Perhaps you saw that New York Times headline the other day that proclaimed: “The New Chief Chaplain at Harvard? An Atheist.”
That led, during this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in) to a logical question: Is it really surprising, and newsworthy, that the office for chaplains at today’s Harvard is led by an atheist/humanist rabbi?
For me, this was a totally valid story. However, I do wish that the Times had followed through and fleshed out the two big themes mentioned in this feature.
You can see one of those themes in the sub-headline: “The elevation of Greg Epstein, author of ‘Good Without God,’ reflects a broader trend of young people who increasingly identify as spiritual but religiously nonaffiliated.”
Ah, another story about the young “religiously unaffiliated” folks who have received so much ink in recent years, following in the footsteps of the “spiritual, but not religious” and “Sheilaism” trendsetters of previous decades. But how many of the “nones” are actually atheists or agnostics? Hold that thought.
The other big idea here is that Epstein was a popular choice among the Harvard chaplains, in part because of his abilities to build bridges between a wide variety of religious brands — including evangelical Protestants and Christian liberals. Hold that thought, as well.
I found myself, while reading the Times piece, wondering: What is the dominant religious worldview at postmodern Harvard? I am sure that there are more than a few atheists and agnostics there. But people I know with ties to the campus tell me that a kind of “woke” liberal faith is the norm, which actually fits with the school’s roots in mainline Protestant New England. Also, there are more than a few evangelicals in the mix (look up “The Veritas Forum”).
I was reminded of the debates almost a decade ago at Vanderbilt University, as campus leaders tried to push evangelical Protestant student ministries off campus because of tensions over You Know What. In a column at that time (“The new campus orthodoxy that forbids most old orthodoxies“) I noted:
Leaders of Vanderbilt student groups were told they must not discriminate on the basis of "race, sex, religion, color, national or ethnic origin, age, disability, military service, or genetic information. ... In addition, the University does not discriminate against individuals on the basis of their sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression."
Here the the chunk of that column that I believe is relevant to this new Times piece about Harvard:
… (S)ome conservatives called this struggle another war between faith and "secularism." In this case, that judgment was inaccurate and kept many outsiders from understanding what actually happened, according to the Rev. Tish Harrison Warren, an Anglican minister who worked with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship at Vanderbilt during the dispute.
"What Vanderbilt did affirmed the beliefs of some religious groups and rejected those of others. That isn't secularism. Vanderbilt established that there is an orthodoxy on the campus, which means that it has taken a sectarian stand," said Warren. …
"The university established some approved doctrines and now wants to discriminate in order to defend them. ... As a private school it has every right to do that," she added, reached by telephone. Meanwhile, conservative Christian schools "have their own doctrinal statements, but they're very upfront about that. Students who go to those schools know what they're getting into. The question is whether Vanderbilt will be just as candid and tell students about these new limitations on free speech, freedom of association and freedom of religion" on campus.
Is that what is happening at Harvard?
I would predict that liberal religious groups feel little or no tension with the Ivy campus powers that be. I know that, at one point, InterVarsity and similar small-o orthodox groups were facing a crackdown at Harvard.
So, the Times piece stressed that the committee that selected Epstein as chief chaplain included an evangelical chaplain — but this person was not named or quoted (as opposed to the liberal Lutheran chaplain who is a major source for the piece).
It only took me 30 seconds or so to find an online guide to the Harvard chaplains and it is a fascinating list. There are plenty of liberal campus ministers, but there are also six InterVarsity staffers, a leader for Cru (formerly Campus Crusade for Christ), a representative of the “Reformed University Fellowship,” a Southern Baptist or two and various representatives of Orthodox Judaism, Eastern Orthodox Christianity, Catholicism, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and others.
If one of the major themes of the article was that Epstein is an effective bridge builder, why not seek out one or two traditional believers to speak on his behalf? Why only quote the left? Why not talk to the “Veritas Forum” leaders, since that is an evangelical ministry that was BORN at Harvard?
The Times piece noted:
The dozens of students whom Mr. Epstein mentors have found a source of meaning in the school’s organization of humanists, atheists and agnostics, reflecting a broader trend of young people across the United States who increasingly identify as spiritual but religiously nonaffiliated. That trend might be especially salient at Harvard; a Harvard Crimson survey of the class of 2019 found that those students were two times more likely to identify as atheist or agnostic than 18-year-olds in the general population.
Well, “dozens of students” is important (if vague), but it did make me wonder how those numbers contrast with the total membership of the various other campus ministries. InterVarsity has a half-dozen staffers? How many students take part in their prayer circles, Bible studies, seminars, etc.?
“Crossroads” host Todd Wilken and I also spent some time discussing this next chunk of the Times piece:
Nonreligiosity is on the rise far beyond the confines of Harvard; it is the fastest growing religious preference in the country, according to the Pew Research Center. More than 20 percent of the country identifies as atheist, agnostic or nonreligious — called the “nones” — including four in 10 millennials. …
Mr. Epstein’s community has tapped into the growing desire for meaning without faith in God. “Being able to find values and rituals but not having to believe in magic, that’s a powerful thing,” said A.J. Kumar, who served as the president of a Harvard humanist graduate student group that Mr. Epstein advised.
Well, anyone who digs into the “nones” numbers knows that “religiously unaffiliated” is not the same thing as non-religious.
As the omnipresent Ryan Burge has noted (see the chart above), the “atheist” and “agnostic” numbers in America are rising, but the far larger flock gathers under a “nothing in particular” banner, which includes plenty of unconventional believers, but believers nonetheless.
As Burge told me, in a column I wrote about his book “The Nones: Where They Came From, Who They Are, and Where They Are Going":
"When you say 'nones' and all you think about is atheists and agnostics, then you're not seeing the big picture," said Burge. … "Atheists have a community. Atheists have a belief system. They are highly active when it comes to politics and public institutions. But these 'nothing in particular' Americans don't have any of that. They're struggling. They're disconnected from American life in so many ways." …
Burge stressed that "nothing in particulars are one of the most educationally and economically disadvantaged groups in the United States today." This is also a growing slice of the population, with one in 20 Americans becoming "NIPs" during the past decade.
Who do the “nothing in particular” students turn to at Harvard, if there are many of them on that elite campus? Their voices certainly didn’t appear in this Times feature. Maybe they didn’t fit into the template for this story.
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FIRST IMAGE: From a history of the Harvard University slogan and shield.