BuzzFlash Reviews
God's Harvard: A Christian College on a Mission to Save America (Hardcover)
Hanna Rosin
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Hanna Rosin, a journalist who is a Jewish secularist, has done a remarkable job in chronicling the growth of a major college feeder into the right wing fundamentalists who are ensconced in the White House and various offices in Congress.
Rosin began following Patrick Henry College from its creation to its graduation of the growing infrastructure of staffers for the Republican administration. A degree from Patrick Henry College is the fundamentalist equivalent of being a Communist Party member in the old Soviet Union. (It has recently been overshadowed by Liberty University and Pat Robertson's Regent Law School, but Patrick Henry is perhaps the most significant supplier of hardcore B.A. evangelists to the Republican Party in power.)
One of the fascinating accomplishments of Rosin is that she really works hard to understand the students at "God's Harvard," to regard them as real people, and not just some caricatures, while at the same time understanding that their very education and outlook is anathema and at odds with a democracy based on the separation of church and state.
These are young people who are inculcated that if you are not saved by Christ, you are damned -- and that a nation that is not a Christian nation is condemned to burn in Hell.
The book is an accomplishment on many different levels, an anthropological/sociological entrance into the students who are being groomed to run America as a Christian nation.
Here is the mission of Patrick Henry College, located in Virginia of course, from its website, www.phc.edu:
The Mission of Patrick Henry College is to prepare Christian men and women who will lead our nation and shape our culture with timeless biblical values and fidelity to the spirit of the American founding. Educating students according to a classical liberal arts curriculum, and training them with apprenticeship methodology, the College provides academically excellent baccalaureate level higher education with a biblical world view.
The Vision of Patrick Henry College is to aid in the transformation of American society by training Christian students to serve God and mankind with a passion for righteousness, justice and mercy, through careers of public service and cultural influence.
The Distinctives of Patrick Henry College include practical apprenticeship methodology; a deliberate outreach to home schooled students; financial independence; a general education core based on the classical liberal arts; a dedication to mentoring and discipling Christian students; and a community life that promotes virtue, leadership, and strong, life-long commitments to God, family and society.
The Mission of the Department of Government is to promote practical application of biblical principles and the original intent of the founding documents of the American republic, while preparing students for lives of public service, advocacy and citizen leadership.
The Mission of the Department of Classical Liberal Arts is to provide students with a broad background in classical languages, logic, rhetoric, Biblical studies, history, English composition and literature, philosophy, science, and mathematics. They will encounter a multiplicity of ideas animating the world's great leaders and thinkers of the past in order to see how God has worked in and continues to work in His creation.
From Wikipedia:
Patrick Henry College, or PHC, is a private, non-denominational Protestant college that focuses on teaching classical liberal arts and government, located in Purcellville, Virginia. It is the first college in America founded specifically for Christian home-schooled students, and is known for its evangelical Christian focus. As of April 17, 2007, the college was nationally accredited by the Transnational Association of Christian Colleges and Schools, an accrediting organization recognized by the Department of Education and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation.
The school was founded with the help of the Home School Legal Defense Association, and now serves as the headquarters for the organization, with which it is still closely connected.
The college has gained much publicity because of its strong ties with the Republican Party and the Bush administration, and its high emphasis on debate and moot court. The school has also been criticized for the religious affirmations that all students and faculty must agree to and continually uphold.
The institution has experienced internal controversy when, in March 2006, one-third of the full-time faculty left the school claiming that they felt the school limited their academic freedom. In addition, the school was one of the targets of the 2007 Soulforce Equality Ride for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered people, and garnered national news coverage by its refusal to allow the organization on its property.
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