Reframing the Story of Harvard’s Humanist Chaplaincy

The New York Times ran an article at the end of August under the headline, "Harvard's Chief Chaplain Is an Atheist," which generated the head-snapping attention it was designed to produce. The university's diverse body of chaplains had recently voted to make the humanist leader Greg Epstein the administrative head of its group, but it certainly sounded like Harvard as a whole had perpetrated the kind of outrage that only an elitist, out-of-touch institution of higher learning would dare to commit: It had turned the religious leadership of its students over to an openly godless advisor. As the political website, The Hill, repackaged the Times piece for its readership, "Harvard Elects Atheist as New Chief Chaplain, Defying School's Origins." It was clickbait, but it was also a narrative framework certain to create more heat than light -- a leap from faithful Puritans of the 1630s, absorbed with gospel truths, to contemporary "nones," untethered from religious authorities. Christians were set up to bewail their diminished standing, and secularists to celebrate their elevated status.