Bio

Dr. Mike Halsey is the chancellor of Grace Biblical Seminary, a Bible teacher at the Hangar Bible Fellowship, the author of Truthspeak and his new book, The Gospel of Grace and Truth: A Theology of Grace from the Gospel of John," both available on Amazon.com. A copy of his book, Microbes in the Bloodstream of the Church, is also available as an E-book on Amazon.com. If you would like to a receive a copy of his weekly Bible studies and other articles of biblical teaching and application, you can do so by writing to Dr. Halsey at michaeldhalsey@bellsouth.net and requesting, "The Hangar Bible Fellowship Journal."

Comments may be addressed to michaeldhalsey@bellsouth.net.

If you would like to contribute to his ministry according to the principle of II Corinthians 9:7, you may do so by making your check out to Hangar Bible Fellowship and mailing it to 65 Teal Ct., Locust Grove, GA 30248. All donations are tax deductible.

Come visit the Hangar some Sunday at 10 AM at the above address. You'll be glad you did.

Other recommended grace-oriented websites are:

notbyworks.org
literaltruth.org
gracebiblicalseminary.org
duluthbible.org
clarityministries.org

Also:

Biblical Ministries, Inc.
C/O Dr. Richard Grubbs
P. O. Box 64582
Lubbock, TX 79464-4582

Friday, July 14, 2017

FAIR HARVARD

It is one of the most beautiful of school songs, ranking right up there with "Far Above Cayuga's Waters,"(Cornell) and any school song to the melody of "Gaudeamus Igitur"* (Monterey Senior High School, Lubbock, TX). The one ranking right up there with those musical jewels is Harvard's song, "Fair Harvard."

Reverend Samuel Gilman of the class of 1811 wrote it for Harvard's 200th anniversary in 1836, a song bidding the school an affectionate farewell. Students sing it at the beginning of their matriculation and then when they graduate. Of its four verses, the first and fourth are traditionally sung and the second and third omitted.

UNFAIR FOR "FAIR HARVARD"

But, as of today, right now, the old song has fallen on hard and post modern times. There are those who've declared the song offensive because of its last verse:

Farewell! be thy destinies onward and bright!
To thy children the lesson still give,
With freedom to think, and with patience to bear,
And for right ever bravely to live.
Let not moss-covered error moor thee at its side,
As the world on truth's current glides by
Be the herald of light, and the bearer of love,
Till the stock of the Puritans die.

See the offending lines? "Be the herald of light, and the bearer of love, Till the stock of the Puritans die." In our politically correct universe, the reference to being "the herald of light until the stock of Puritans die" must go because (1) it's outdated and (2) it's not inclusive of others who have "their own light."

Underlying all of this is that the song is saying that the Puritans were the heralds of light and that's offensive to some because, according to post modernism, there is no "light," that is, there is no body of absolute truth for any one to be the herald of.

LET THEM HAVE THEIR SAY

Let's let the university speak for itself. Harvard’s Presidential Task Force on Inclusion and Belonging wants to create a new ending to “Fair Harvard” because they say the reference to Puritans "suggests that the commitment to truth, and to being the bearer of its light, is the special province of those of Puritan stock,” which they say could be viewed as racist since the Puritans were of Anglo-Saxon descent.

The task force wants to sponsor a contest to see who can come up with the best lines for what they want to omit from the song.

In this bizarro world in which we live, no one, no group can claim that it knows, has, or possesses the truth. Yet John 14:6 and John 17:7, et al. stand against such an idea. Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life, no man comes to the Father, but by Me." Jesus also prayed, "Sanctify them through Your Word. Your Word is truth."

There are those who object to the plans of the Presidential Task Force on Inclusion and Belonging to omit the lines of the song. Two who oppose the change make excellent points.

Social commentator Frank Furedi called it a “Morally disoriented attempt to detach Harvard from its past." Harvard professor Stephen Shoemaker added that history “should not be neglected . . . we need to know where we came from." Right on!

IF WE DON'T LIKE IT, WE'LL SCRUB IT 

The Presidential Task Force, in declaring its purpose in scrubbing the lines of the school song, declares, "The goal is to affirm what is valuable from the past while also re-inventing that past to meet and speak to the present moment."

WAIT. WHAT?

Wait. What? Their goal is to re-invent the past? The past can't be re-invented. The past is. The committee may not like the past, but they can't re-invent it. The history is that Harvard was established by the Puritans who came from England to escape persecution. When established, the following, from 1642, is the reason they gave for why they were bringing Harvard into existence

"Let every student be plainly instructed and earnestly pressed to consider well the main end of his life and studies is to know God and Jesus Christ which is eternal life (John 17:3)… And seeing the Lord only gives wisdom, let everyone seriously set himself by prayer in secret to seek it of Him (Prov. 2:3).."

"Everyone [of the students] shall so exercise himself in reading the Scriptures twice a day that he shall be ready to give such an account of his proficiency therein, both in theoretical observations of the language and the logic, and in practical and spiritual truths, as his tutor shall require, according to his ability; seeing the entrance of the word giveth light, it giveth understanding, to the simple (Ps. 119:30)."

HERE'S THE RUB

You might be thinking, "Well, so what? It's just a line or two of some Ivy League fancy pants school song; what's the big deal? The big deal in all of this is to obliterate any reference to where Harvard came from,, thus cutting them off from their history and the reason the school exists.

Russell Kirk in his magnum opus, The Conservative Mind, said that the philosophy and practice of conservatism cannot be held by a people who are cut off from their history. (He said it better than I, but that's the gist of it.) People need to know where they came from. It's true for Harvard, it's true for America: people need to know where they came from. Yet, in college after college, history courses are being omitted from the required curriculum to the point that we don't know where we came from.

Let's apply this to the human race. The human race needs to know where it came from and why we are the way we are. That's why God gave us the book of Genesis because Genesis 1-3 tells us: we came as the special creation of God, created in the image and likeness of God, but because of Adam's sin, the human race fell into sin.

Cut us off from knowing who we are and teach us that we're animals, the product of time + chance + the impersonal and what do you get? People who act like animals. That's exactly what we're seeing, a world descending into chaos of violence, a world bloody in tooth and claw, the wholesale murder of the inconvenient unborn, and the destruction of marriage, morality, and family because, like animals, "there is no fear of God before their eyes."

They want to change "Fair Harvard." If they do, the change will take more than a few lines of a song with it.
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*For those musically inclined, you can listen to renditions of "Far Above Cayuga's Waters," "Fair Harvard," and "Gaudeamus Igitur" (Let Us Therefore Rejoice) on youtube.com The latter song was used for the climatic scene in the movie, "People Will Talk," (1951) as Gary Grant conducts the orchestra in a stirring rendition of it. 






 

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