Tuesday, November 10, 2026

It is the 10th of November 2026. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org; I’m Dan van Voorhis.

I’m working on this show a few days earlier… so I don’t know how the Rutgers Scarlett Knights fared against Wisconsin last weekend. But probably not well… their demise in college football is a shame- it’s where college football began! But Scarlett Knights- today’s show is for you- and for alumni like the late James Gandolfini and Paul Robeson. I should also note that my ancestors have long been donors, and you’ll see variants of my family name all over the school.

Today marks the 260th birthday of the 8th oldest college in the United States- originally named Queen’s College- it got its charter from George III and was named after his queen, Charlotte. And it originally served to solve a problem brought about by the Dutch Reformed church and the Great Awakening.

The Great Awakening of the early 1700s raised questions about proper ordination for ministers. Could anyone set up a tent and start preaching? With the large number of conversions, how could churches with slow processes of examination and ordination keep up? (In fact, the very Baptist and Methodist flavor of American Christianity comes from their nimbleness when it came to expansion).

The genesis of the college comes from a proposal from the King's College of New York (today Columbia) in the 1750s to name a Dutch Reformed professor of theology to the faculty. Theodorus Frelinghuysen led the charge against this commingling of the Anglicans of New York and King’s College and the Dutch Reformed in Albany and the Hudson Valley. On horseback, he traveled to Dutch churches calling for a distinct American Dutch Reformed synod and an academy for “the education of youth in the learned languages, liberal and useful arts and sciences, and especially in divinity, preparing them for the ministry, and other good offices

His son, Theodorus Jr would travel to the Netherlands to get approval but was rebuffed. He traveled back across the Atlantic in 1761 but perished at sea.

Two groups formed- one that sought to enable the Dutch Reformed to educate and ordain ministers in America, while the other thought that this would lead to the “Americanization” of the denomination- a pattern followed by many old-world church bodies. Jacob Hardenbergh, a Dutch minister, took up the cause of the Frelinghuysens, and when he was turned down by the Dutch, went to King George III to establish a college. Working with William Franklin, the Provisional governor of New Jersey, they received a charter for the college on this, the 10th of November, 260 years ago today in 1766.

Instruction didn’t begin until 1771, when an old tavern was acquired and another Frelinghuysen, Frederick, was named first tutor. Like many schools, it suffered during the war and was proposed to merge with the College of New Jersey (Princeton). They refused, but by 1795 had to suspend all operations. The school opened in 1807 only to succumb to the financial collapse of 1815 and close again.

In 1825 the school was reopened with Phillip Milledoler serving as its president. Milledoler was the pastor of a Dutch Reformed church where an elder was the Revolutionary War veteran Henry Rutgers. Rutgers donated 5,000 dollars and a bell to the school, and it was named in his honor- named for a man who didn’t work there or attend there… back when 5,000 dollars and a bell could really get you something.

By the mid-19th century, the seminary was separated from college- it continues today as New Brunswick Theological Seminary, affiliated with the Reformed Church in America. Rutgers was given land-grant status in 1864 under the Morrill Act to focus on agricultural and mechanical studies. By 1917, it was designated as a State College, and over the century absorbed the New Jersey College for Women and other institutions in Newark and Camden. In 1956 it was recognized as the State University of New Jersey, completing the transformation from Queens and a Dutch Reformed Seminary to the modern Rutgers on her 260th birthday. The motto, however, has remained. It was borrowed from the University of Utrecht, which was a play on Malachi 4:2, “Sun of Righteousness, Shine Upon Us”- the Queen’s/Rutgers motto being “Sol iustitiae et occidentem illustra” or “Sun of Righteousness, shine also upon the West”.

The Last word for today comes from the daily lectionary and Psalm 63- let’s hit up the old metrical psalter:

¹ Lord, thee my God, I’ll early seek:
my soul doth thirst for thee;
My flesh longs in a dry parched land,
wherein no waters be:

² That I thy power may behold,
and brightness of thy face,
As I have seen thee heretofore
within thy holy place.

³ Since better is thy love than life,
my lips thee praise shall give.


⁴ I in thy name will lift my hands,
and bless thee while I live.

⁵ Ev’n as with marrow and with fat
my soul shall filled be;
Then shall my mouth with joyful lips
sing praises unto thee:

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 10th of November 2026 brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man whose favorite college mascots include the Delta State Fighting Okra, the Presbyterian College Blue Hose, and the Trinity Christian College Trolls-- he is Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man in the land of the Anteaters, Banana Slugs, Honkers, and Ugly Eagles… I’m Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.