As you may know by now, earlier this year, Harvard University announced that Greg Epstein, the new President of its campus Chaplains, is an avowed atheist. Many Christians are naturally alarmed. How can an atheist even be a chaplain at all? How can a nonbeliever provide any sort of spiritual guidance to the university’s student body? Those are certainly valid questions, but I don’t think that most of the secularist people at Harvard care about that one way or another. That university long ago abandoned its early Christian roots, first for unitarianism in the 18th century, then for secular humanism in the 19th century, and then for Post-modernism in the 20th century. It is no surprise that, now, in the 21st century, an atheist could be selected as a chaplain.
But is it possible that this can offer an opportunity for Christians on campus to better have their voices heard? I don’t know how dogmatic an atheist Epstein actually is, but frankly, the more so the better. Why? Because if he really believes it, he should be willing to accept the challenges of Christian intellectuals to defend his beliefs in a public forum. A number of highly qualified evangelical scholars would bite at the chance to face off with him, or any other skeptic the campus atheists may produce, in a public debate at Harvard. Some excellent apologists who I can think of include William Lane Craig, Mike Licona, James White, John Lennox, Frank Turek, Hugh Ross, J.P. Moreland, Gary Habermas, Craig Hazen, Sean McDowell, and Mary Jo Sharp.
I sincerely hope the evangelicals at Harvard (yes, there are a few) will take advantage of this chance to force modern atheism and its advocates into the light. If the university administration resists sponsoring such interactions, then Christians should publicly call them out. Theism and Christianity have the right to be heard as much as any other religion or worldview. Atheism is a vacuous philosophy that leads to nowhere but despair. It cannot provide any basis for answering the biggest philosophical questions: Why does anything exist?; How did the universe begin?; Why can the physical world be explained by the laws of nature?; Why does intelligent life exist on earth?; Why do we have consciousness of who we are?; and, What is the basis for objective moral values?
Atheism has no answers to those questions. It also holds no solutions for the more personal issues: Who am I? Why am I here? What is my purpose? Yet, as believers, we do have reasonable bases for answering those questions that we can defend intellectually. Here’s hoping Harvard Christians demand and get their place at the table.
For more on the weaknesses of Atheism go to the following links:
Six Questions Atheists Can’t Answer Part 1
Six Questions Atheists Can’t Answer Part 2