The New Chief Chaplain at Harvard? An Atheist. (yahoo.com)
“To Epstein’s fellow campus chaplains, at least, the notion of being led by an atheist is not as counterintuitive as it might sound; his election was unanimous.”
I think it is great, but I have no doubt conservatives are going to shit bricks.
After reading that article, it makes sense that the Chaplin be an atheist.
That at least assures impartiality over all the various religious groups he will be leading.
Well, the conservatives I know are religious people, and know what the job of chaplain is, so no, they aren’t going to shit bricks. I guess it will come as a surprise to people who don’t know what chaplaincy is, but that’s spread indiscriminately across conservative and radical groups.
You’re Australian, right? Here in the US Bible Belt, I would expect atheists and religious people alike to assume a chaplain is essentially the pastor for a private institution, and would thus assume they must be Christian. Even the definition given when you google “chaplain” mentions them being a member of the clergy, a term I only associate with Christianity.
I even remember people on this board talking about the existence of the Congressional chaplains, and many seemed to assume the office would be held by a Christian.
Exactly. I don’t think this board swings ‘religious’ or ‘conservative’.
This story may be somewhat exaggerated: Harvard has someone who is in effect the “University chaplain”, “the Plummer Professor of Christian Morals and Pusey minister in the Memorial Church” whose salary is paid by the university, and who naturally enough is a Christian minister (“Professor of Christian Morals” and all that). Then, there are another thirty or so chaplains from a variety of denominations and traditions; they are unpaid, but the university does provide them with office space on campus. This group has included a humanist chaplain for some now; Greg Epstein (the atheist chaplain) has been elected chair of this group.
Harvard, of course, is a private university, and may maintain a sectarian religious identity if it chooses to do so. It was founded as a Puritan seminary, after all.
I think this is a bit naive - no matter what chaplaincy might theoretically be, the reality is that it has long been a role fulfilled by religious people, and which religious people feel to be a prerequisite.
We tend to assume that because it’s overwhelmingly likely to be true. If you look at the history of the chaplains of the United States Senate and the history of the chaplains of the United States House of Representatives, they have nearly all been Protestant Christians. There have been two Unitarians on the Senate side, and two Unitarians and a Universalist on the House side. (In modern times, the Unitarian Universalists—the merger of those two denominations—have evolved into a post-Christian and completely non-dogmatic movement, and a 20th or 21st Century UU clergyman might well be an atheist. The Unitarian or Universalist chaplains all served in the 19th or very early 20th centuries, and I don’t know if that was yet true about those groups.) There has been one Catholic chaplain on the Senate side, and two Catholics for the House (which was the subject of some controversy a few years ago). This is all out of a total of 62 Senate chaplains; and about that many House chaplains (several of whom held two or more non-consecutive terms). The current chaplain of the U.S. House of Representatives is a woman (a first for either position); she is also another Protestant Christian (a Presbyterian).
There have been a variety of “guest chaplains” over the years, but there has never been a rabbi as the official chaplain of either house of Congress, or any other non-Christian (unless you want to count the Unitarians). Both congressional chaplainships are salaried positions, making in the low six figures, paid by U.S. taxpayers.
But does he have to have the little mustache?
And I think that’s a bit naive: no matter what chaplaincy might theoretically be, the reality is that it has long been a role fulfilled by religious people, so non-religious people tend to feel it’s a prerequisite, but religious people know better.
You appear have not understood the bulk of my post.
I live in the Bible Belt. Thus most people I know are in fact both conservative and religious. And yet I’m pretty sure all of them would think that a chaplain must not only be religious, but Christian. Every chaplain I have ever known has had the title “Reverend” or “Father.”
The rest of my post was just to show that this was not unusual, confined only to the Bible Belt.
It’s possible that this is different in Australia. Perhaps the arrangement being described at Harvard is more common over there, but only conservative religious people tend to be aware of this. However, this seems quite odd to me, as it is the liberal, non-religious institutions who are more likely to have such an arrangement.
On the other hand, this gives inadvertent credence to the school of thought which holds that atheism is actually a religion.
No, it doesn’t.
You mean like how not collecting coins is a hobby?
I just googled “chaplain”. The first three hits:
noun
a member of the clergy attached to a private chapel, institution, ship, branch of the armed forces, etc.
The chaplain’s responsibilities include performing religious rites, conducting worship services, providing confidential counseling and advising commanders on religious, spiritual and moral matters. Chaplains are commissioned officers stationed wherever there are military members, including combat environments.
Chaplain, originally a priest or minister who had charge of a chapel, now an ordained member of the clergy who is assigned to a special ministry. The title dates to the early centuries of the Christian church.
The first and third specify a member of the clergy. The third says additionally that it’s originally a Christian title. (And a number of the definitions I find for “clergy” say that’s a Christian or primarily a Christian term.) The second says that among other things the chaplain performs religious rites and conducts worship services.
So I think it’s not too surprising if most people, at least in the USA, expect a chaplain to be a religious person.
I feel this was a bad idea. (And I am an atheist.)
I can see the argument that the position of Chief Chaplain is primarily an administrative one. And an atheist can have good administrative skills just like a believer can.
But I feel the position goes beyond just administration. The religious chaplains at Harvard may not agree on their particular beliefs but they all must believe that religion of some form is providing a value to the students.
I feel an atheist - somebody who does not accept that religion has meaning - cannot do a proper job in managing the dissemination of religion to a group of people.
While I see where you’re coming from and would agree if he was just a run of the mill atheist (like myself), he sees himself as a humanist. While not a religion, humanism is a philosophy, unlike atheism which represents the lack of any sort of belief system.
I find it a bit fuzzy and could probably be swayed to your side pretty easily, but I do distinguish between atheism and humanism, even if the those who abide by the second typically fall within the first.
I will simply highlight that there is a difference between “humanism” and “atheism.” Although atheism is not a religion, (secular) humanism might plausibly come closer. And I think this is a positive development, a humanist chaplain, as it may get us one step closer to humanist chaplains in the military (by establishing a precedent for humanists as credentialed chaplains).
I have a feeling there are a lot of ministers of various varieties who are effectively atheist in actual thought, even if they’d never let on such a thing. I have a feeling that a lot of population is that way too, although it’s impossible to really know what people’s actual beliefs are when there’s strong social pressure to conform to the society of believers. The saying about the wise finding religion false and leaders finding it useful is very old.
You also don’t need to believe in a religion to be able to perform its rites. At least, that’s what an atheist would believe.
If that’s correct (and I don’t believe it for a moment) it would be weirdly out of step with the definition of “chaplain”. I was going to quote a few definitions at you but I see thorny_locust has done that already. IME a chaplain doesn’t have to be of a religious background but that is used as a figleaf to cover the fact that in many countries with a nominally secular government, it would be unconstitutional to make religion a requirement. In reality, they are almost always religious.
In Australian schools:
Until 2011, the focus of chaplaincy was on spiritual and religious advice, support and guidance.
Due to constitutional issues, the spiritual and religious nature of school chaplaincy has gone underground since then. However, if you google who is providing training in chaplaincy and placing their trainees in schools you will quickly see through the figleaf. schoolchaplaincy.org.au is " a network of Christian chaplaincy organisations in Australia". generate.org.au is “a joint ministry of Scripture Union NSW, Sydney Anglican Youthworks, Presbyterian Youth NSW, and the Baptist Churches of NSW and the ACT.”
And a key part of the job description is “spiritual guidance” - hmmm, well, there’s a bit of an assumption right there, isn’t there?