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Stanford Appoints Atheist Chaplain


There's an atheist chaplain at Stanford. This is good news. John Figdor has a degree from Harvard Divinity School and he does what chaplains do. He counsels those in need and visits the sick. And what's more, he's welcomed as part of the Office of Religious Life. His appointment not only broadens the conversation about "belief" and "unbelief" but also exposes the confusion at the heart of that conversation. We are often talking at cross-purposes. As Figdor points out, "Atheist, agnostic and humanist students suffer the same problems as religious students - deaths or illnesses in the family, questions about the meaning of life, etc. - and would like a sympathetic nontheist to talk to."

Evidently he's part of a growing number of "faith-free" chaplains at universities. All the benefits of religion without the god bit. And here's where the conversation, with all its risk of confusion, gets interesting. For me, faith is all about freedom. For others, faith is a form of closed-mindedness. The early Christians were called atheists and the tradition in which I was trained taught me that one of the reasons to believe in God is that it saves you from having to believe in anything else! Everyone, as Paul Tillich taught us decades ago, owes an allegiance to some "Ultimate Concern" and freedom relies on that concern to be incapable of being manipulated.

Read complete article at -- http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-jones/an-atheist-chapaincy-a-good-way-to-begin-the-new-year_b_2366663.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000008

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