Word: sectarianism
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...defense of the group's position, asked that Pusey open Memorial Church to all religious denominations and that both Christian and non-Christian services be conducted there. Although the statement is directly concerned only with Memorial Church, a source has revealed that it implies the larger issues of a sectarian university...
Opposed in approach to this view of the non-sectarian University but identical in conclusion is the attitude held by others in the group opposed to Pusey's policy. It is expressed by Frank W. Cross, Jr., associate professor of Old Testament in the Divinity School, who, however, did not sign the petition: "The issue is whether or not the Protestant tradition established in Sunday Services at Memorial Church requires that Jewish or Catholic services be excluded from its edifice...
Another source commented that the document being presented to the President concerned mainly Memorial Church, but that it implied the larger issues of a sectarian university...
Memorial Church is not merely a building in the Yard, not merely a "non-sectarian" Protestant Church, whatever that might be. Memorial Church has become a symbol in the larger debate as to whether Harvard is, or ought to be, a Christian institution, and what role, if any, the President should play in promoting a religious' philosophy...
...Memorial Church now becomes a symbol of disunity in the Harvard community. To those of us who are not Christians, it is a place that is not available for sanctification either of joy or of grief. There has been exclusion. I cannot avoid the feeling that matters of sectarian religious doctrine have been put ahead of concern for the Harvard community, a community so fine and just in its temper and standards that many feel it to be one of the great achievements of American life...