Will Amherst College Cancel God? It’s Just A Matter Of Time

My College, Amherst College, has a motto, Terras Irradient, but I wonder how much longer the motto will last.

The Latin phrase means “May they enlighten the earth,” which is apparently borrowed from a phrase in the Biblical book of Isaiah.

We live in rather un-Biblical times on college campuses, and anything smacking of religious values is essentially an endangered species.

Amherst’s sports teams used to be called the Lord Jeffs, as in Lord Jeffrey Amherst, as in the guy who sold Native Americans disease-infested blankets during the French and Indian War.

A few years back, Amherst’s rather progressive administration removed the Lord Jeff moniker and renamed the teams the Mammoths.

No one know why they chose Mammoths, but there was a contest, and that’s how these things go.

You can make a case that Lord Jeff wasn’t the kind of quality guy after which you’d want to name a sports team.

As an alum, I could see their point.

But now I wonder just how long it will be before the College motto, Terras Irradient, falls onto the same chopping block.

The good news is that most college students, or administrators, don’t speak Latin, so unless they feed the motto into Google Translate, they won’t know what it means.

But what if they do?

Amherst was founded in the early 19th century to educate missionaries to spread the Christian religion.

So it made sense that the school’s motto would reference their desire to illuminate the world, as did the prophet Isaiah in his day.

Today, of course, Amherst College’s mission isn’t to train missionaries.

The mission is, if I may so, to train college students to enter a world that doesn’t exist and never will exist.

The “real world” doesn’t offer safe spaces, or crayons if someone says something you don’t like, or a ban on “trigger words” the hearing of which constitutes “micro-aggressions” that only enhance people’s pain.

Today, college campuses, Amherst most likely among them, are places where anything other than progressive thought will get you in trouble.

You’ll either be criticized in class for bringing up a conservative perspective, or you’ll get slammed by your classmates on social media for the same thing.

Free exchange of ideas?

Are you kidding me?

So what happens when a crew of cancel culture-minded students, profs, or administrators stumbles upon the lightly hidden fact that the College motto supports the spread of religion, just as Lord Jeff’s blankets supported the spread of smallpox?

I’m still in touch with four Amherst professors from my College days.

They’re on the verge of retirement, but they’re mostly still teaching.

Used to be that I could sit in on their classes and just enjoy the give and take of ideas.

They won’t let me do that anymore.

Maybe because I scribble for a living.

Maybe because they’re embarrassed that the free exchange of ideas that marked my college years have gone the way of, well, Lord Jeff sweaters.

Who knows?

One thing’s for certain.

At some point, someone’s going to take offense that the College’s motto supports (or “centers,” if you want to sound au courant), a mainstream religion at the expense of everyone else’s.

And then Terras Irradient will be no more.

We’ve entered an intellectual Dark Ages on our campuses, complete with the intellectual equivalent of witch burnings for those with heretical (that is, dissenting) views.

So it makes sense that they’ll get a new motto.

They’ve ceased enlightening the earth.

These days, sad to say, they’re just darkening it.

And they wonder why I don’t donate anymore.

Well, now they know.