Greg Epstein, 44, who grew up in a reformed Jewish household in Queens, New York, was named president of the chaplains for the religious community at the school after serving as Harvard's "humanist chaplain" since 2005.
He is a self-avowed devout atheist who aspires to serve fellow nonreligious believers as well as agnostics and humanists at the Cambridge, Massachusetts, school.
That's a big difference from a school founded by Puritans in 1636 and named for pastor John Harvard. The university did not even have a president who wasn't a clergyman for its first 70 years.
But Epstein said his rise to the position is meant to include larger and larger numbers of Americans and especially progressive Harvard students who classify themselves as spiritual but not religious.
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"There is a rising group of people who no longer identify with any religious tradition but still experience a real need for conversation and support around what it means to be a good human and live an ethical life," he told the New York Times.
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The Harvard Crimson did a survey of the school's class of 2019 and found that there are indeed growing numbers of students without a chosen religion.
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The survey showed 21% of the class as agnostic and 17% were atheists. This compared to 17% Catholics, 10% Jewish, and 3% of Hindus and Muslims.
This isn't just a trend at Harvard: a Pew Research Center poll discovered 20% of Americans identify as atheist, agnostic or non-religious.
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That same poll found two-thirds of surveyed freshmen known as "somewhat or very liberal"; only 12% of the class said they were at least "somewhat conservative."
Epstein himself served as the national chair of the organization "Humanists for Biden/Harris" during the 2020 election.
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The university is known for often taking progressive views on social issues and outrage at more conservative faculty.
Recently, a professor faced serious reaction for refusing to use the term "pregnant people" and maintaining on using the terms male and female. The university also excluded Donald Trump-supporter US Rep Elise Stefanik from aboard for perpetuating claims of voter fraud Students have also filed a petition to ban Trump administration alums from speaking or teaching at the school.
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The position of chaplain is not fundamentally matched with one special religion, although it has origins in the Christian tradition.
The Harvard Chaplains describe themselves as a professional community of more than 30 chaplains, representing many of the world's religious, spiritual, and ethical traditions, who share a collective commitment to serving the spiritual needs of the students, faculty, and staff of Harvard University.
These chaplains cover every mainstream faith that you can think of: everyone from Catholics, Jews, and Muslims to Hindus, Buddhists, Zoroastrians, Mormons, and Sikhs.
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