About the Founder

Photo by Shaylah Fawn DeViney.

“Christopher Stedman is paving a powerful path for Humanism. A path that is unapologetic about its own principles yet signals respect and seeks partnership with people from a range of different beliefs and traditions.” Eboo Patel

“[It] may be heresy to say, but it’s hard to find a smart balanced atheist writer with something new to bring to the table.” Jeff Sharlet, on Chris.

Chris Stedman is the inaugural Interfaith and Community Service Fellow for the Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard University, the Emeritus Managing Director of State of Formation at the Journal of Inter-Religious Dialogue, and the founder of the first blog dedicated to exploring atheist-interfaith engagement, NonProphet Status. Chris received an MA in Religion from Meadville Lombard Theological School at the University of Chicago, for which he was awarded the Billings Prize for Most Outstanding Scholastic Achievement.

A graduate of Augsburg College with a summa cum laude B.A. in Religion, Chris writes for The Huffington Post Gay Voices and The Huffington Post Religion, where his work is among the most commented upon in the site’s history, and he is the youngest panelist for The Washington Post On Faith. He is currently finishing Faitheist: How an Atheist Found Common Ground with the Religious for Beacon Press (November 2012).

Previously a Content Developer and Adjunct Trainer for the Interfaith Youth Core, Chris is an atheist and secular humanist working to foster positive and productive dialogue between faith communities and the nonreligious. He has spoken and lead workshops on this topic across the United States. In 2011, The Huffington Post listed Chris’s work as one of the Top 11 Religion Stories of the year and named him one of the top interfaith activists on Twitter, Religion Dispatches listed him at #5 in a list of the Top 10 Peacemakers in the Science-Religion wars, and the University of Oregon Alliance of Happy Atheists recognized his work with their first annual Happy Heathen! Award.

Chris served on the initial Leadership Team of the Common Ground Campaign, a coalition of young people who stood up in response to the wave of anti-Muslim rhetoric and violence in the U.S. surrounding the Park51 controversy, and continues to advise it in its current form, Groundswell. He also sits on the Board of Directors of the interfaith social action organization World Faith and is an advisor to the Foundation Beyond Belief’s Challenge the Gap initiative. Portland, Oregon’s GLBT newspaper Just Out called his work “brilliant” and labeled him an “emerging… vibrant and youthful queer voice for the secular humanist movement.”

Chris was raised in a secular home but converted to evangelical Christianity after being invited to church by friends at 11 years old. After years of wrestling with theology and his sexual orientation, Chris left the Christian tradition and spent some time exploring. Eventually he recognized that he was an atheist and secular humanist, and today he works to advocate for the mutual respect of religious and non-religious individuals.

“[I] love what [Chris is] doing at NonProphet Status.” Reza Aslan

“Chris… is an atheist interfaith activist who is young, and gay, and has a ton of tattoos (one of which is a huge Face of Abraham Lincoln thing), and does a lot of work with Muslims, and likes Britney Spears unironically, and has a book coming out, so all and all, he’s kind of a surprise, no matter what room he walks into! He… is smart and funny, and he’s also doing something that almost no one else is doing, i.e.: Searching for common ground between those who believe, and those who really don’t… he is also, according to all the signs of such things, a real peach of a guy… You must check [out NonProphet Status]!” Emily L. Hauser

About the Panelists

Serah Blain

Serah Blain serves on the boards of the Secular Coalition for Arizona, the Arizona Coalition of Reason, and the Prescott Pride Center. The Executive Director of QsquaredYouth, a nonprofit organization that supports LGBTQ youth in Prescott, AZ and surrounding areas, Serah is also the organizer of the Prescott Freethinkers, a thriving community of nontheists in Northern Arizona that meets regularly for discussion, fellowship and fun. She also co-chairs the Secular Student Alliance at Prescott College where she is working on a B.A. in Engaged Humanism. Her current interfaith volunteer projects include hospice care, and faith outreach for the Prescott Pride Center. Serah has two children who are being raised to be conscientious, compassionate human beings.

Walker Bristol

Walker Bristol is a student intern at the Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard University. Originally from North Carolina, Walker was raised in a largely Quaker community before exploring several Christian traditions throughout high school and ultimately becoming a secular humanist at age 15. Walker is a student at Tufts University, and in 2011, Walker became the Community Organizer and Interfaith Representative for the Tufts Freethought Society, and chair of the Committee to Establish a Humanist Chaplaincy at Tufts. In addition to being involved in secular student activism, Walker is a hobbyist musician and avid science-fiction fan.

Vlad Chituc

Vlad Chituc is a senior at Yale University, studying Psychology and Philosophy with an interest in how we form beliefs (particularly moral and religious), with an interest in metaphysics and moral philosophy on the side. He has served as the Community Service Coordinator and President of the Secular Student Alliance at Yale (formerly the Yale Humanist Society), during which he participated in the Inter-Religious Leaders Council and worked closely with the Yale Chaplain’s Office to foster relationships with liberal members of the Yale religious community. In his spare time, Vlad enjoys listening to hipster bullshit and writing sarcastic articles and music reviews for the Yale Herald.

Chelsea Link

Chelsea Link is a senior at Harvard University, studying History and Science with a focus in the history of medicine. She recently founded and currently writes for two other blogs, The Unelectables (following religious minority candidates in the 2012 election) and Blogging Biblically (documenting her attempt to read the Bible in a year). She is the Vice President of Outreach of the Harvard Secular Society, the former President of the Harvard College Interfaith Council, and a Volunteer Ambassador for the Be the Match bone marrow donor registry. She likes to cook while pretending she’s on Top Chef (hasty breakfast? more like Quickfire Challenge!), adores word games of all kinds (and was once the President of the illustrious Harvard College Crossword Society), and tends to kill the mood at parties by unnecessarily reciting Shakespeare. Last summer, she interned at the Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard. You can ask her what she’s doing after graduation, but she’ll give you a different answer every time.

About the Contributors

Nico Lang

Nico Lang is a former Communications Intern for the Interfaith Youth Core and recently graduated with a degree in International Studies from DePaul University. Nico just started up DePaul’s first film club, the DePaul A.V. Club, and represented the lone agnostic among 2010-2011′s Vincent and Louise House residents, who represent DePaul’s Catholic intentional living and social justice community. He was also the co-founder of the Queer Intercollegiate Alliance, an initiative between Chicago’s LGBT campus groups; a writer for the DePaulia newspaper; and head of Campus Outreach for the Secular Humanist Alliance of Chicago. Occassionally, Nico sleeps.

Toby Chow

Toby Chow is currently studying for a PhD in philosophy at the University of Chicago. He is a leader in SOUL, a community organization on the Southside and South Suburbs of Chicago, and chairs SOUL’s task force on bank accountability. He is also a member of the Soutside Solidarity Network, a student group at the UofC focused on community organizing, and of Augustana Lutheran Church of Hyde Park, both of which are member organizations of SOUL. Follow him on twitter @tobitac.

Emily L. Hauser

Emily L. Hauser is a freelance writer and blogger living outside of Chicago. She writes frequently about Israel/Palestine and the Middle East more broadly, but has also been known to write about everything from Winnie the Pooh to the social niceties of wearing shoes. Loud music, too. She blogs at Emily L. Hauser – In My Head; her Twitter handle is @emilylhauser.

Guest Posts

NonProphet Status has been honored to feature some incredible guest submissions from the likes of Lucy Gubbins, Tim Brauhn, Jessica Kelley, Valarie Kaur, Nick Mattos, Heidi Anderson, Joshua Stanton, Lyz Liddell, Sayira Khokar, Frank Fredericks, Cameron Nations and Greg Damhorst, Rory Fenton, Amber Hacker, Andrew Lovley, Nate Mauger, Kate Fridkis, Bryan Parys, Andrew Fogle, Stephen Goeman and Bruce Wang, Miranda Hovemeyer, Nat DeLuca, Kelsey Sheridan, Josh Oxley, Mary Ellen Giess, Bruce Johansen, Vladimir Chituc, Lewis Marshall, Lee Paczulla, Jeff Pollet, Christopher Michael Luna, Serah Blain, Bryan Brown, Joseph Varisco, Corinne Tobias, Ryan Linstrom, Robert Chlala, Vandana Goel LaClair, James Croft, Jonathan S. Myerov, Jorge Cino, Be Scofield,  Karla McLaren, Joey Blaha, Timothy Baranoski, Military Atheists, Religious Freedom USA, and even Chris’ Mom Toni Stedman and sister Casi Stedman Nelson! NPS has also hosted original writing by Eboo Patel, August Brunsman, Hemant Mehta, Erik Roldan, and Emanuel Aguilar.

NPS has featured so many guest posters because it was never intended to be “Chris Stedman’s platform.” Rather, Chris wanted to create a forum for an alternative secular narrative. It’s why he initiated, organized and ran NPS’ first Share Your Secular Story contest. Featuring an amazing panel of judges that included the former head of Amnesty International USA and 2002 “Humanist of the Year” William Schulz, the contest inspired an influx of submissions from all across the United States and even across the globe, with entries from Ireland and Kenya and a story from one entrant’s childhood growing up in India.

In hosting the story contest and featuring so many guest bloggers, Chris has hoped to make NPS a place where a multitude of voices help define a new narrative for the secular community: one that respects the religious identities of others while remaining authentic to our own identities (be they secular, religious, or somewhere in-between).

Interested in contributing to NonProphet Status? Send Chris an email at nonprophetstatus@gmail.com!

About the Blog

NonProphet Status (NPS) is a forum for stories promoting atheist-interfaith cooperation that hopes to catalyze a movement in which religious and secular folks not only co-exist peacefully but collaborate around shared values.