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Yale University Previous News Stories: |
Chris Matthews (left), director of ministry at Yale and Chad Warren (right) ministry fellow at Yale Christian Union recently commissioned two highly qualified ministry workers to New Haven, Connecticut to impact future leaders at Yale University. On the campuses at Princeton and Harvard, Christian Union has been able to encourage and help foster a seeking God lifestyle among the students, aiding in the establishment of affiliate student organizations Princeton Faith and Action and Harvard College Faith and Action. Chris Matthews, Christian Union’s ministry director at Yale, hopes his team can mentor students in the same fashion. The son of a Baptist minister, Matthews earned a B.S.E. in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from the University of Alabama in Huntsville and worked in management roles at NASA for ten years. During that time, Matthews remained active in local church ministry, youth discipleship, and overseas missions. He recently earned his M.Div. in theology from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Click Here for Full Story
What does it take to change the world? Author Eric Metaxas says Christians can radically impact culture when they understand how to be insiders and outsiders. Metaxas, Yale ’84, recently had a platform to influence an entire country when he addressed Albania’s parliament and appeared on national television in the former communist state. He spoke to the Albanians about William Wilberforce, the courageous 18th century politician who was responsible for helping to end the slave trade in Great Britain. “I was able to talk about Jesus and about Wilberforce on national television for forty-five minutes, which is a staggering thing to consider,” he said. “This was a nation that was proudly and defiantly atheist up until a few years ago.” Members of parliament will also receive a translated version of Metaxas’ 2007 book, Amazing Grace, which chronicles the life of Wilberforce. In addition to telling the story of the 20-year battle to end slavery, Amazing Grace examines the role Wilberforce had on making England a more civil society. Click Here for Full Story
It’s not surprising that gifted scientist Francis Collins, Yale Ph.D.’74, would become the director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, leading the team that unlocked the intricacies of DNA. But what did surprise many was when, in the announcement about the Human Genome Project, President Bill Clinton included God in the scientific equation. “Today we are learning the language in which God created life,” said Clinton. “We are gaining ever more awe for the complexity, the beauty, and the wonder of God’s most divine and sacred gift.” But for Collins, a self-described evangelical Christian, identifying God in scientific discovery was nothing new. “Was I, a rigorously trained scientist, taken aback at such a blatantly religious reference by the leader of the free world at a moment such as this?” Collins writes in his book, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief. “No, not at all. In fact, I had worked closely with the president’s speechwriter in the frantic days just prior to [the] announcement, and had strongly endorsed the inclusion of this paragraph.” Click Here for Full Story
NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT - Yale Divinity students and members of the New Haven community came together on Earth Day weekend for the Second Annual Interfaith Solidarity on Global Climate Change. Students at the Divinity School and the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies jointly sponsored the event. The purpose of the event was to “build bridges of religious environmentalism between Yale and the faith communities in the wider New Haven area.” The interfaith group gathered for a time of public meditation and a moment of silence. Attendees were also invited to participate in workshops discussing “Sustainable Community Outreach” and “Inconvenient Ethics: Using Al Gore in a Faith Context?”
NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT - The Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale recently announced the release of its digital online collection of the works of eminent theologian and revivalist, Jonathan Edwards. According to Executive Director Kenneth Minkema, the 73 digital volumes include nearly all the writings of Edwards, as well as approximately 1,200 sermons, and are the result of more than fifty years of scholarly work. The collection can be accessed at the Edwards Center website at The Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University website.
Yale University Dining Hall NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT - The following are answers that randomly selected members of the Yale community in the campus’s main dining hall supplied regarding their belief in God. Do you believe in God? “If God does exist, I think it is an incomprehensible concept that we don’t even have the ability to put into words or pictures. I don’t think people can make an argument for or against God.” —ANONYMOUS, sophomore “I definitely believe in God. I don’t see Him but I know He’s definitely something bigger than me; He’s everything around us and everything that embodies who we are.” “Wholeheartedly!... He’s loving, kind, forgiving, worthy. I am a recovering drug addict. I’ve had some sense of God, but not until eight years ago did I realize that God was what I had always been seeking. I was incarcerated…and prayed to God that if He’d just get me out of this one, I would change my ways…My prayers were answered and I was released. Ever since then, I wouldn’t put anything before Him.” —NADINE, dining hall worker “Probably…He’s omnipotent, has a cool temper (He’s not prone to random acts of violence), He’s concerned for humanity and for all life, He’s generally very modest—not desirous of praise or sacrifice.” —CHRIS, freshman “Yes…God is an impersonal and unknowable entity. I grew up in the Catholic Church, but the more I’ve learned, the more I’ve become disillusioned with organized religion, which I feel is a vehicle by which certain powerful people pass ideas onto other people. I don’t believe that Jesus is the Son of God. Where he has opportunities to truly prove Himself with signs and miracles in the Bible, he says that the people shouldn’t put God to the test.” —BRIAN, freshman “I’m an agnostic. I don’t believe it’s possible to know one way or the other. I think Jesus was a real historical figure and a great leader. But, believing in his divinity would require a lot more proof than I’ve heard. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” —ETHAN, second-year physics grad student “Yes. He’s understanding, forgiving, always has an open ear. It’s like having a best friend you can always talk to.” —GREG, sophomore “No, because…I’m a Muslim, but I’m more drawn to rationalism and pluralism, the idea that nothing is absolute. I think religion is socially created or maybe our desires for spirituality are genetically determined…Each person is responsible for determining his own philosophy of how to live. The world is what we make of it.” —MILDA, freshman If there were some definitive external “proof” of God, would that be enough? “No. You couldn’t really hold onto that.” —ANONYMOUS, sophomore “I think something…besides a mathematical equation is…needed, but I can’t figure what. Faith deals with the stuff that science isn’t equipped to…, like what happens to us after we die. I don’t know if we’ll ever have the answer….There was this one experiment where they weighed people before and after they died and found that they’d actually lost a few ounces.” —ETHAN, second-year physics grad student “No. Rationalism is its own system, and I don’t ascribe to any one system for making sense of the world.” —MILDA, freshman Now, speaking of the inner faith and experience of God’s presence in your life (as opposed to reliance on external proof), what have been inner struggles as you live out your relationship with God in life? “Life is a struggle, but it’s also a gift. Every morning, I wake up and I say, ‘Thank you, Jesus...’ Sometimes, the devil tempts me to go back to my former ways…I was lying in my bed and he said to me, ‘Go get your bag [of drugs].’ …I just got on my knees and prayed, and I was just so touched by God that the desire for drugs went away. I was once in hell. Hell is…having shackles on your feet…being in bondage. Heaven is where…I’m pressing to go.” —NADINE, dining hall worker “For what we need to know, of course, is not just that God exists, not just that beyond the steely brightness of the stars there is a cosmic intelligence of some kind that keeps the whole show going, but that there is a God right here in the thick of our day-by-day lives who may not be writing messages about himself in the stars but in one way or another is trying to get messages through our blindness as we move around down here knee-deep in the fragrant muck and misery and marvel of the world. It is not objective proof of God’s existence that we want but the experience of God’s presence. This is the miracle we are really after, and that is also, I think, the miracle that we really get.” The Yuns' mission field will be moving from New Haven to East Asia as they take their family and a team of Yale students to serve overseas next year. NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT - Sang and Charmain Yun, both Yale graduates (class of ’93 and ’95), have been on staff with Yale Students for Christ (YSC, http://www.yalestudentsforchrist.org/), the local ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ, for eight years. After graduating, Charmain worked in a law firm because of a desire to learn to advocate for the poor. Sang received his M. Div. at Princeton Theological Seminary, and afterward studied Scripture independently for a year before working in a consulting firm. They were married in 1998, and joined staff with YSC after their second year of marriage. Next year, they will serve as missionaries in East Asia with their two children, Jonathan (four) and Kaylen (one), and a team of four Yale students. Q: With other promising careers in law and consulting on the horizon, how did you come to the decision to devote yourselves to full-time ministry at Yale? A: During our second year of marriage, we started praying and asking the Lord for a place to invest for the next 3-5 years. We thought it was time to move beyond planning year-to-year and see if there was something more medium-term. We were volunteering with the YSC ministry at that time and Yale kept coming to mind as a mission field. Our hearts were increasingly burdened to see Yale reached for Christ and for Yale to launch ambassadors for Christ into all sectors of society. As we considered our options, we concluded that we couldn’t do all that we wanted to do while maintaining full-time jobs elsewhere. So joining full-time staff with CCC was just the logical next step. Q: What has been the biggest blessing in ministry? The greatest challenge? A: [Charmain] As servants of the Lord, we are definitely not entitled to see this but one of the biggest blessings in ministry has been to see lives changed. As people begin giving their lives to the Lord, we get to see them live in more freedom, love Him, desire to serve Him, and trust Him with even more of their lives. As a result, we get to see them live out God’s best for them. On the contrary, one of the greatest challenge is to see people decide to not follow Him- for whatever reason- and “forfeit the grace that could be theirs” (Jonah 2:8) Q: What words of encouragement could you give to Ivy League graduates who have not been able to live out the Christian life as they’d once hoped? A: [Sang] at different times in my life, both before and after joining staff, I’ve found myself being ever so slowly entangled by thorns, so to speak. Luke 8:14 describes that condition as being “choked by life’s worries, riches and pleasures.” Such threats will never go away, whatever our job or life situation. We must therefore continually “offer our bodies as living sacrifices” and “not conform to the pattern of this world”, all “in view of [God’s] mercies.” (Romans 12:1-2). The decisions we must make in order to follow Jesus are always costly; but the joy he gives us as we follow closely to him is truly incomparable. [Charmain] It’s easy to dream and have all sorts of expectations when we’re young. But, life hits us and things aren’t as dynamic as in college and the youthful passion and fervor may not be there. The question isn’t how much fruit or energy there is, but rather, are we quick to turn, walking by faith, and responding. The key to the Romans 12:1-2 verse that Sang alluded to is “In view of God’s mercy”...we just need to put ourselves in the place where we will be in view of Him and then, go from there. Q: What words of advice do you have for students on Ivy League campuses right now? A: [Charmain] As Ivy League students/alums, we are trained to think about “self” and to serve it, which - in my mind - is the biggest impediment to the Christian life. And I’m not only talking about the struggles of laying down idols that please self or selfish ambition. Even in the context of ministry, we find it rearing its ugly head when we think about “how can I make an influence (for Christ)?” Sometimes, we’re so concerned about how people see us, our comfort, our identity that we miss the whole point of Christianity: “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.” (Gal. 2:20). Truly, we need to decrease and the Lord increase. And I don’t want to undermine the fact that going through this process hurts; there is loss and cost. But, the less we are glorified, the more Christ is. Q: What made you decide to serve as missionaries in East Asia next year? Second, we long to see the ministry at Yale embrace the call to reach the nations, that students and alumni would willingly count the cost of following the Lord’s lead, even if it entails going overseas. We are thrilled that we can take a team of four students. Our prayer is that they will catch a vision for the world and share it compellingly with their classmates. The body of believers at Yale has been given much and we believe that much is expected.
NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT - Rolling lawns leading up to an elegant manor house don’t give off even the faintest whiff of criminality. That is, until one notices that the house, instead of being surrounded by grape arbors and forsythia, is enclosed in a fierce fortress of barbed wire and electric fencing. The Bedford Hills Correctional Facility was the destination of eight Yale students, two undergraduates and two Divinity students, who traveled to Bedford, New York on the tab of the Chaplain’s office to conduct a worship service for inmates on the third Sunday of Lent. Once inside and striking up conversations with the women inmates, undergrads Veronica Hu and Stephen Yu forgot that they were talking to murders and kidnappers. “It was really natural and easy to start conversations,” Hu said. “Many of them had kids who were allowed to make frequent visits, so we talked about their kids a lot.” “They worry and care so much about how their kids are doing,” Yu echoed. Selma, an inmate in the medical ward whose crippling arthritis and obesity prevent her from getting out of bed, has been behind Bedford walls for three full decades. Beyond the barbed wire, she has no living family. Her hospital-like room is decorated with pictures of late relatives and her bedside table stacked with novels and self-diagnosis medical manuals. She will remain here for at least another two years. “She had just been denied parole for the fifth time,” Hu said, “and was despondent.” Yet, this feisty former Madame of a booming brothel held Hu back from leaving the room. “I won’t let you leave until you pray with me,” she asserted. Selma and Hu bowed their heads and asked Jesus to be with her in her pain and help her accept her sentence. Annette, the prison chaplain’s assistant, is a soft-spoken middle-aged woman with sweet eyes and impeccable manners. “She seemed like the model of a cookie-baking Christian mother,” Hu said. Annette had apparently been just that—a good mother and church volunteer—in her former life. Hu commented that during the worship service, Annette seemed especially moved when the women sang “Amazing Grace.” Only after emerging from the prison, back through the barbed wire and into the free world, did the Yalies learn of the women’s crimes: the kidnapping of a famous man, who was murdered in the process, and the plotting of a husband’s murder with a lover. “When I got home, I couldn’t stop thinking about what they had done,” Hu said. “I still am having trouble processing it.” Yu also had trouble squaring the disconnect between the friendly faces he encountered and the sinister sides of their pasts. “It was really surprising that going to a maximum security prison, you would see such seemingly normal women who are so friendly and display God’s love…and some of them are actually in there for first-degree murder!” Yu commented. Despite the unsettling past histories of the women, Hu and Yu also took away the equal and opposite impression of the powerful fellowship they shared with them. Yu played his violin during worship, and was touched by the beauty of the voices of the dozen gathered prisoners. “At first, I thought that they would have the attitude of, ‘we’re singing Amazing Grace again?’” Yu said. “But it was the exact opposite—so many women rejoiced when they found out we were singing that song. I found out later that this was the first time one woman had ever heard a violin live before. Those words really stuck with me.” When asked if she would feel different around Selma and Annette if she were to visit again, knowing their crimes, Hu answered emphatically in the negative. “Just being with them, you realize that they are just like you and that you’re guilty of sins too. You even forget that they are prisoners,” Hu said. “Part of the power of doing this ministry, of actually visiting the prison, is in clearing up these fears that can seem so big when you are away.”
Adam Meredith '08 [second from right] gave his testimony at the end of a highly publicized, and-some felt-controversial evangelistic campaign. NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT - About three hundred Yalies wore bright yellow t-shirts with the orange cartoonesque face of one young man and the words, “I agree with Adam” on the front. The backs bore the cryptic series of numbers, 4/ 07/06. “What is this, an anti-feminist campaign, favoring Adam over Eve?” disgruntled students mused. “I heard it has to do with religion: the date on the back seems apocalyptic,” others posited. “Who is this Adam, anyway? He must be some egotist to have all these people agreeing with him.” This “Adam,” though, was just being himself as during any other week. He is a soft-spoken, polite, and friendly chemistry major from Needmore, Pennsylvania, a small farming community that doesn’t even show up on a google search and that sent its first student to Yale when Adam packed his bags and headed north. Adam wakes up at seven each morning to read the Bible and helps lead a Bible study for freshmen in his residential college. He is a Christian who believes in God’s perfection, humans’ sinfulness, and Jesus’s loving sacrifice that restores our relationship with God. The evangelism initiative, sponsored by Yale Students for Christ (http://www.yalestudentsforchrist.org/) in collaboration with Athletes in Action, Yale Christian Fellowship, and Living Water (a Christian a cappella group), was really not at all about Adam, but about Jesus. It was about encouraging dialogue about Christianity in the Yale community so that misconceptions, like loud shirts, could be confronted, discussed, and cast off to reveal the truth at the core of Jesus’s message. The date on the backs of the t-shirts marked when Adam would stand on the steps of Yale’s “Cross Campus” and speak of his relationship with Jesus. The meat of the week’s activity, however, took place in the packed discussion forums held in common rooms, the lengthy posted questions and answers on a newly created online discussion forum, and the mealtime conversations among tables interspersed with yellow-shirted Christians.
David Miller encourages students and professionals to integrate faith into every environment. NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT - David Miller, the executive director of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture at the Divinity School, is a busy man. Gliding down the center’s small hallway, he gives swift, precise instructions to his secretary including everything from how to fold mailings to which room of a local restaurant to reserve. Yet, Miller, whose self-professed first language was “business speak” and who ran several banking divisions in London, has the staid approachability of a minister with a purple and green plaid sweater draped over his shoulders. “God at Work,” states the yellow caution tape on his office door, and the phrase is apt for this businessman-turned-minister in order to promote life for Christ in the workplace; God not only at work in general or on the mission field, but in the workplace, changing lives. The Center for Faith and Culture was founded in the summer of 2003 by Yale professor Miroslav Volf after a self-assessment by the Divinity School uncovered that not many graduates’ mission paths plunged into the “regular” world. “The divinity school wanted to re-establish its position as a shaper of world issues,” Miller summarized. The Center’s mission statement is densely packed: “to promote the practice of faith in all spheres of life through theological research and leadership development.” Miller emphasized that “promotion” and “practice” imply putting belief into action in business, media, law, and entertainment. According to Miller, Biblical study needs to be “oxygenated” by sending out into the real world. “It’s lonely at the top,” Miller said. “A lot of times, top executives don’t have anyone in whom they can really confide.” They have to face tough decisions like massive employee layoffs. “You can’t exactly bring this sort of thing up at a church prayer meeting,” Miller said. Miller forms relationships with business executives and counsels them about how to live for God at work, even, and especially, when it is difficult to know precisely what track to take. He often holds Bible studies and prayer meetings with them. “Sometimes after a business-like phone call, I’ll ask if we can close in a few minutes of prayer,” Miller said. “It’s an odd sensation for some, having prayer pour out of the office speaker phone.” Miller rose through the ranks of IBM after graduating from Bucknell University in 1979, then managed divisions of various major banks in the U.S. and London. He served a total of 16 years in the business and financial world before he sensed God’s call to attend Princeton Theological seminary. “I kept struggling with the question, ‘What does my faith have to do with my work?’” Miller said. “I didn’t hear the preachers talking very much about how Sunday church translated into the rest of the week.” Miller received his M.Div and Ph.D. from Princeton seminary, becoming an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church of America, and subsequently taking his knowledge directly back to where he had started out. For example, in the mission statement of Tyson Foods, Inc. under the heading “Who we are,” appears the phrase, “We strive to be a faith-friendly company.” This may not seem very concrete, but it reveals a very significant shift in company mindset. “The CEO [of Tyson] personally embodies this new objective,” Miller said. “That means that the company recognizes that we’re all spiritual beings.” Fostering spiritual life by tolerating and promoting all religions— especially those in the minority—is an important aspect of recognizing the full humanity of each employee. From Miller’s lips to the Tyson Foods’ mission statement. At Tyson Foods, 140 chaplains are available to meet the spiritual needs of employees and there are special prayer facilities in plants with large numbers of Muslim employees. Miller admits that Jesus’s teachings and the cut-throat competitive culture of the marketplace are often at odds. “It’s a struggle to integrate the life of faith in this environment,” he said. “If I had a nickel for every business executive who sighed and said that maybe he should go to Africa to be a missionary, I’d be so wealthy.” Yet, Miller points out that the Gospel has power when it is lived out. This means trying to apply Jesus’ teachings in areas where the answers are not at all clear-cut. “The challenges faced in business are similar to those faced by a Christian student at Yale,” he said. Students’ “work” is studying and campus life. In many cases, there is no obvious Biblical mandate about whether to attend a certain party or what exactly to say in class, but these things must be navigated through a trusting, dynamic relationship with God. “God is big and knows what’s going on,” Miller said, “so we can trust in Him to give us peace about decisions we make.” Miller teaches a course at the Yale School of Management called, “Business Ethics: Succeeding without Selling your Soul,” that undergrads may opt into. The Center for Faith and Culture also holds annual conferences on moral leadership, their last one titled, “Religiously Incorrect: Public Faith in a Pluralistic World.” |
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