Contemporary Puritans

Let us be clear-headed about what our colleges and universities have always been. Almost every institution of higher education in America founded prior to the twentieth century was religious from the outset. Their seed was Christianity. Harvard, Yale, Princeton—all of them were self-consciously Christian. ...Not by accident has Harvard been ground zero for the growth of all the quasi-religious “social movements” that have transformed America. From the seed of its Calvinism has come the flower of identity politics. And it is not good. How might this prodigal errancy from higher education’s core mission be rectified?