President Obama has a “President’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships” consisting of 25 people. They help advise the Office of Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.
Strikingly, there are no atheists on the Council.
There are Jews, Catholics, Protestants, Episcopalians, Methodists, Baptists, Muslims, Interfaith-supporters… but no non-theists.
When I was at Syracuse University a couple days ago, someone asked me who I thought would make a good representative on that council from the non-theist community.
That somebody would have to be in a position of power, well-respected within our community (and hopefully beyond), not overly-controversial, and able to properly articulate our positions on many issues of faith and government and what policies the government should or should not be making.
I gave an answer. (I’ll keep it to myself for now.) But I’m sure there are better ones that the person I stated.
Not that the Obama administration is asking, but since the council members are elected to one-year terms, maybe we can expect to see a non-theist in that group in the future. (You hear me, Josh DuBois?)
Who do you think would be a good representative for us? Why?