Trusting the Experts

One of the surprising facts of American History is the religious foundation of many prestigious colleges in our country. For example Harvard University founded in 1636 was named for John Harvard, a Puritan minister. It was the first college in America north of the Rio Grande.

It wasn’t until 1708 that Harvard chose a president that was not a minister. Imagine that! Harvard existed for over 70 years so firmly committed to its religious foundation that it would not allow a non-minister to be president.

What’s more astounding is that Harvard was founded to teach the Bible to the common man. Now why do you suppose people would want to start a college to teach the Bible? Couldn’t a person just read it and learn it himself?

Well, a couple of factors were involved. One was that there was a distrust of experts who used the Bible to manipulate the mass of people. American’s had had enough of religious men with titles that wanted to establish a rule of fear over the nation. Ministers of local congregations should be able to defend doctrine. This nation was established on religious freedom; that is to protect the private citizen from the tyranny of religious despots. So a man had to know the Bible for himself to lessen his dependence on other men.

The second reason was the belief that every man should have his own relationship with God. Such a relationship was developed through a knowledge of the Bible. Each man was responsible to know the Bible so he could have such a relationship and resist oppression of the organized church.

In a publication to the students in 1643 the purpose of Harvard was explained: “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, and therefore to lay Christ in the bottom, as the only foundation of all sound knowledge and Learning.”

Harvard was founded to protect the private citizen from tyranny that results from the deception of political churches. That could occur when God and Christ were the only foundation for life.

That thought came to mind this week when the news was awash with the deception of trusted authorities in the field of climate research. The CRU (Climate Research Unit) was given $125 million to research global warming. The findings from their research showed that the earth is actually cooling but that didn’t fit their political agenda so they lied about the data, and then colluded with other scientists and politicians to prevent the research from becoming public. They didn’t want the average man to see the truth for himself.

Funny thing about the average man, he often has an acute sense of truth and he can be quite capable of making rational decisions when the truth is available. He doesn’t need someone to make decisions for him, he just needs accurate information. So it’s a serious breach of ethics for scientists to hide the very thing that allows man to make wise choices.

There is a hubris to some men which causes them to believe they should make decisions for other men. Other men are less intelligent, less spiritual, less wealthy….less human. The writer Thomas Sowell captured it well when he identified people who think they know better what is good for you than you know what is good for you.

We are prone to believe that scientists are not biased. It is science that matters. It is the pure search for truth that motivates them. But we were deceived. Even scientists are human.

When King David penned the words, “Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help” (Psalm 146:3) it is ironic that he was at the time King of Israel. Of all men he knew the futility of relying too heavily on the experts. If they will deceive the King, they will deceive the public.

David’s message is, in the end rely on God and the common sense God gave to you to understand truth.

The realization of this truth should not destroy our confidence. Rather it supports our faith in the One who has always been faithful to us. He is the Advocate for the average man, the private citizen, the individual Christian. Our confidence is in the One who is the author of our salvation and the Advocate for those who trust in God.

Perfect love casts out fear. Fear based science and fear based religion have always been poor substitutes for truth.

Until next time,