Academic Freedom
God and Man at Yale, by William F. Buckley
Reviewed by Chris Horton

"We deny the existence of any supernatural being or beings, including religious dieties [sic]. We support the empirical method and wish to spread an appreciation of science and the use of its logic and rational methods. We seek to solve problems not through faith and prayer, but through solutions that are logically sound. We provide support for individuals that have encountered prejudice due to their choice to follow atheism, agnosticism, or humanism." (Mission of Yale College Humanist Society. See www.yale.edu)

"Yale has been a site of active lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender culture, academia, and politics beginning in the late seventies and continuing today. While still facing homophobia, Yale has been home to numerous scholars and activists before us who worked with vision and determination to increase visibility and change Yale for the better. Today, a vibrant queer community works to insure that opportunity, support, and expression continue to grow." (Mission of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual Cooperative at Yale.)

William Buckley was simply your average, concerned Roman Catholic. He wrote a book called God and Man at Yale: The Superstitions of Academic Freedom in 1951 to expose the problems that he saw at Yale. He saw that the professors in the Religion department were not teaching orthodox truths of the Christian faith. Some of them openly denied the faith, and were professed atheists and agnostics. The economics department used textbooks that taught the benefits of government control of pig iron, steel, electric, water and social security. The administration and alumni were losing control of the faculty. The professors screamed, "academic freedom," whenever their views were questioned. One should not teach dogmatic truth at all! Let the students make up their own minds! But, Buckley asked, where would this relativism lead?

In regards to explaining where relativism leads, Buckley is extremely far-sighted. For example, he expresses his concern regarding Dwight Hall, the center of Christianity at Yale, where, at least in 1951, there was a confessional statement (albeit vague), groups met to witness to non-believers, and the Bible was at least nominally studied. Buckley's concern, however, is the lack of doctrinal accuracy. Without doctrinal distinctive, where does Christianity lead? Please read the mission statement of Dwight Hall for the academic year of 1999:

"Dwight Hall is an independent nonprofit organization that exists to promote community service and social justice. Community service seeks to address the immediate needs of individuals and communities while social justice seeks to improve the well-being of society by addressing the fundamental causes of social ills….Associate Chaplain: Rev. Cynthia A. Terry."

Where does non-confessional Christianity lead? You can draw your own conclusions. I don't want to be dogmatic.

It is clear that Yale has slipped off the slippery slope. They have gone off the deep end. One warning for Christians is that without faith, work and semper reformanda, all institutions will go off the deep end, including educational, governmental, familial, and ecclesiastical. I highly recommend Buckley's book, for the sole purpose of demonstrating the importance of Christian education and the importance of staying faithful to the Scriptures. He provides a real world example of a school fallen prey to the post-Christian lies.

Seeing Better
Through New Eyes, by James Jordan
Reviewed by R.C. Sproul Jr.

Sometimes I worry about me. I have trouble fitting in. Because I'm nice to theonomists, some non-theonomists don't like me. Because I'm not a theonomist, some theonomists don't like me. Some good Reformed folk consider me a devil because I'm not a presuppositionalist. Some Christians don't like that I think like a libertarian. And no libertarian will ever like me because I'm a Christian. But perhaps nothing is more dangerous about my worldview than that I've been profoundly influenced by the writings of James Jordan. His trouble, in the eyes of many, is not that he is friendly to theonomists, but isn't one. It's not that he believes in liturgical worship and paedo-communion. His trouble is his hermeneutic. Among those who are familiar with him Jordan is often laughed off as a crazy Originian, a person given to allegorical flights of fantasy.

And that's why I love him so much. (In fact, I'm using his commentary on Judges as my principle source as I preach through Samuel's book.) Jordan finds things in the text of Scripture that probably aren't there, as his critics charge. But he also finds more in the text that is there than all his critics combined. Through New Eyes serves as an introduction to such thinking. As conservatives we tend to come to the Bible as Enlightenment scientists. We dissect the language, parse it to pieces and too often kill the patient. And we miss the point. The new eyes that Jordan gives, however, are not new at all. He helps us to read the Bible with the eyes and the mind of a Hebrew. Jordan affirms the inerrancy and the historicity of the Bible, and argues that there is a message behind the news, that God ordered history to speak about Himself, and His plan to redeem His bride.

Through New Eyes opened my eyes to the beauty of the Scripture, to its poetic majesty and richness. No longer would I treat it as a mere source of corroborating quotes for a well-oiled systematic theology. But just as the poetry doesn't deny the science, neither does it undo the precision of systematic theology. More often than not it helps remove anomalies. The book does what its subtitle suggests, "Developing a Biblical Worldview." The book covers how the Bible talks about the nature of the world, the features of the world, the transformation of the world, and the movement of history. In the end you'll probably find, as I did, that I was still a captive of the enlightenment, and so still stuck in the dark.

Sorry to report that the book is currently out of print. You can, however, get a photocopy of it through Mr. Jordan's ministry, Biblical Horizons. You can find them at (800) 648-0802, or at www.hornes.org/biblicalhorizons/.