Who Stole Forever?
university classroom? Yet this was once the case. The finest insti- tutions of higher education in America — H arvard, Princeton, and Yale, for example — w ere all founded by people who held firmly to a biblical worldview that has eternity as its final hope. Yet today eternity is not a category that our culture takes seriously when we think of what life is all about. Consider, for a moment, the huge philosophical transition that has taken place in the way the aver- age person thinks about life. We have gone from the words that Ben Franklin penned for his own epitaph: The Body Of Benjamin Franklin, Printer, (Like the cover of an old book, Its contents torn out, And stript of its lettering and gilding,) Lies here, food for worms. But the work shall not be lost, For it will, as he believed, appear once more, In a new and more elegant edition, Revised and corrected By The Author. 1 To the bitter words of bestselling novelist Frank McCord: “I had to get rid of any idea of hell or any idea of the afterlife. That’s what held me, kept me down. So now I just have nothing but contempt for the institution of the church.” 2 In our functional worldview, we have traveled from the eter- nity-driven lyrics of Julia Ward Howe’s “Battle Hymn of the Republic” — Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord; He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored; He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword; His truth is marching on.
21
Made with FlippingBook - Online catalogs