I read George Marsden’s Reforming Fundamentalism: Fuller Seminary and the New Evangelicalism last week and have been mulling it over before writing about it. Then yesterday I got distracted and read Hanna Rosin’s God’s Harvard: A Christian College on a Mission to Save America. I had seen Ms. Rosin discuss her book on CSPAN’s Booknotes before and had heard about Patrick Henry College through various media outlets as well as from those who had strong opinions about the school. Much has been written about the school and reviews of Ms. Rosin’s book abound.
In my last post I questioned whether such vehement hostility to the Christian revisionist history of our Founding Fathers was the appropriate response, especially when the facts examined objectively paint a different picture. Well, God’s Harvard only adds fuel to that fire and would easily excite those who already fear an imminent theocracy.
In chapter four, America Is a Christian Nation, Capital “C”, Capital “N,” Rosin writes:
Among the revisionists, every possible utterance of faith by the Founders is seized upon as proof that they had more in common with modern-day evangelicals than with today’s secular elite. By now the details are familiar to anyone who’s waded into this propaganda corner of the culture war: that George Washington improvised “so help me God” at the conclusion of the first presidential oath, that Lincoln quoted the Bible endlessly, that even Thomas Jefferson, author of “separation of church and state,” was comforted on his deathbed by a passage from the Gospel of Luke. (p. 113)
Rosin also noted that students go on “spiritual heritage tours” of the United States Capitol Building led by David Barton, whose organization “Wall Builders” conveys an agenda that differs from their actual efforts to raze the wall.
Part of the curriculum required ”Freedom’s Foundations.” If the school’s founder Michael Farris taught the class it would closely resemble the Christian Nation narrative. At the time Rosin was visiting the school to research her book, however, Dr. Robert Stacey taught the course. He would challenge the predominately home-schooled students preconceived notions and teach them how to think objectively about the Founding Fathers by starting with Greek and Roman thought. The bad and discouraging news is that Stacey was fired in 2006 due to his debate with the administration over “intellectual freedom.”
Much has been made about Patrick Henry College’s ability to get some of their best and brightest into the Bush administration and numerous senator and congressional offices. Their infiltration into these offices with an outspoken evangelical President of the United States provides further fodder for those who see a theocracy threat. One has to wonder though what a blow it will be to PCH when they no longer enjoy access to a White House occupied by the Clintons or Obama.
As the reality of rough and tumble politics sets in, those students and graduates find themselves immersed in a culture that often forces them to question their belief system or keep mum about it in order to advance or so not to be viewed as the eccentric uncle who just wandered down from the eastern Kentucky hill country.
Yet, as Rosin writes:
In all my time at Patrick Henry, I never met a student, even among the enraged and disillusioned, who declared that he or she no longer believed in God. Eventually, all of them found their way to safe ground, even it it wasn’t the same ground they walked on (p. 124).
Their critics might wish they would revert to their fundamentalists forefathers practice of separating from the world and go hide under a rock. But they won’t. These students and graduates are deftly depicted by Rosin as intelligent kids dealing with typical life struggles who possess ambitions that will have them competing in the marketplace of ideas for better or for worse.
