Originally published on Forbes.com Oct 1st, 2013
Harvard University recognizes Greg Epstein as a chaplain. He is ordained as a rabbi. Yet he does not get part of his salary as tax-free housing allowance. Attorneys for the United States have been arguing that the officers of the Freedom From Religion Foundation might qualify for a clergy housing allowance. That is a legal maneuver to knock out FFRF’s standing to sue about the constitutionality of the parsonage exclusion (Code Section 107). The case for Greg Epstein is much stronger. You almost have to wonder why he hasn’t gone for it.
At Harvard But Not Of Harvard
When I interviewed Greg, he was anxious to let me know that he does not want anybody to think that he is on Harvard’s payroll. He heads the American Humanist Association Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard, Inc. The entity “does business as” the “Humanist Community At Harvard“. I’ll call it the chaplaincy. They are currently excited about the prospect of opening a 3,200 square foot center right in Harvard Square.
How Do You Get To Be A Humanist Chaplain ?
Greg grew up in Queens and attended the prestigious Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan. In college he majored in religion and tried on quite a few including some Eastern religions. He even went to China for a while. After his bar mitzvah, he started looking to get as far away from Judaism as he could. So he started reading his father’s books on mysticism and Eastern religion. He thought he might spend his life as a Buddhist or Taoist priest. Spending time in China disillusioned him a bit as he relates in his book Good Without God:
Then I got to China and realized that most Buddhists and Taoists are no more serious about their religion than the Reform Jews I’d known in New York were about their Judaism.
Ch’an meditators and Taoist holy men would place their little shrines next to a jug of wine or a TV/VCR and a couple of pornographic videos.
…..they had no fewer desires than anyone else, no more equanimity and they exuded neither more nor less inner calm
Back in the USA, he met Rabbi Sherwin Wine, who became his mentor. In 1963, Rabbi Wine with a group of eight families started a congregation in Farmington Hills, Michigan where he led the development of a new non-theistic liturgy that extolled Jewish history, cultural and ethical values. (There must have been something in the Passover wine in Detroit in those days. My covivant, who has never heard of Rabbi Wine, told me about growing up in Detroit in the same era. She attended the Jewish Parents Institute Sunday School which celebrated Jewish heritage without any liturgical component at all – at least any she remembers.) A few years later, Rabbi Wine’s congregation founded the Society for Humanistic Judaism
Humanistic Judaism embraces a human-centered philosophy that combines the celebration of Jewish culture and identity with an adherence to humanistic values and ideas. Humanistic Judaism offers a nontheistic alternative in contemporary Jewish life.
So Greg Epstein’s recognition as a rabbi comes from the International Institute For Secular Humanistic Judaism .
Here he is explaining the chaplaincy.
Good Without God
Dammit, Jim, I’m a tax blogger not a philosopher, so you will have to study on your own for a decent explanation of the basis for Humanists ethics. Greg Epstein’s Good Without God will give you a good start, although I must say it is a bit of a whirlwind tour. I’d boil it down to the idea we don’t need a supernatural being to tell us that “Do unto other as you would have them do unto you” is a pretty reasonable way for us to run our too short lives.
But I like The Christmas Carols And All That Incense
Greg’s more interesting message is that non-believers might not need God, but, as human being they need many of the things that churches provide. We want to recognize major life events – birth, reaching adulthood, marriage, death – in community along with holidays in season. Having specially designated persons to manage that is one major role of clergy.
The other is to give some people a special license and duty to stand up and remind us of the need to live up to our highest values. I could start telling stories about Father Charles McTague, who went on from the parish where I grew up to become moderately famous. Suffice it to say that any young boy walking the street of Fairview or Cliffside Park, NJ in the sixties was subject to being drafted into assisting a corporal work of mercy as Father McTague roamed around the town in his beat up truck assisting countless refugees he helped settle in the area. For my non-Fairview readers think Karl Malden in On The Waterfront.
Humanists are free to perform that role in some liberal religious groups such as Unitarian Universalism and Reform Judaism, but they have to be open to doing some God talk here and there that might strain their sincerity.
If You Can’t Beat Them Join Them
The chaplaincy is affiliated with the American Humanist Association which bills itself more as an educational than religious organization. That accounts for Greg’s inability to cash in on Code Section 107. Maybe humanists will break ranks with the Freedom From Religion Foundation and stop resisting special treatment for the clergy and religious messages in public spaces as long as Humanism is included in the mix. There is already a push for humanist chaplains in the military. The religious right might want to rethink its resistance to that concept. Expanding that big ecumenical tent to make room for Humanists might actually increase support for religion. Somehow the Army has already survived one humanist chaplain, none other than Rabbi Sherwin Wine. For what it is worth, Greg indicated to me that he would probably take a tax-free housing allowance if it was available.
You can follow me on twitter @peterreillycpa.
Afternote
The chaplaincy is in a bit of a mini-scandal having to do with resume padding. It came up between the time of my interview and finishing this piece. I didn’t really see it being relevant, but I don’t want my commenters to think I have not been paying attention. Bob Baty pointed the story out to me, although I was already aware of it,
I am normally a bit more formal in referring to people. I contacted Greg Epstein to find out how he prefers to be addressed, but he is probably somewhat preoccupied and did not get back to me. It is not clear to me whether he usually refers to himself as Rabbi Epstein, so I did not use that. Referring to members of the clergy as Mister, unless they are Jesuit scholastics, disconcerts me. Since he is of the generation of public contact employees who grate on my nerves when they call me Peter, I figured he would not mind Greg.