Welcome to Harvard

In the shadow of medieval cathedrals, the pursuit of truth took institutional form. Christian scholasticism—rooted in the conviction that all knowledge serves the Creator—birthed the world’s earliest universities. These were not mere academies of rote learning but crucibles for integrating faith and reason, drawing from Scripture’s mandate to love God with mind and strength (Deut 6:5; Matt 22:37). Figures like Thomas Aquinas exemplified this, synthesizing divine revelation with Aristotelian logic to glorify God alone.

Consider the evidence: The University of Bologna (not Oscar Mayer U) emerged in 1088 from canon law studies, training clergy to uphold biblical justice. Oxford (1096) and Cambridge (1209) flourished under church patronage, fostering theologians who defended orthodoxy against heresy. The Sorbonne in Paris (c. 1150) became a beacon for scholastic debate, all under the Church’s light and wing. These institutions proclaimed that true wisdom begins with the fear of the Lord (Prov. 1:7-9), not human ideology or invention. They equipped minds for service in Christ’s kingdom, producing leaders who built societies on covenant loyalty rather than Babel’s towers.

Contrast this with the encroaching shadow of “progressive” paganism—ideologies that masquerade as enlightenment but echo the Serpent’s whisper: “You will be like God” (Gen 3:5). Such depraved systems, divorced from God’s Word, amplify humanity’s corruption (Jer 17:9). They breed degradation, not dignity; superstition, not science; oppression, not liberty; lies, not truth. Pagan Rome’s excesses—gladiatorial bloodlust, emperor worship—foreshadowed the pattern: when the creature supplants the Creator (Rom 1:25), minds darken, societies crumble. Welcome to Harvard.

Secularization accelerates this fall. Once Christian bastions of learning now chase the world’s applause, yielding to ideologies that suppress truth (Rom 1:18). Harvard University, founded in 1636 to train Puritan ministers in the Scriptures, exemplifies the iceberg’s tip. In 2025, it appointed Kareem Khubchandani—a Tufts professor who openly performs as the drag queen “LaWhore Vagistan”—as visiting associate professor in studies of women, gender, and sexuality. His courses dissect “queer ethnography” and RuPaul’s Drag Race, platforms that revel in sexual confusion and rebellion against God’s design for manhood and womanhood (Gen 1:27; Rom 1:26-27). This is no isolated folly; it’s the fruit of minds handed over to dishonorable passions (Rom 1:24), where “higher learning” devolves into self-worship via the suppression of truth in wickedness (Rom 1:18-20)

Pointing out truth, i.e., that which corresponds with reality, isn't hate speech. Human depravity is an unrelenting pandemic: campuses rife with identity cults, cancel culture’s inquisitions, and curricula that prioritize feelings over facts. These echo the ancient world’s idolatries—fertility rites rebranded as “inclusion”—leading not to flourishing but fragmentation, loneliness, and moral anarchy. Without the anchor of God’s inerrant Word, education becomes a tool for the Accuser, stealing souls under the guise of progress (2 Cor 11:14).

Yet hope endures in Christ, the Wisdom of God (1 Cor 1:24). The Gospel alone regenerates depraved hearts, granting minds renewed for truth (Rom 12:2). Examine yourself: Are you gathering in Christ’s body, growing in His Word, giving your life fully, and going as witnesses (Matt 12:30; Eph. 4:15-16; Acts 1:8)? Flee counterfeit kingdoms; surrender to the King who crushes the Serpent (Gen 3:15). In Him, true learning—and true life—begins.

Blessings and love,

Kevin M. Kelley

Pastor

BigIslandChristianChurch.com