Moral Majority?

Northfield Seminary for Young Ladies - Tree Day, 1910

In the rural northwest corner of Massachusetts, 19th-century Christian evangelist Dwight L. Moody founded two schools on opposite sides of the Connecticut River: the Northfield Seminary for Young Ladies in 1879 and the Mount Hermon School for Boys in 1881.  In 1971, the schools merged as the Northfield Mount Hermon School with boys and girls on both campuses. I graduated from NMH in 1975, as did my eldest son in 2006. The school's enduring mission is "to educate the head, heart, and hand." Consistent with this mission, it has always operated with a progressive policy of admitting a large and diverse number of students on full or partial scholarships, supported in part by the "work jobs" that all students do throughout the year; washing dishes, mopping floors, raking leaves, etc., reducing expense and building character and community.

During my son's sophomore year, the school's trustees announced their decision to consolidate the school on the Mount Hermon campus, citing declining private secondary school enrollment, and the capital and maintenance costs of supporting two campuses with redundant assets like two libraries, two gymmasia, etc. In 2005, the Northfield campus was closed and the student body downsized to about 600 students from a high of around 1,200 in the 80s and 90s. This decision inflamed the town of Northfield, school donors and alumni.

The school's trustees and a team of advisors began marketing the 217-acre Northfield campus, seeking a single owner, preferably one with an academic mission consistent with Moody's teachings and the school's history.  In 2009, it was announced that Hobby Lobby, a private, family-run chain of arts and crafts stores, had bought the campus for $100,000, and that the tenant would be the C.S. Lewis College of Great Books.

Now it seems the C.S. Lewis College has missed its $10-15 million fundraising goal and has lost its "sole beneficiary" status to the campus, leading Hobby Lobby to seek a new institution to use the campus, a decision the original sale of the campus leaves entirely to them. Due diligence reveals that Hobby Lobby is run by David Green, whose net worth is reported by Forbes to be $5 billion. Over the years, Green has amassed a collection of bibles purported to be the largest in the world. He has also given money to a range of religious institutions, including Virginia's Liberty University, a Christian college with a current enrollment of 12,500 on campus and another 61,000 studying online. Green's agent has shown the Northfield campus to more than a dozen Christian institutions, including Liberty University.  And there's the catch.

Liberty University was founded by the late Jerry Falwell, who also founded the Moral Majority. Such news travels fast. According to The New York Times, "More than 1,000 alumni of Northfield Mount Hermon have signed a petition calling Liberty “an extremist, homophobic, and intellectually narrow institution that clashes with the values of D. L. Moody."

An NMH alumni group on Linkedin is seething, with many, including a former trustee, describing the prospect of Liberty University in Northfield as either "heartbreaking, disturbing, sickening, saddening, horrifying or disgusting."

I was never a follower of Falwell or the Moral Majority, but I recall there was a difference  between Falwell's more virulent comments about behavior he believed was an affront to God, and his avowed support for LBGT civil rights.

It is no small irony that those so opposed to Liberty University's potential use of the Northfield campus demonstrate the same small mindedness and intolerance they so detest and found fault with in Jerry Falwell.

Mount Hermon Bible Class - 1888