Gertrude Himmelfarb, The Christian University: A Call to Counterrevolution

This is another fine article reprinted recently by First Things. The article is by Gertrude Himmelfarb, prolific writer on matters of culture, often a strong critic of the consequences of secularization. This piece is about the revolution that has taken place in the American university and the call for a counter-revolution by the Christian university. She concludes that the Christian university “now has not only a religious tradition to uphold but an intellectual one as well: the mission to restore and revitalize the traditional academic dogma. This means reaffirming the faith in truth, knowledge, and objectivity, pursuing these ideals knowing they are ideals that can never be fully realized, and above all, resisting the appeal of a fashionable and profoundly subversive philosophy that is not merely relativistic in the familiar sense but that celebrates an absolute relativism.” Though written a decade ago, these comments stand as true as ever about the challenges and opportunities for the Christian university in our day.