Ivy League Faith

For nearly 400 years, America's Ivy League schools have helped shape America -- for better or worse.

Today, the Ivy League is known more for its liberal ideologies, but the beginning days of the Ivy League were rooted in the Christian faith.

The roots of Christianity reach deep into all of the nation's Ivy League schools. Harvard was established primarily to train ministers to evangelize the Atlantic seaboard.

A statue of John Harvard - a young minister when he came over from England, still stands in Harvard yard. Chartered in 1636, Harvard remained dedicated to Christian education for more than 200 years.

Historian Peter Marshall said, "The rules of Harvard said if any student does not believe that the Scriptures are the inspired word of God - he is subject to immediate dismissal. So you're going to get thrown out of the college if you reject the infallible role of Holy Scripture."

But as rationalism and the ideas of the enlightenment took hold, the role of Scripture waned. To counter that, Yale University was born. While patterned after Harvard, Yale's founders were told to create an institution where "youth may be instructed in the arts and sciences, who through the blessing of Almighty God may be fit for employment both in the church and civil state."

"It was part of the rules at Yale College that students had to read the daily Scripture readings," Marshall explained. "There were Scriptures assigned to the students for each day, and the rules said that a student had to be ready to give evidence of his understanding of that Scripture."

Though one of America's greatest revivals -- the Second Great Awakening -- began there, Yale battled the same drift toward a godless education as Harvard.

In response, Princeton began as a Presbyterian college, with its first president, Reverend Jonathan Dickson, saying, "Cursed be all learning that is contrary to the cross of Christ."

After the Civil War, Darwin's "The Origin of Species" ate away at many students' faith. And Marshall says that over the next several decades, evolution and secularism transformed America's universities.

He said, "By the 1920's, I would say this process was virtually complete - and now what we have is that almost every single discipline that you would come across -- from history to economics to politics to everything else in the university -- never mentions God."

Today, nearly 400 years since the first university was founded -- is there any hope that our great American colleges and universities will return to any real Christian basis and that the Christian faith will once again make an impact on these campuses?

Princeton student Parker Henritze was expecting to be on her own as a Christian, but found many believers on campus.

Henritze said, "I was shocked at how quickly I was able to assimilate into Christian life."

Today, she helps to lead a new ministry called Christian Union. Its mission: make an impact on the eight Ivy League universities.

Marshall says that similar ministries are springing up across the Ivy League -- proof of the hope that these once very Christian universities may one day return to their roots, and indeed, to the covenant made with God in their early days.

"Yes, I think there is that hope," Marshal said. "There are some interesting signs these days, a lot of people, graduates and those who didn't go to Ivy League Schools, have been praying fervently for God to bring back the Christian faith on to these campuses. "And there are signs that this is happening."

David Manuel, co-author "The Light and the Glory" said, "That's where the revival is now -- it's isolated candles. But very soon, we sense. That He's going to bring the candles together, and when He does, the combined candle power is going to be brilliant, and it's going to be astonishing many people."

The key to revival in New England, and indeed the whole country, they believe, rests in those halls of higher learning scattered throughout New England. Christian radio station owner Alex Canavan tells of a prophecy that Bible teacher Derek Prince brought to Boston back in 1972.

"And in it he said that Boston is the Jericho of the United States," Canavan recalled. "And the Lord says that 'when I cause the walls of intellectualism to come tumbling down, then I shall pour out my Spirit upon this whole land.' And it's our sense that when Harvard and M.I.T. come back to Christ, then the world's going to take note."

And Pastor Paul Taylor, who directs the Northeast Prayer Center believes that New England, from the Ivy League on, will come full circle back to a vibrant faith in God, largely because of the commitment made in America's infant days.

Taylor said, "This is where the Pilgrims did land, this is where the Pilgrims made covenant with God to be a Gospel, covenant-keeping people."