Stanford University Appoints Atheist 'Chaplain'

Thomas Kidd | WORLD News Service | Updated: Jan 14, 2013

Stanford University Appoints Atheist 'Chaplain'

(WNS) -- Although it may sound like a contradiction in terms, Stanford University has appointed an atheist “chaplain” to serve its non-believing students. Stanford’s independent Humanist Community technically employs John Figdor, but he is an officially recognized chaplain under Stanford’s Office of Religious Life. As reported by the San Francisco Chronicle, the Harvard Divinity School graduate Figdor explains his work by saying that “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.”

Scotty McLennan, the dean for religious life at Stanford, who is a Unitarian Universalist minister and the author of books including Jesus Was a Liberal, eagerly welcomed Figdor as a campus chaplain, saying that the hire made sense because Stanford itself had been founded on inclusive principles. 

The Stanford family, who created the university in 1885 in California, did explicitly prohibit the school from aligning with any particular denomination. But Stanford’s founding grant also called for the university to teach students the doctrines of “the immortality of the soul, the existence of an all-wise and benevolent Creator, and that obedience to His laws is the highest duty of man.” And the family established the campus’ Memorial Church for nonsectarian worship, and so that “all those who love Our Lord Jesus Christ may partake of the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.” Chapel attendance at Stanford has been voluntary.

Figdor originally entered Harvard Divinity School with the aim of becoming a religion journalist, but along the way he met Harvard’s own humanist chaplain, and became his assistant. Stanford’s Humanist Community hired Figdor in July. He recently led students through a program he calls “The Heathen’s Guide to the Holidays,” in which he suggested alternatives to celebrating Christmas or Hanukkah. Among the options was singing John Lennon’s “Imagine,” and observing “Festivus,” the holiday “for the rest of us” made famous in an episode of TV’s Seinfeld.

c. 2013 WORLD News Service. Used with permission.

Publication date: January 14, 2013



Stanford University Appoints Atheist 'Chaplain'