Chris Stedman


Chris Stedman is an American writer who serves as the Executive Director of the Yale Humanist Community at Yale University. Beginning in late 2017, he will assume the role of Director of the Humanist Center of Minnesota as well as Fellow at the Sabo Center for Democracy and Citizenship at Augsburg College. He was formerly the Assistant Humanist Chaplain at Harvard University, where he was the coordinator for the interfaith service program, Values in Action. He is the author of a memoir, Faitheist. 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.

Biography

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.
Stedman struggled for years to reconcile his gay sexual orientation with his Christian faith and declared himself an atheist in college. Stedman studied Religion at Augsburg College, Meadville Lombard Theological School and the University of Chicago, obtaining baccalaureate and master's degrees prior to joining Harvard at the Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard. Following his time at Harvard, he founded the Yale Humanist Community.
Stedman currently serves as a fellow at the Center for Democracy and Citizenship at Augsburg College.

Writing

In November 2012, Beacon Press published his memoir, Faitheist, a call to atheists for civil dialogue with the religious.
He is a columnist for The Huffington Post's religion section, where he writes about "finding and affirming shared values among religious and nonreligious people."
He is a member of the Secular Student Alliance's and Center for Inquiry's speakers bureaus, where he talks on such topics as Interfaith work, dialogue tools, diversity, and LGBTQ issues.

Awards

Stedman is a past awardee of the 2011 Billings Prize for Most Outstanding Scholastic Achievement.

Reception

Stedman's advocacy for inclusive interfaith dialogue and tolerance has found support from other atheists and interfaith advocates in the Millennial generation, as well as the LGBTQ and pluralistic rationalist communities.
Stedman has received some criticism for his open embrace of religion from the broader atheist community.