HARVARD – A COLLEGE “INTENDED” TO TRAIN MINISTERS

The purpose for which something is started is an indication of the aim and the objective of the founding fathers. The aim and the objective is the essence of the vision, and the driving force for the furtherance of the vision. 

On 8th September, in the year 1636, the Massachusetts Puritans, lay the foundation for a college, in New Towne, Cambridge, USA, just six years after founding the town. It was initially called, “the New College.” It is North America’s first ever institution of higher education. 

Two years after its founding, in 1639, the college was renamed “Harvard College” after Rev. John Harvard, a learned English Protestant minister, who migrated to America. On his deathbed Rev. Harvard bequeathed half his estate, and his entire library of 400 volumes, to the fledgling college. 

The purpose of Harvard College was to train ministers. Today, Harvard is one of the best colleges in the world, known for its academic excellence. Yet, Harvard is not known for what it was originally founded to be – to train ministers. What a tragedy, isn’t it? Same is the case with a lot of the things in the “Christian” West. A good and honest question to ask is, why? Why did it happen so? So much so, that today, “Christian” West is known more for its anti-Christian ideas and ideologies, than Christian. Bill Muehlenberg, writing in his article, “Where To Now? Living In an Anti-Christian West” says…
– “If you are an older person raised in the West – as I am – you will have lived through three different periods: Christian, post-Christian, and anti-Christian.”
– “You would have been born in a largely Christian period, in which most folks – even if they were not actually Christian themselves – shared and believed in biblical truths and values. Even the institutions such as education, the media, politics, and business more or less reflected the Christian worldview.”
– “Then you moved to the next phase where Christianity began to have less and less influence and clout in society. Sure, most folks still paid lip service to Christianity, but it increasingly played less of an important role in the lives of more and more people.”
– “And then we have life in the West today where Christians have become the new counterculture. Much of society and its institutions have declared war on the church and the people of God. Hostility to Christians is now found everywhere and is simply getting worse.”

A lesson for all of us to learn, in apostle Paul’s words – always reminding ourselves the purpose, and never forgetting it.
– “26 Therefore I run thus: not with uncertainty. Thus I fight: not as one who beats the air. 27 But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.” – 1 Corinthians 9:26-27