Monday, February 16, 2009

James Brainerd Taylor in "The Ivy League Christian Observer"

"An Uncommon Christian Is Remembered: New Books Chronicle the Life of Evangelist James Brainerd Taylor" is the title of Eileen Scott's article in the winter 2009 (vol. 8, no. 1) issue (pages 35-36) of The Ivy League Christian Observer. Scott is the Senior Writer for the national quarterly magazine that is published by the campus ministry "Christian Union: Advancing the Kingdom of Jesus Christ in the Ivy League."

Founded by Matt Bennett (B.S., M.B.A., Cornell) in 2002 and based in Princeton, New Jersey, CU's mission is, "by God's power and the help of other ministries . . . to change the world by bringing sweeping spiritual transformation to the Ivy League universities, thereby developing and mobilizing godly Christian leadership for all sectors of society."

Click here to read what has been said about CU in the media, including a May 22, 2005, front page article in The New York Times entitled, "On a Christian Mission to the Top: Evangelicals Set Their Sights on the Ivy League" (click here for article).

The 8 Ivy League Universities--all historically significant private institutions in the Northeastern U.S., most of which have a rich Christian heritage--are Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Pennsylvania (UPenn), Princeton and Yale.

The Connecticut-born James Brainerd Taylor (1801-1829) was a graduate of Princeton University (Class of 1826). He died while a student at Yale Theological Seminary (now called Yale Divinity School). (Though he was not an enrolled student, Taylor died at Union Theological Seminary in Virginia. At the time, UTS was located adjacent to Hampden-Sydney College [est. 1775], aptly named "The Princeton of the South.")

In addition to various Ivy League graduates, 5 people with direct ties to the Ivy League endorsed An Uncommon Christian: James Brainerd Taylor, Forgotten Evangelist in America's Second Great Awakening (University Press of America, 2008). Click here (UCM's page) or here (publisher's page) to read what the following said about An Uncommon Christian:

+ Matt Bennett

+ William (Bill) Boyce
Affiliated Chaplain and Director, Princeton Evangelical Fellowship
(est. 1931, the spiritual heir to the Philadelphian Society of Nassau Hall [1825-1930], J. B. Taylor, primary founder)

+ Jon Hinkson

+ Kelly Monroe Kullberg
Founder, The Veritas Forum (est. 1992 at Harvard University) . . . editor of the Boston Globe bestseller Finding God at Harvard: Spiritual Journeys of Thinking Christians . . . and author of Finding God Beyond Harvard: The Quest for Veritas

+ Josh Moody (Ph.D., Cambridge)
Author . . . former member, Yale Religious Ministries . . . former Senior Pastor, Trinity Baptist Church (near Yale University campus, New Haven, Connecticut) . . . since January 2009, Senior Pastor, Wheaton College Church, Ill.

Also, click here (UCM's page) or here (publisher's page) to read what Princeton University student (Class of 2009) and former (2007) student-president of Princeton Evangelical Fellowship, Jonathan M. Keller, said about the edited anthology Of Intense Brightness: The Spirituality of Uncommon Christian James Brainerd Taylor (University Press of America, 2008).