Chris' Corner -- Sunday, September 12, 2021
Harvard University elected an atheist as their chief chaplain. He is a humanist rabbi from the International Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism. The nominating committee said he was their first choice of someone who will work with and counsel students.
We can see how this selection could happen when we take a closer look at the make-up of this committee. They are Lutheran, Christian Scientist, evangelical Christian, and one is a member of the Baha'i religion.
Lutheran chaplain and chairwoman (Rev.) Kathleen Reed, said, “We’re presenting to the university a vision of how the world could work when diverse traditions focus on how to be good humans and neighbors.”
Greg Epstein, the newly appointed chief chaplain (a.k.a. “fox in the henhouse”), said, “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.”
Here are some legitimate and logical questions that demand answers. “How do we determine how to be good humans and neighbors and live an ethical life? Even atheists will agree some things are “good and right,” while other things are “evil and wrong.” How do we determine which is which?
Good and evil—right and wrong imply an authoritative standard. If Mr. Epstein can tell young people “what it means to be a good human and live an ethical life,” he must have some reference point—some standard of authority.
Whatever standard one uses to make moral decisions (the Bible, Koran, or any other religious authority, or “majority rule,” or even “doing whatever pleases me”) acknowledges an authoritative standard ruling their lives.
Atheism is inconsistent and illogical when they deny the great Designer while also believing and teaching what they should, must, or ought to do. Right and wrong did not evolve from animals. Having a sense of responsibility in obeying rules or laws and the enforcement of them imply something within humans that animals don’t have. A sense of we “ought to do this and not that.”
The tragedy at Harvard, and far too many other institutions of learning, is the godless influence their teaching will have on many generations to come. Mr. Epstein and nominating committee are already a product of the same. It should not surprise us to know that many of our leaders today (those in authority, in congress, judges, and Supreme Court justices), are graduates of Ivy League schools.
As Christians, we believe in the Creator and choose God and His laws to guide us in our moral behavior. We will live by the Bible and teach the Scriptures to our children and grandchildren. We will recall the history of Israel (cf. Romans 15:4) and what God proclaimed to Moses, “The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation” (Exodus 34:6, 7).
“Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil, for we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:11, 12).
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