NATIONAL NEWS:

A surprising announcement on Thursday revived tensions between Harvard’s original mission and its more recent secular orientation. The association of more than 30 Harvard chaplains representing a wide range of religious communities elected Greg Epstein as their new leader. The surprise isn’t that Epstein is not a Christian,  It’s that he doesn’t believe in God at all.

An atheist chaplain seems like a contradiction in terms. Epstein’s life work is to convince people that it’s not. An ordained “humanist rabbi,” Epstein doesn’t oppose religious texts, ideas, or practices. But he argues that people who doubt the existence of supernatural forces need their own ways of inculcating virtues, exploring the meaning of life, and sustaining communities that can extend through generations.