(By F.Dean Hackett) It was terribly disenchanting. He remembered when his alma mater was grounded in the Word of God and the light of truth shone bright. It had been 26 years since he was a student on campus. He had returned as a tutor two years after graduation and taught for six years. The 18 years intervening had seen a flood of rationalism and acceptance of the philosophy of Voltaire and Rousseau. Age of Reason by Thomas Paine was being read by almost every college student. Now the distortion and deception of the Enlightenment resounded from the lecterns and filled the debates of Yale. Holy
living was equated to a puritanical attitude. Compromising lifestyles and immorality was the behavior of students and faculty. Princeton, Harvard and New Haven were suffering the same spiritual darkness. Indeed, virtually every college campus in the newborn nation had been captured by the Enlightenment. The selection of Timothy Dwight, grandson of the spiritual giant from the Great Awakening, Jonathan Edwards, as the new president of Yale College was truly a divine appointment. CONTINUE
