Harvard University has chosen a devout atheist and 'humanist chaplain' to lead the  Ivy League school founded by Puritans to educate their clergy with the motto 'Truth for Christ and the Church.' 

Greg Epstein, 44, who was raised in a reformed Jewish household in Queens, New York, was named president of the chaplains for the religious community at the school after serving as Harvard's 'humanist chaplain' since 2005.

He is a self-avowed devout atheist who wants to serve fellow nonreligious believers as well as agnostics and humanists at the Cambridge, Massachusetts, school. 

That's a far departure for a school founded Puritans in 1636 and named for pastor John Harvard. The university did not have a president who was not a clergyman for its first 70 years. 

But Epstein said his elevation to the position is meant to be inclusive of larger and larger numbers of Americans and especially progressive Harvard students who identify as spiritual but not religious. 

 'There is a rising group of people who no longer identify with any religious tradition but still experience a real need for conversation and support around what it means to be a good human and live an ethical life,' he told the New York Times.

The Harvard Crimson did a survey of the school's class of 2019 and found that there are indeed increasing numbers of students without a designated faith.