Saturday, February 21, 2015

Colleges: Humanist Chaplains for the Nonbelievers

"As more people are coming out and more people are becoming atheists and humanists, universities are recognizing the need to service their diverse populations, including people who don't believe in God."
-- Roy Speckhardt, executive director of the American Humanist Association

"Our mission is to build, educate and nurture a diverse community of atheists, humanists, agnostics and the non-religious."
-- Jonathan Figdor, Stanford University's humanist pastor and co-author of "Atheist Mind, Humanist Heart: Rewriting the Ten Commandments for the Twenty-First Century"


For background, read Stanford University Hires Atheist 'Chaplain' and then hires an Anti-Christian Lesbian Ordained Priest

Click headlines below to read previous articles:

Church is About Friendships, NOT God: University Study

God is Not a Being, but an Experience, Pastor Says

New Atheist 'Churches' in America Give Competition to Mainlines

Also read California Boots College Christian Clubs Across the State

-- From "US colleges bringing in chaplains to serve the nonbelievers" by John Rogers, Associated Press 2/14/15

[Bart Campolo, 51,] the onetime United Methodist youth minister, who worked for decades with the poor in inner-city neighborhoods in Philadelphia and Cincinnati, figured he'd try to keep doing that by presiding over what he cheerfully calls "a church for people who don't believe in God."

USC already had more than 50 religious leaders ministering to students of various faiths, said Varun Soni, dean of the school's Office of Religious Life. So it seemed only right, he added, to bring one in for non-believers seeking spiritual guidance.

"Spirituality is really engaged with the ultimate questions that make us human. The questions of meaning and purpose, of significance and authenticity," Soni said. "Many of our students who identify as religious find the answers to those questions through God. But we realize that not everyone does, and we want to be a resource to our entire university community."

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

For more about the secularization of America, read CBS Gives Voice to Atheists, Heretics, & Apostates