Pilgrims’ Pride

Faith impelled the Pilgrims across the sea. They came to North America to practice their religion, and envisioned a Christian commonwealth. The Mayflower Compact resembles a covenant.

Notable divines in early New England included Cotton Mather and Jonathan Edwards, whose "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" bears reading especially now. The risen Christ revealed himself to Mary Magdalene, venerated as the Apostle to the Apostles; Anne Hutchinson asserted women's rights to full discipleship. Salem had witch trials. Roger Williams protested the treatment of the Indians and named his tolerant settlement Providence.

Churches played important roles in the Revolution and the debates leading to it. One night in 1775, Paul Revere waited for the signal from Old North Church -- "one if by land, two if by sea!" At Park Street Church, William Lloyd Garrison thundered against the sin of slavery. He rightly said it would be better not to have a country than to see this malefaction persist. Mary Baker Eddy founded the Church of Christ, Scientist, whose Mother Church beautifies the Back Bay.

Transcendentalism rose from fertile soil. Ralph Waldo Emerson was ordained a Unitarian minister; he left Boston's Second Church after concluding he no longer could accept Communion as truth. The Sacred Cod hangs in the Massachusetts State House. The early pages of Moby-Dick convey a sermon delivered in New Bedford. Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale did those things which they ought not to have done. The steepled New England church -- its glistening whiteness inevitably photographed against a backdrop of leaves red and gold -- serves as a national icon. Immigration introduced Catholicism to a region once stoutly Yankee and Protestant. The only Catholic president was from Boston and relaxed at the family compound in Hyannis Port.

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This week the American Religious Identification Survey reported that the percentage of Americans professing a religion continues to decline. Mainline denominations bleed members. According to certain accounts, the evangelical boom has gone bust. The identification survey also says New England has replaced the Pacific Northwest as the least religious section of the United States, land of the Pilgrims' pride.

Harvard's original motto proclaimed, Veritas pro Christo et Ecclesia -- "Truth for Christ and His Church." Sometime in the 19th century, Christ and church disappeared from the shield. Truth stands alone, or thinks it does. Yet, that is not the only thing, or perhaps even the main thing.

The Harvard Memorial Church centers the school still. Peter Gomes graces its pulpit. Most pass by in adolescent oblivion or with the scorn of the supercilious adult, but not all. Pews beckon, in the church and in sanctuaries elsewhere near the Yard. Finding God at Harvard recounts stories of conversion within a secular citadel. In an earlier generation, Avery Dulles -- scion of a WASP dynasty -- walked along the Charles, saw something that made him hear something, which made him answer, yes he would yes. He became a theologian and a Catholic teacher and in 2001 was created a cardinal by Pope John Paul II. In their monastery on that selfsame river, the Episcopal brothers of the Society of Saint John the Evangelist offer direction to those retreating from the everyday mirage and into the eternal real.

Are we a Christian nation? Were we ever? What is a Christian nation? Patriots salute the flag. Believers kneel at the altar. Church numbers fall. Remnants find humble comfort in the interior castle, and thrive.