The Heart of Humanism

I am delighted to announce that the Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard University has a beautiful new website: http://www.harvardhumanist.org/!

(Please help us forward this announcement as widely as possible nationally and internationally, to spread the word that Harvard University is to date the only university in the world with a permanent, endowed Humanist Chaplaincy.)

Our students at Harvard have been using the site since September and based on their extremely enthusiastic feedback, I am confident the site will help answer many of your questions about Humanism at Harvard and beyond, and about my work as Harvard’s Humanist Chaplain.

Here are just a few of the site’s highlights:

1) Start with this 30-second introductory video:
http://wms3.streamhoster.com/faq/clients/epsteingreg/GregoryMEpsteinMiniFAQ2.wmv
(the site will direct you to our “test” URL, which we left in September, but that URL now forwards automatically to our permanent site:
http://www.harvardhumanist.org/ .

2) Enjoy our “Humanist Profiles,” an online magazine-like feature providing an in-depth look at 5 of the world’s most important and renowned Humanist thinkers (all of whom have a strong Harvard connection) and 5 of our many Humanist students on Harvard’s campus today. I can’t say enough about all ten of these amazing individuals; together their profiles paint a picture of Humanism as the diverse, inspiring global movement of service to humanity that it truly is.

3) Check out our Calendar of Events, where you’ll see that on Oct. 26, the HCH presents Julia Sweeney, the critically beloved and Grammy-nominated former star of Saturday Night Live, performing an exclusive preview of her new one-woman play, Letting Go of God. Sweeney’s virtuostic combination of hysterical comedy, heart-rending poignancy, and razor sharp intelligence has her fast becoming one of the most important literary and dramatic voices in America; Ira Glass, the influential producer and host of National Public Radio’s This American Life describes the new show as follows: “An excerpt of this show, ‘Letting Go of God,’ is the single most popular story we’ve ever put on our show in over ten years on the air. We were deluged with email. Flooded. Overwhelmed. Somewhere, against all common sense, Julia is making something funny that has no business being funny. So see this show…if you dare.” (If you are in the area, after viewing our site be sure to purchase your tickets at www.boxoffice.harvard.edu)

4) Be sure to mark your calendar for our 30th Anniversary Gala and Symposium, on April 20-21, 2007. This past summer we announced an amazing lineup of famous Humanists who will help us celebrate our 30th Anniversary this April. So you’ve already heard about Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen; 2-time Pulitzer Prize winner E.O. Wilson; Professor Steven Pinker (One of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world, 2004); Harvard’s head of Chinese Studies and the world’s leading Confucian Humanist, Tu Weiming; Ambassador John L. Loeb, Jr.; Rabbi Sherwin Wine, founder of Humanistic Judaism; and others. But now the time has come to announce that many others will be joining us, including novelist Salman Rushdie, who will receive the first annual Outstanding Lifetime Achievement Award in Cultural Humanism, and will then grace us with not only a literary reading but also a discussion of “Humanistic Islam:” Rushdie’s first time ever addressing this groundbreakingly important subject! (The discussion will be part of a panel on “Abrahamic Humanism?” moderated by Rabbi Sherwin Wine who will also discuss Humanistic Judaism; this will be part of our anniversary Symposium on “The Dialogue Among Religions, Cultures, and Civilizations.”)

5) A “Giving” page, where you can make a secure, fully tax-deductible contribution to the Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard, online, using Visa or Mastercard!
All of the many, ambitious events and programs described on the site are expensive. While the Humanist Chaplaincy does have a modest endowment ensuring its status as a permanent part of Harvard University, the terms of our endowment unfortunately prevent us from receiving almost any funding from Harvard until the deaths of the children of our donor. We hope all the children will live in good health many decades, but in the meantime we need your help to achieve our goal of making a major difference for the Humanism’s next generation. Thank you so much, in advance, for your generosity!

There is much more to say, but please just enjoy the site. Details and more announcements including registration information for our April events will come in December or January.