Chris Stedman | |
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| Born | April 9, 1987 Robbinsdale, Minnesota, U.S. |
| Education | Augsburg University (BA) University of Chicago (MA) |
Christopher Stedman (born April 9, 1987) is an American writer who teaches in the department of religion and philosophy at Augsburg University. [1] He was previously the founding executive director of the Yale Humanist Community at Yale University and a humanist chaplain at Harvard University. [2]
Stedman was born in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota. He was raised in a secular household, but converted to Evangelical Christianity at the age of eleven, because he was attracted by its stability during his parents' divorce.[ citation needed ]
Stedman struggled for years to reconcile his gay sexual orientation with his Christian faith and declared himself an atheist in college. [3] Stedman studied Religion at Augsburg University, Meadville Lombard Theological School at the University of Chicago, obtaining baccalaureate and master's degrees prior to joining Harvard at the Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard. [4] Following his time at Harvard, he founded the Yale Humanist Community. [5]
Stedman currently teaches at Augsburg University. [6]
He is the author of IRL and Faitheist, and host of the narrative podcast Unread, named one of the best podcasts of 2021 by the Guardian, [7] Vulture, [8] HuffPost, [9] Bello Collective, [10] Mashable, [11] and the CBC. [12] Stedman's writing advocates outreach to seek "common moral ground between theists and atheists," and proposes achieving that aim by expanding interfaith dialogue to include atheists. [13]
Stedman is a past awardee of the 2011 Billings Prize for Most Outstanding Scholastic Achievement. [14]
In 2018, Augsburg University selected Stedman for the Decade Award, which recognizes alumni "who have made significant progress in their professional achievements and contributions to the community" in their first decade after graduating. [15]
In 2022, Stedman was honored by the Webby Awards in the Podcasts - Best Writing category for his podcast Unread. [16]
Stedman's advocacy for inclusive interfaith dialogue and tolerance has found support from other atheists and interfaith advocates in the Millennial generation, [17] as well as pluralistic rationalist communities. [18]
Stedman has received some criticism for his open embrace of religion from the broader atheist community. [19] [20]
The American Humanist Association (AHA) is a non-profit organization in the United States that advances secular humanism.
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Interfaith dialogue refers to cooperative, constructive, and positive interaction between people of different religious traditions and/or spiritual or humanistic beliefs, at both the individual and institutional levels.
Rebecca Newberger Goldstein is an American philosopher, novelist, and public intellectual. She has written ten books, both fiction and non-fiction. She holds a Ph.D. in philosophy of science from Princeton University, and is sometimes grouped with novelists such as Richard Powers and Alan Lightman, who create fiction that is knowledgeable of, and sympathetic toward, science.
Greg M. Epstein is an American Humanist chaplain at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who is the president of the Harvard Chaplains Organization. He is an ordained Humanist rabbi, and has been influential in American humanism as a blogger, spokesperson, adviser and author of the New York Times bestsellerGood Without God: What a Billion Nonreligious People Do Believe. Epstein was an expert on the first three seasons of the reality show "Married at First Sight."
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Paul Zachary Myers is an American biologist who founded and writes the Pharyngula science blog. He is associate professor of biology at the University of Minnesota Morris (UMM) where he works in the field of developmental biology. He is a critic of intelligent design and the creationist movement and other pseudoscientific concepts.
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Vanessa Zoltan is a humanist chaplain who describes herself as an "atheist chaplain". She is a graduate of Harvard Divinity School, and holds a BA in English and writing from Washington University in St. Louis, and a MS in nonprofit management from the University of Pennsylvania. She has been called one of "few" feminist humanist chaplains in the world.
GO Humanity (Giving and Organizing for Humanity) was a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization founded in 2009 in Georgia by Dale McGowan, originally under the name Foundation Beyond Belief.
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