Over two centuries, the axis of university religion turned from Puritanism to transcendentalism (Unitarianism, essentially) and from there to a pluralism that honored religion in general but nodded toward conventional Protestantism. This latter era is expressed well in the beautiful neo-Georgian Memorial Church, built at the head of The Yard in 1932 to honor Harvard men who died in World War I. But even in the first two thirds of the Twentieth Century, Harvard was also characterized by sophisticated skepticism. Then came the '60s and things got worse.
Today Harvard students go to church, some say in record numbers; but the culture of the university is hostile to religion, presented in that supercilious manner often associated with Harvard.
For faculty star Stephen Pinker--evangelist for evolution, atheism and animal rights--religion has no place at such a fine educational institution. ("Pinker to John Harvard," a New York Post headline might read, "Drop Dead.")
Lisa Miller's recent article in Newsweek about this subject continues to draw attention, including from Harvard undergraduates. The article itself unconsciously draws a line between those who, like Pinker, want to banish teaching about religion (unless the course is about the evils of religion) and those who think that an educated person in our day, or any day, must know something of the rich patrimony of religious faith.
Even many atheists admit the debt our culture owes the Torah, the King James Bible, the English Book of Common Prayer, the Mayflower Compact, and so forth. To truly banish religion would be to cloud the works of Dante and Milton, modernists like Hemingway and Faulkner and--a preacher I once heard at Mem Church pronounce on the theology of work--Martin Luther King, Jr. Materialists like Pinker imagine that even the musical works of Handel, such as The Messiah, can be explained as the product of evolutionary drives. But how many serious musicians think that?
So, students need to understand the rich field of religious allusion that informs Western (and non-Western) art, writing and music. But there is still a problem with that approach--religion as cultural artifact. Even Miller and Newsweek blink the reality that religion speaks not just about culture, but speaks through culture about truth ("Veritas", as the Harvard motto says). In the Cold War Rheinhold Neibuhr lectured to grateful Harvard students, as did many other theologians whose works addressed social as well as spiritual issues. The Preacher to the University in the late 50s and early 60s, Dr. George Buttrick, a Presbyterian, didn't just preach about the Gospel, he preached the Gospel.
Since when is it bad for educators to embrace the subjects they teach, to have opinions about the work they know? If students can handle committed Marxists teaching economics and political science, why can't they manage committed Jews and Christians teaching about Judaism and Christianity?
Religious scholars are not problems for one another. There is remarkable understanding and respect among believing Jews and Christians, and for that matter, other faiths. The obstacle is the True-Believer atheist like Pinker who will brook no competition for his illiberal secular dogma.
