{"id":15,"date":"2021-09-03T23:54:00","date_gmt":"2021-09-03T23:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/klynnlewis.com\/maybles\/?p=15"},"modified":"2022-02-07T02:22:45","modified_gmt":"2022-02-07T02:22:45","slug":"woefully-bereft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/klynnlewis.com\/maybles\/woefully-bereft\/","title":{"rendered":"Woefully Bereft"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Atheist unanimously elected president of Harvard Chaplains<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

God started it. He designed the universe and everything in it.  He created people, family, and community, and instructed leaders to teach children and adults His commands, to obey and fear Him, and to love Him with all one\u2019s heart, soul, and strength (Dt. 6:1-7). Yet, people have historically sought to cast off God\u2019s constraints, complained about His commandments, ignored His chastisements, denigrated His Word, and even denied His existence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Compare Harvard University\u2019s recent unanimous election of an atheist as President of Harvard Chaplains to the sentiments expressed on the \u201cNew England First Fruits\u201d tablet at Harvard\u2019s Johnston Gate entrance (see photo above<\/em>). After the early settlers thanked God for safe passage across the ocean, built their houses and places to worship God, and settled the civil government, they chose as their next priority the advancement of learning so as to avoid leaving an illiterate ministry upon the deaths of their living ministers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Massachusetts colony leaders founded the college in 1636; received the first printing press on the continent in 1638 and printed the first book in America, \u201cThe Whole Booke of Psalms,\u201d in 1640; named the college after benefactor and clergyman John Harvard in 1639; adopted \u201cRules and Precepts\u201d in 1646 that included admonitions to \u201cLet every student be plainly instructed, and earnestly pressed to consider well, the main end of his life and studies is, to know God and Jesus Christ which is eternal life, John 17:3, and therefore to lay Christ in the bottom, as the only foundation of all sound knowledge and learning\u201d; officially chartered Harvard in 1650 for the \u201ceducation of the English and Indian youth of this country in knowledge and godliness\u201d; and established their early motto as Veritas Christo et Ecclesiae, \u201cTruth for Christ and the Church.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now however, three and a half plus centuries later, Greg Epstein, Humanist Chaplain at Harvard, has been elected to lead the university\u2019s more than 40 chaplains from more than 20 religious traditions. Although a Rabbi who doesn\u2019t believe in God, he professionally trains clergy who seek to minister to nonreligious people. He holds three religious degrees and has been named one of the top national leaders in faith and morality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Epstein, \u201cThere is a rising group of people who no longer identify with any religious tradition but still experience a real need for conversation and support around what it means to be a good human and live an ethical life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t look to a god for answers; we are each other\u2019s answers.\u201d <\/p>Greg Epstein, President of Harvard Chaplains<\/em><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In Psalm 2:1-3, the psalmist laments that nations conspire and people plot in vain against the Lord and his anointed saying, \u201cLet us break off their chains and throw off their shackles.\u201d In doing so, people imagine themselves free of God, free of religious obligations, and free of perceived archaic rules and precepts. But, what of their claims about goodness and ethical living?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Apart from God and His Word, \u201cgoodness\u201d and \u201cethics\u201d have nothing but human opinions to define them.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Isn\u2019t it odd when people who do not want to obey God\u2019s Word, or even believe in God, still impose religious beliefs on themselves and engage in religious activities? Remember the disobedient Hebrews in the wilderness who worshipped a golden idol they crafted themselves? Remember the northern kingdom of Israel\u2019s first king, Jeroboam, who built his own altars and an entire system of corrupt worship based on his own ideas instead of the Lord\u2019s commands? Consider the Pharisees and Sadducees, Greeks and Romans, and hundreds of other groups and cultures throughout history \u2013 including some religious and secular cultures and institutions today \u2013 that have borrowed from God to fabricate their own religious rules and traditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harvard\u2019s founders valued literacy; believed in the duty of parents and communities to ensure that children could read and write and interpret the Bible for themselves; and helped pass the \u201cOld Deluder Satan Act of 1647\u201d to establish schools to thwart \u201cye old deluder, Satan\u201d from keeping \u201cmen from the knowledge of ye Scriptures.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, Harvard has thousands of employees, an average of 22,000 students enrolled, and 400,000+ alumni. Some probably still embrace Harvard\u2019s Gospel roots. However, most of Harvard\u2019s 385-year old, nearly $42 billion endowment and $5+ billion annual budget (funded 20% by student income, 46% by charitable gifts, and the rest mostly by sponsors) no longer seems primarily dedicated to promoting \u201cTruth for Christ and the Church.\u201d Rather, led by an institutionally respected atheist in an increasingly secular culture woefully bereft of the Word of God and the Gospel of Jesus Christ, they seek their answers elsewhere.<\/em> They think of themselves as free and learned, in spite of Harvard\u2019s original institutional admonition that Jesus Christ is the only foundation of all sound knowledge and learning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Harvard is not alone.<\/strong> \u201cNon-religious\u201d is the fastest growing \u201creligious\u201d group in America, including four in ten millennials who identify as agnostic, atheist, or nonreligious. Many other colleges and universities \u2013 similarly founded by Christians and based on biblical principles \u2013 have abandoned the Bible and the Gospel in favor of humanistic faith, ethics, and ideals. These teachings \u2013 syncretistic amalgamations of godless opinions often embedded with flecks of biblical truths and strands of Christian values \u2013 are ultimately pervasive and destructive. They lead students of all ages astray through half-truths, outright lies, and rejections of multiple realities, including God Himself and the truth of His Word.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I would love The Bible Seminary (TBS) to have the leverage of Harvard\u2019s enrollment, endowment, and educational clout. But, only to the extent that TBS always maintains that the purpose of life and studies is to know God and Jesus Christ, which is eternal life (John 17:3), and that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding (Proverbs 9:10).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ultimately, God will finish what He started. Until then, heed the psalmist\u2019s counsel, \u201cBe wise, be warned, serve the Lord with fear and celebrate his rule with trembling. Kiss his son, or he will be angry and your way will lead to your destruction\u2026blessed are all those who take refuge in him\u201d (Psalm 2:10-12).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Atheist unanimously elected president of Harvard Chaplains God started it. He designed the universe and everything in it.  He created people, family, and community, and instructed leaders to teach children and adults His commands, to obey and fear Him, and to love Him with all one\u2019s heart, soul, and strength (Dt. 6:1-7). Yet, people have…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":71,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,4],"tags":[9,12,10,8,13,11,7,14,15,16],"class_list":["post-15","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-maybles","category-non-fiction","tag-bible","tag-christianity","tag-faith","tag-jesus","tag-leadership","tag-maybles","tag-priorities","tag-society","tag-theology","tag-worldview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/klynnlewis.com\/maybles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/klynnlewis.com\/maybles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/klynnlewis.com\/maybles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klynnlewis.com\/maybles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klynnlewis.com\/maybles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/klynnlewis.com\/maybles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":140,"href":"https:\/\/klynnlewis.com\/maybles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15\/revisions\/140"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klynnlewis.com\/maybles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/klynnlewis.com\/maybles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klynnlewis.com\/maybles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klynnlewis.com\/maybles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}