About the Founder

Photo by Alex Dakoulas.

“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 author of Faitheist: How an Atheist Found Common Ground with the Religious. He is the Assistant Chaplain and Values in Action Coordinator for the Humanist Community 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. Click here for a longer bio on the Faitheist website.

About the Panelists

Vlad Chituc

Vlad Chituc is a lab manager and research assistant in a social neuroscience lab at Duke University. As an undergraduate at Yale, he was the president of the campus branch of the Secular Student Alliance, where he tried to be smarter about religion and drink PBR, only occasionally at the same time. He cares about morality and thinks philosophy is important. He is also someone that you can follow on twitter.

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.

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.

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.

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.