Featured Student Voice: John Figdor MDiv '10

Becoming an...Atheologian? Studying Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard Divinity School

I'm John Figdor, and I'm a Secular Humanist MDiv (the pre-ordination degree) at Harvard Divinity School. To many, the idea of an atheist going to divinity school seems strange.  However, for me it was a perfectly logical decision.  When I finished my B.A. in philosophy at Vassar I decided to spend a year doing community service as an AmeriCorps VISTA at a domestic violence shelter in Butte, Montana.  What was perhaps most interesting that year was learning that many Americans do not take their ethical advice from Aristotle, Kant, or Mill, but rather from religious leaders. I realized that if I was going to make a meaningful contribution to the ethical dialogue in this country, I ought to study religious ethics.  Hence I applied to Harvard Divinity School to study Religion, Ethics, and Politics. (Photo: John Figdor with Sarah Chandonnet, MTS '09, Vice President of Harvard Atheists, Skeptics, and Humanists; our Humanist Graduate Community.)

At the beginning, I prepared for a long, hard war of attrition against the Christian establishment at HDS.  I expected my classmates to be wildly conservative religious ideologues hell-bent (pardon the pun) on imposing their religious ethics on all people.  And I was intent on winning them over to the truth of reason and atheism. However, during my first semester at HDS I had the fortune of taking a class with Jim Wallis, a prominent and famously liberal Evangelical minister.  While Jim and I were theological opposites, our moral compasses (his term) were quite similar.  I recognized that we shared a set of beliefs: 1) that scientific methods should be used to solve humanity’s problems; 2) that the concerns of this world (poverty, racism, sexism, etc.) should take precedence over the concerns about the afterlife (if there actually is one); and 3) that all people have inherent dignity and should be treated as ends, not as means.

I began to understand that Jim and I shared a core belief in Humanist principles.  While Jim's Humanism is deeply influenced by his Christian beliefs and mine is purely atheistic, we agreed on issue after issue because our shared Humanist convictions formed a sort of bridge between our vastly different world views.  It is my belief that Humanism has the ability to transcend religious differences and bring disparate religious and irreligious voices into fruitful and productive dialogue. Fortunately for me, my job as Greg Epstein’s intern (Greg is Harvard’s Humanist Chaplain) and my role as President of the Harvard Atheists, Skeptics, and Humanists give me many opportunities to test out this theory.  In these roles I represent the Humanist community in interreligious dialogue with other religious groups at Harvard to plan noon services, in representing Humanism at conferences along the east coast, and in answering the earnest and well-intentioned questions of my fellow students at HDS concerning Humanism.  These days my academic life is split between my time as an atheist atheologian and as a community leader for nontheistic students at Harvard.  Interestingly enough, I’ve found over time that these two jobs actually nicely dovetail.  It turns out that when you invite a group of interesting, intelligent people together under the banner of Humanism, the community that evolves is the sort of community that Greg and I agree is essential to the maintenance of a viable alternative to traditional religious faith.  I hope to see you all at our events, whether it be at a Humanist meeting, one of our new pub nights, a film screening, or in our small group.