The Harvard affair

A colonial-era controversy offers lessons on the road to secularism | Andrée Seu

They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us" (1 John 2:19).

Well, not to complain, but that ex post facto proof seems about as helpful in the moment of testing as the one God gave poor Moses when the man was desperate for assurance about his mission to Pharaoh: "I will be with you, and this shall be the sign for you, that I have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain" (Exodus 3:12).

Still, I am content to be edified, even two and a half centuries after the deed, that what happened at Harvard in 1740 is a lesson for us, to discern, in our own day, who has God's favor. "For there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized" (1 Corinthians 11:19).