The current stand-off in a clash between President Trump and Harvard University is part of a much bigger story than many people realise. Looking at the dispute in a wider context relates it to the so-called culture wars under way in America. The opposing sides in these wars, representing two ways of understanding the world, can clearly be identified in this Harvard/Trump confrontation. The defiant stand being taken by Harvard against the Trump administration that seeks to control it, may be seen as a skirmishing before a major, if not historic, battle in that war.
The so-called culture wars which appear in different guises all over the world, refer to the passionate and intense convictions that people have about the way the world is, or should be, changing. Speaking very generally, one side will look mainly to the past as the key to understanding the present. Sometimes the past that is evoked is entirely mythical. American politicians sometimes nostalgically look back to the 50s as time where ‘family values’ were practised. Much of this nostalgia is romantic and false. The levels of domestic violence, though hidden, were then tragically high in many countries including the United States. The Church has its own versions of a gold-tinted past, with memories of packed churches and a place where leaders enjoyed respect and honour from society. Meanwhile the Church was also presiding over abuse and dark institutions like mother and baby homes, where cruelties were being practised routinely. Much of the struggle of the culture wars seems to centre around how we deal with the past. Is it a model for the present or should we always be seeking ways to grow up and beyond our past? Do we identify, in short, mainly with the forces of conservatism or those of progressivism? In a political setting we identify this struggle as one between right and left.
The attempt by Donald Trump to undermine all the main institutions of America is a struggle to overwhelm and batter into submission all opposition to his personal vision and his desire to dominate the whole of American society. I do not want to go down the rabbit hole of discussing motivations for his attempting this massive task, but I observe that this political experiment will take a long time to unravel by a future government. Trump is, in essence, fighting on behalf of ultra-conservatives to bring back a mythical past when America was great and dominant in the world, both economically and militarily. It will also enable the massive enrichment of a small band of his cronies, including his family. The fantasy of being omnipotent is also one that many people entertain inside. It is also the ultimate desire which the narcissist possesses. To want such control and domination means that one has had to discard all attempts at empathy for others along the way. Individuals are used and then discarded with no attempt to reward them over a period. Promises are made and quickly broken when the other individual has served their purpose. Ultimately Trump is every bit as dangerous as his critics have made out. He is proving willing to use the entire American nation in his project to fulfil his megalomaniacal aims for complete control.
Where does Harvard come into this? Harvard University represents a natural ideological centre of opposition to the megalomaniacal ideas of a man like Trump. It represents an older wiser America, firmly rooted in the real world of history, education, law and science for the past 250 years of its existence. It was founded in the early 17th century and was fully exposed to the later Enlightenment tradition that was sweeping over American universities as it was in Europe. The Enlightenment may not have been the means to discover certainty in every discipline, but it taught the people of Western Europe new intellectual values – the importance of debate and the constant need to challenge presuppositions. One maxim came to typify this new approach to knowledge and consists of three words. The saying which sums up so much of this Western intellectual movement of the 18th century was simply ‘dare to doubt’. The ability to doubt the received wisdom of the past was for some a deeply unsettling approach to human knowledge. Most areas of knowledge in the 18th century were rooted in the tenets handed down from the ancient world. Even medicine owed as much to reading texts of classical authors and their presuppositions than to current observations of the workings of the human body. In making these very generalised comments about the Enlightenment, I am aware of straying into areas of study where I have no specialised knowledge. But one statement which I want to make, which I believe to be broadly true, is that Harvard University can be said to be rooted and nurtured in many of the best principles of Enlightenment thinking. The same readiness to question and scrutinise ‘authority’ in different forms of knowledge in a critical but open way would be among the values of all universities the world over. Universities are temples of knowledge but the knowledge they share with their students is one that has been by honed through a constant process of questioning and experiment. Truth, according to the best minds belonging to our Western universities, among which Harvard has a distinguished place, has truth always to be regarded as a work in progress, not a completed product.
Harvard can act as a shorthand for the methods of seeking truth according to the highest standards of scrutiny that we have in our Western culture. Within the approaches to truth as practised by the academic word, there will be disagreements and debate, but such disagreement is part of the process. Gracious disagreement is not to be deplored, but honoured. There are many who believe that knowledge is to be found using quite different methods of discovery. Speaking very generally, there are many who will believe that truth is only to be discovered by a fresh scrutiny of the past, as the Renaissance writers and thinkers did. The achievements of those who rediscovered the classical authors and their views on the world were considerable. The Renaissance was, however, an incomplete project. It needed the Enlightenment impulse, with its advances in science, philosophy, law and psychology, to name a few disciplines, to enable our modern Western civilisation to be formed. This role of universities with their crucial support of Enlightenment values cannot be downplayed. A challenge to Harvard, and the attempt to destroy the Enlightenment values preserved in its teaching and research right across the board, is an attack on all our values whether or not we have been privileged to have a university education. I am constantly in awe of the knowledge of people with skills which make modern life possible: engineers, architects and economists. Any attempt to destroy the credibility of the Enlightenment project threatens and weakens every discipline taught at university level. Trump’s DOGE project has already halted some vital medical research. No doubt, the idea of well-educated researchers working in clean laboratories every day offends some who regard education of any kind as elitist. Book learning does not seem to be widespread among Trump’s followers and enforcers. Indeed, the demands and attacks on Harvard threaten the entire Enlightenment value system and may remove from America much of what has been achieved in so many areas of life over the past two hundred and fifty years.
Most of the readers of this blog would identify themselves with the Christian label. Every reader will be aware of ways of identifying with the name Christian which go against any concession to Enlightenment values. For many, the name Christian can only be claimed by those who believe, for example, that the world was created in a week of seven days and that women have no place in ministry. Those who hold to such strict ideas about truth will have little time for the idea that it is possible to change one’s mind about anything in one’s belief system. This position is maintained, even though God himself is recorded several times to have changed his plans, according to the Old Testament. We call such rigidity of thinking ‘conservative’, especially when there is no room for newness or progression in this way of understanding faith and truth. It is not difficult to suggest that Trump/Harvard confrontation is rooted in a similar kind tension that we see existing between conservative and progressive Christians. Speaking for myself, I see a place for conservative views, but I also believe that Scripture and faith allows me to ask questions about the tradition and not be alarmed if some aspects develop and change over time. The true liberal is anyone who allows this development to take place. A constant newness is a feature of every culture and set of ideas. Liberals rejoice in the changing/evolving nature of truth. It is this liberal value that is embodied by Harvard and the entire Enlightenment project. The Trump confrontation with Harvard and all the values it represents is an important one. We follow it with interest and concern. The clash threatens the whole liberal project of the West and the human values that are contained in the Enlightenment. The movement may not be perfect from a Christian point of view, as Lesslie Newbigin showed us in the 80s. But, the complete or partial destruction of Enlightenment values, as Trump is attempting, would be a far greater tragedy.
Those studying the shocking events across The Pond may be equally surprised at how indifferent to these debates and stark challenges so many people appear to be. Even Christians I’ve met have almost no understanding of what’s going on.
Perhaps especially with us Christians, we have a tendency to live in bubbles hermetically sealed from the outside world.
Then, if those leaders also align themselves with Christianity, the very last thing anyone seems to think of, is to challenge their leaders. It is no surprise, and I recall this happening at New Wine, that leaders (we were remonstrated by) should be obeyed.
A system acting as badly as this, will have very serious consequences, but not necessarily those intended. On vera.
I found some New Wine leaders to be a law unto themselves. Biblical principles of justice were blasphemously disregarded, or just held in limited or little regard. National anti-harassment law was irrelevant to New Winers armed with ‘Matthew 28 Megalomania’: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” It did feel as if leaders felt they had divine authority to do whatever they liked.
Anglican Church rules were also ignored, even though my course was partly funded by our Church. Recruitment was an even bigger joke. Credentials or qualifications mattered not a jot. ‘Je ne sais quoi’ emotionalism reigned.
A senior minister intervened to rescue 2 out of 5 people from my year group. They advised how we were victims of kangaroo court justice, and desperately needed to escape bullying or harassment by leaving the local diocese. They advised me to insist on getting commissioned as an evangelist. They advised that barring someone who had completed a vocational programme, simply on account of them being unmarried, looked very clearly incompatible with UK law.
Years later I was discretely approached by a person who had displayed evidence of past inside knowledge. They suggested that New Wine and/or the Church faced embarrassment, and were striving as a result of a tragedy to conceal serious harm. It sounded from what the informant described as if shoddy recruitment had major repercussions. The informant red flagged concern about loss of life and/or other serious harm.
‘Miracles: Is Belief in the Supernatural Irrational? | John Lennox at Harvard Medical School’ is an online lecture. It examines the motto of Harvard-‘Truth’-at one point.
Prof Lennox appears to suggest how Harvard’s foundation for science and learning, plus tolerance and debate, were unmistakably Christian. Enlightenment ideas found fertile soil more generally in the Christian West.
Trump is profoundly unattractive. So why did US citizens vote for him? The liberals elites will say the voters are silly or stupid. I am not so sure.
Perhaps the woke alternative of the liberal left was even worse. Democracy, and a tolerant society, needs to be protected, whether by having armed forces or by border security.
I am old enough to remember the UK’s entry into the EU. Odd how the right and left both had senior politicians who united to oppose it. Tony Benn comes to mind.
The liberal left has utterly lost public confidence, and one result is figures like Trump emerging. A vote for Trump is possibly made in despair and desperation at the alternatives.
I am surprised to see these comments posted on a Christian message board.
Why-or why not?
It may be difficult for people without an economic education to understand what’s happening in America and across the globe, but we all understand what happens when goods we buy go up in price (because of tariffs). We have less ability to afford them. And buy less.
Almost all of us have pensions, even if we have no idea where these are invested. They’re invested on the stock and bond markets, the former are easily tracked on a modern phone which has preloaded apps showing markets moving. The main news networks also show these movements. Across the world stocks have cratered. America is suffering too. How long before its people realise that what are being promoted as economic masterstrokes, don’t work quickly enough for the U.S. to rebuild its manufacturing industry, if it ever can?
Markets aren’t sentient beings, but they do give an idea of what people investing (not all of them in ignorance) think. They don’t buy it. The sense is from reading even right wing press, both here and there, is that people have had their faith in America irretrievably broken.
These appear to be acts of self harm as well as global economic aggression. The Church too is expert at this, and its Movements, such as New Wine, failed to understand the full meaning of its previous leadership indiscretions. Suspending the former head from his Anglican parish, should have heralded a more careful self review. Instead they doubled down on leadership infallibility. Maybe people just hope we can soon move on and forget about went on the quiet. But unless we learn from these historical mistakes, and take collective responsibility, we are doomed to repeat them.
I agree, but note that this assault on the universities began in earnest last year and with the full approbation of the Biden Administration and the overwhelming majority of the Democratic party leadership.
This assault on Harvard and other universities (notably Columbia) is to do with One Thing, and One Thing only, and I am afraid that I find it somewhat surprising – indeed astonishing – that this article and the BTL comments make no mention of it at all. It is staring everyone in the face.
Moreover, this assault on academic freedom is all of a piece with the general assault on First Amendment rights in the US and of the assault on free speech in the EU/UK, all of which have precisely the same root cause. Note that some pretty vicious police raids have been conducted on journalists in the UK under Starmer using the pretext of Section 12 of the Terrorism Act 2000, and note also that there are credible allegations that the British government has been active in supplying intelligence information which have helped facilitate ‘impunity’, arguably in serious breach of international law. A similar pretext for the suppression of free speech and academic freedom has been applied in Germany under the excuse of ‘staatsraison’. Little or nothing of this has been reported in the MSM and it is regrettable, but predictable, that almost all commentary in the UK has been based upon this serious misinformation (noting that misinformation is tolerated by ‘liberals’ when it is conducted by their own kind). This is its own grotesque moral failure.
And it is the abject failure of the mainstream churches – including the Church of England – to speak out about it in any meaningful sense which is so depressing (the Church of England made its last feeble pronouncement as long ago as February 2024). Whenever I and others have raised this issue on Anglican websites we have received the most remarkable, and remarkably malignant, replies from so-called ‘Christians’, who appear to revel in their bigotry and wilful ignorance. When the Church of England looks back upon this dismal episode I hope that the collective feelings will be that of shame and disgrace. As per Edmund Burke, “the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”, and the Church of England is doing nothing now, just as it did in the period 1933-45. The contrast with the late Pope Francis in this regard is striking, and even more to the collective discredit of the Church of England.
Froghole, what in your view is this One Thing which is at the root of the assaults on human rights?
It is ‘impunity’ in Palestine, the overwhelmingly powerful lobbies which have made – and are making – it possible, and which dominate policymaking on both sides of the Atlantic. It is the influence of these lobbies which is the primary cause of the suppression of free speech in universities in the US and the muzzling of dissident voices in the US, the UK, France, Germany and elsewhere.
About all of which the Church of England has had practically nothing to say, whether nationally or locally. Which says quite a lot about its corporate ‘values’ and the worth of its moral agency.
Pope Francis was calling the Holy Family Church in Gaza every evening, even when seriously incapacitated by double pneumonia. Did Welby or any other Church of England prelate call the Al Ahli (Anglican) Hospital in Gaza in like fashion? That Hospital was largely destroyed on Palm Sunday, prompting the House of Bishops to issue a declaration – their first meaningful declaration about Gaza after more than a year of ‘impunity’.
I have little doubt that Francis’s shame over his equivocations as Jesuit superior in Argentina under Videla and Viola, and a deep sense of corporate guilt about the likes of Cardinal Caggiano (who did his utmost to help fascists and Nazis enter Argentina after 1945) or Cardinal Aramburu (who refused to recognise that there had been any ‘disappearances’ and rejected the entreaties of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo) may have played a role in his approach towards ‘impunity’ in Gaza. However, he took a relatively active stand. What has the Church of England been doing in relation to this issue, which is one of the great moral causes of our time?
The awful situation in Gaza is a tragic mess, and there are rights and wrongs on both sides, going back nearly a century. Personally, I’m glad that a significant number of the Board of Deputies of British Jews have condemned Netanyahu’s disproportionate response to the Hamas atrocities of 7 October. But it’s quite a stretch to blame tensions in the Middle East for global culture wars. I think the picture is much more complicated than that.
I have watched with increasing concern the issues Stephen outlines above. I am also concerned about such issues in the UK, particularly the way protests are dealt with. One troubling example was the arrest of a person holding up a plain piece of paper, and another the initial arrest of a person shouting not my king with the police initially ignoring persons who physically assaulted the protester. These were clear examples of attempts to censor protest. I am also concerned about the way the road was recently actually blocked in Birmingham in an attempt to delay refuse carts and that this was allowed yet Quaker premises were raided to arrest a group of protesters planning road blocking. There appears to be a two tier system of justice where some views and protests are tolerated (presumably those in line with current political views) and others heavily punished. In such a culture perhaps we should not be surprised at government inaction over the Church’s punishing treatment of those who challenge the injustice meted out to abuse victims and survivors and the way the Church misuses the law to muzzle those speaking truth to power. However more recently some MPs have challenged this culture in a safeguarding debate. We can only hope their calls for action will be heard and acted upon more quickly than the calls of MPs who called out the Post Office for the grievous mistreatment and imprisonment of subpostmasters who challenged a rotten and corrupt system headed by an Anglican priest. As a first generation Briton whose cousin in Solidarity fought against Russian domination, whose father was imprisoned in Siberia, and whose mother was a slave labourer under the Nazis, I view these issues with grave concern. For those who don’t speak out, beware. Will you be next to be censored?
I strongly agree with your final point. For years Anglicans have muttered under their breaths about diocesan mischiefs. But as you rightly say the problem with ignoring abuses is that you never know who is next. Keeping one’s head down and appeasing bishops works for many ministry trainees or junior clergy, but the damage to our Church from various power abuses has a heavy cost. Far too many Anglicans have overlooked kangaroo court justice when they were not the victim. Cliques have facilitated and covered up savage ill-treatment of innocent people.
I’m sorry to say that the view promoted here of Harvard and the other leading Anglosphere universities is as much rooted in a mythical golden age view of the world as anything on the MAGA side.