What evangelicals can learn from the Harvard controversy

Harvard is America’s wealthiest and oldest university. Long viewed as an icon of higher education, it is in the news these days for a very different reason. Earlier this week, the Trump administration announced that it would withhold $2.26 billion in federal support for the university. The next day, the administration threatened to withdraw the university’s tax-exempt status as well. 

This after the university stated it would not acquiesce to a list of demands regarding antisemitism, diversity, equity, and inclusion on campus and in admissions and faculty hiring.

According to Harvard President Alan Garber, the administration’s demands amount to “direct governmental regulation of the ‘intellectual conditions’ at Harvard.” Critics point out that, because Harvard is a private university, the government has no obligation to provide funding for it and a right to fund only those programs and initiatives it considers to be in the public’s best interest.

How do Americans view Ivy League schools?

My purpose in responding today is to focus less on this debate than on the cultural context in which it is occurring.

Ten years ago, 57 percent of Americans said they had a “great deal/quite a lot” of confidence in higher education in the US. Today that number has fallen precipitously to 36 percent. Over the same decade, the number who said they had “very little/none” has more than tripled, from 10 percent to 32 percent.

Within the spectrum of US colleges and universities, community colleges are viewed the most favorably at 79 percent, followed by trade and technical colleges at 78 percent. Public colleges and universities are viewed favorably by 68 percent of Americans, and liberal arts colleges by 54 percent.

At the bottom of the list stands Ivy League colleges and universities, with a mere 48 percent favorability rating.

The ideology at the heart of the issue

Of all the factors that contribute to this trend, the issues confronting Harvard are especially foundational. Since Hamas’s murderous October 7 invasion of Israel, Americans have witnessed pro-Hamas student demonstrations on campuses around the country, but especially in the Ivy League. Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs have also been highly prominent and controversial on the same campuses.

These demonstrations and programs are fueled by an ideology that is opaque to most people but has become foundational for elite higher education.

In the 1970s, a movement called Critical Theory (CT) began gaining a foothold in academic circles. Its origins go back to Karl Marx, who believed everything is based on sociology and economics. 

Marx argued that workers are oppressed by the companies for which they work and the ruling class that owns and operates these companies. He claimed that the way forward was for the workers (whom he called the “proletariat”) to overthrow their rulers (whom he called the “bourgeoisie”) to establish a “classless” society.

CT advocates in the US have applied this worldview to class distinctions within our democracy. Diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives intended to favor minority groups are a significant consequence of such thinking.

In addition, CT in geopolitics views people as either colonizers (oppressors) or those who are colonized (the oppressed). Applied to Israel and Hamas, it claims that Israel is the oppressor and that Hamas is defending the oppressed Palestinians. Whatever we might think of Hamas’s violence on October 7, its advocates claim, we should see it as a response to Israel’s violence against Palestinians over the years.

If all of this seems highly abstract, speculative, and irrelevant to your daily life, you’re making my point.

My experience with Harvard students

When I was considering options for my PhD in philosophy of religion, Harvard was on my list. Like many in the academic world, I was impressed by its history and intellectual vigor. The university was known as a community in search of unfettered truth.

In fact, its motto, Veritas, is Latin for “truth.”

I chose not to consider Harvard primarily so I could study with Dr. John Newport, one of the finest evangelical philosophers in America. My time with him at Southwestern Seminary was all I hoped for and more. But I often wondered what I would have experienced if I had pursued my degree at Harvard. A few years later, I was privileged to deliver a lecture series at a church that is part of the larger Harvard community, where I had fascinating discussions with students who welcomed my evangelical perspective.

If that was then, this is now.

In a recent survey taken by the Harvard Crimson (the university’s newspaper), more than three-quarters of the faculty surveyed identified as “liberal” or “very liberal.” Only 20 percent considered themselves to be “moderate,” while only 3 percent identified as “conservative.” Among students graduating from the university in 2023, only 15.4 percent of men and 8.7 percent of women considered themselves to be conservative.

This at a time when self-identified “liberals” comprise only a fourth of Americans, while 37 percent identify as conservative and 36 percent as moderate. It’s easy to see why many people consider schools like Harvard to be out of touch with the rest of us.

“He reasoned with them from the Scriptures”

My purpose during this Holy Week is not to prescribe a solution to the controversies surrounding Harvard today but to learn from them.

Like advocates of ideologies driving the culture on many elite campuses, followers of Jesus can seem irrelevant to the rest of our secularized society. We believe that a Jewish rabbi who was executed by Rome twenty centuries ago came back to life and is relevant to every dimension of our lives today. We further believe that everyone we know needs to know our risen Lord.

Having grown up in a family that never attended church, I remember how outlandish such claims seemed to me when I first heard them. If the Christians I met had refused to engage with me on my terms—answering my questions and helping me understand their beliefs—I would have remained lost.

Here we can learn from the example of Paul who, when he came to the Greek city of Thessalonica, “reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, and saying, ‘This Jesus, whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ’” (Acts 17:2–3).

Note his strategy: he reasoned with them (translating the Greek dialegomai, to dialogue or converse) in a spirit of genuine conversation and inquiry. He did so by explaining (“opening up for understanding”) and proving (“persuading through evidence of truth”) the message of the gospel.

As a result, “Some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a great many of the devout Greeks and not a few of the leading women” (v. 4).

“Run to and fro everywhere, holy fires”

Now it’s our turn. Across this Holy Week and all the weeks that follow, let’s not assume that people know what we know or care about what we care about. Rather, let’s look for opportunities to help people understand God’s love in Christ. Let’s make clear the truth of the gospel and demonstrate its relevance through our compassion and integrity.

We can stand for veritas because the One we worship and serve is “the” truth (John 14:6).

St. Augustine encouraged us:

“Run to and fro everywhere, holy fires, beautiful fires; for you are the light of the world, nor are you put under a bushel. He whom you cleave unto is exalted and has exalted you. Run to and fro and be known unto all nations.”

How will you spread your “holy fire” today?