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Harvard’s Atheist-Chaplain Controversy

posted on September 14, 2021

The New Yorker’s Nick Paumgarten reports on the divided public response to Humanist chaplain Greg Epstein’s appointment as the president of Harvard’s chaplains. Many expressed joy that a secular leader had reached this level of influence among religious groups; others expressed dismay. Rabbi Jonah Steinberg, the executive director of Harvard Hillel who preceded Epstein as head of the university chaplains, wrote a letter, accusing Epstein of engaging in self-promotion and enlarging what his new role actually means. He wrote,”A story has been told that has promoted you beyond any status our body of Harvard Chaplains has remit to confer … Let me suggest—if there has been a degree of self-promotion in this course of events, there must now be a matching degree of remediation on your part.”

 

Read at The New Yorker