The Heart of Humanism

It has now been nearly two months since our wonderfully successful conference but the Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard hasn’t quite been able to slip into summer vacation mode, because of all the exciting opportunities that have been coming our way since.

This week, for example, we are the featured story in Newsweek magazine’s well known section on religion, “Beliefwatch.” It is wonderful to see the subject of Humanism, underappreciated for too long, lately receiving the attention of the nation’s largest magazines and newspapers. We are building towards the point where all of American society will have an opportunity to engage with Humanism’s message of ethical community and naturalistic values– that wider reach for the best of Humanism old and new is what the “new” Humanism is all about.

As far as this particular story goes, what is strong about it is not that it casts me personally “at the center” of the controversy it describes, nor that it depicts a personal debate between myself and people such as Richard Dawkins with whom I actually agree on many issues; but rather that the very idea of a controversy over the true significance of Humanism and atheism is being widely circulated. This story is strong in that it acknowledges that our community of Humanists, agnostics, atheists and the non-religious is coming into its own, and that it will help encourage the millions of non-traditionally religious people in America to think about what we can build up together, not solely about what we want to tear down. I am proud to take the opportunity to speak out in favor of a positive, constructive Humanism. And I am willing if necessary to receive the scorn of a few extreme atheists who see nearly all religion as child abuse and are working to eliminate it altogether. But the point is to nurture a nurturing Humanism, and I could never do so on my own– I am incredibly grateful for the wonderful work so many of my colleagues (far too many to list here, unfortunately, but for one example see the website newprogressivealliance.com, whose founder Jeff Nall is also featured in the Newsweek piece, and consider signing up in support of it today) have been doing, in some cases for decades, to build Humanism. Let us all continue to sing and to build together.

On the note of singing and building– one of the prominent themes of our April conference– you can now go to the Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard’s revamped website, http://harvardhumanist.org, and listen to many of the most inspiring moments (intellectual and musical) of our conference, by clicking on our new Podcast player, which currently features Salman Rushdie, E.O. Wilson, Dar Williams, and myself, and is soon to feature Sherwin Wine, Alan Dershowitz, and many more. Thanks so much to the New York-based Humanist think tank the Institute for Humanist Studies and its popular podcast, Humanist Network News, for putting these wonderful materials together.

And on a personal note, I want to add that in the weeks since the conference, I’ve finally finished my graduate work at Harvard Divinity School, which has kept me from having time to correspond with the dozens of you who’ve written me in the past few weeks. Hopefully over the summer, as a new grad myself, I’ll be able to get back to you sooner. It has been an honor and an amazing experiment working and studying nearly full time for the past three years, and I now look forward to now focusing exclusively on the Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard.

On Saturday night I had the pleasure of being asked to give an invocation at a dinner with Presidential candidate and former Senator John Edwards. The dinner was hosted by the North Shore Labor Council, and it was a wonderfully successful event– Edwards clearly inspired the over 500 attendees.

There are fortunately a number of intriguing candidates for the 2008 election, but one can’t help but admire Edwards’ attempt to distinguish himself by being a consistent, persistent voice for social justice and against economic inequality. It was a welcome challenge for me to try to speak briefly about Humanism’s connection to this issue, and to Labor politics as well– Humanism and Labor have long been closely connected, but that’s generally been forgotten in today’s American political climate. It would be nice if the reason for this forgetting were that we Humanists wanted to acknowledge our debt to Libertarian economic thinkers as well as populists, but I fear that is less relevant than the simple fact that religion is just assumed to dominate all things political these days. So, here is my little contribution to reuniting issues of Humanism and Labor (and bonus points if you can identify the excellent television drama dealing with issues of religion and social justice from which I adapted a key couple of lines):

This evening as we celebrate the women and men of the North Shore Labor Council, we join hands and raise glasses not for a political meeting, not to raise funds, not even for the purpose of enacting a law promoting a policy. No my friends, this dinner is a celebration of our shared ethics, of our common human values.

Workers in this region and everywhere need someone to represent them and their interests. If this society were to become polarized between an entrenched political class and a disenfranchised working class we would be doomed. We wouldn’t need terrorism to destroy us, we would destroy ourselves. Because of good people like the ones in this room, –Americans and people of all countries– because of the work of your hands, minds and hearts, I have faith America can stem the tide of polarization and become the welcoming and just society she long ago promised to be.

Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Humanists, people of every religion and no religion—Citizens of this country and citizens of every country—we are all citizens of an ever increasingly interdependent world. We are all human beings. We all need the nourishment and sustenance of justice. In that spirit, let us break bread together tonight:

Let us bless our sharing of this simple food.

And let us bring forth forth food from the land

For all of us to enjoy.