The Bible and Music

In my previous blog post I mentioned the significance of the bell tower on Butler’s campus, and the quotes engraved in it. Continuing with this trend, the observatory has a seemingly religious quote on it as well. From what I could tell when passing, the quote states “The Heavens Declare the Glory of God.” When I googled this, results for Psalm 19 appeared. Psalm 19 is “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.” Going back to the observatory I found Psalm 19 wrapped around it, and the first half of the quotation is not the only engraving on the structure.

While I had known this quote was on the observatory, I did not think of its background. After discovering this engraving was a portion of Psalm 19, I wondered why this quote would be included on an observatory on a non-religious affiliated university. As it turns out, the observatory, or J.I. Holcomb Observatory and Planetarium, was completed during the fall of 1954. This happened to be four years before the Christian Theological Seminary split from Butler in 1958. It is very puzzling a split between the CTS and Butler occurred at this time, especially due to the Cold War in the 1950s. At that time “many people in the United States worried that communists … could destroy American society from the inside as well as from the outside.” Adding onto the need for reassurance of its citizens’ commitment to the country’s “morals,” President Dwight D. Eisenhower added “one nation under God” onto the pledge of allegiance. Butler choosing to break off from its religious affiliations might have caused some suspicion in the midst of this tension wreaking havoc on the country. It is interesting to see the influence the nation’s history had on Butler during the construction of our campus as we know it.

Works Cited and References:

http://legacy.butler.edu/media/2606542/16_named_spaces.pdf

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+19&version=ESV

http://map.butler.edu/map/accessible.php?id=416#125575

https://www.butler.edu/holcomb-observatory/history

http://www.history.com/topics/1950s

https://www.britannica.com/event/Pledge-of-Allegiance-to-the-Flag-of-the-United-States-of-America