HARVARD ELECTS ATHEIST AS NEW HEAD CHAPLAIN
Harvard University was originally founded with a mission to educate clergymen who would minister to the early puritan pilgrims in New England. This week, an atheist begins work as the school’s new head chaplain.
Greg Epstein, the 44-year-old author of “Good Without God: What a Billion Nonreligious People Do Believe,” formerly served as the university’s humanist chaplain since 2005 before being unanimously elected by his fellow campus chaplains as the university chaplains organization’s new president, the New York Times reported.
“There is a rising group of people who no longer identify with any religious tradition but still experience a real need for conversation and support around what it means to be a good human and live an ethical life,” Epstein told the paper.
Epstein’s colleagues and students alike told the paper the unanimous choice is not as odd as it may seem as there have been fundamental changes in the religiosity of young people at universities across the country.
“Maybe in a more conservative university climate there might be a question like ‘What the heck are they doing at Harvard, having a humanist be the president of the chaplains?'” Margit Hammerstrom, the Christian Science chaplain at Harvard, told The Times. “But in this environment it works. Greg is known for wanting to keep lines of communication open between different faiths.”
As Harvard University’s new chief chaplain, Epstein will coordinate activities of over 40 chaplains from more than 20 different religious, spiritual and ethical traditions.
“I want to support students and the university community together around the fact that it’s been an extraordinarily trying time and almost anybody could be expected to have lost a little faith in humanity in recent years,” Epstein told The Guardian last week.
“We have a lot that divides us theologically but we have a tremendous amount in common when it comes to our shared desires … to support the human beings in our community as they try to live lives of meaning and purpose in a world that can sometimes threaten to rob us of [those senses], regardless of our beliefs,” he said.
