Does a New Church for Atheists Miss the Point of Being a Nonbeliever?
It all started with a car ride and a laid-back discussion about faith.
A little more than a year ago, British comedians Sanderson Jones and Pippa Evans were on their way to perform a show when they realized they both had the unconventional dream of starting a church “without the God bit.”
“It’s important to have a place to reflect on the big picture,” Evans says. “It allows people to connect with each other.”
Enter the Sunday Assembly, a global church movement run by these two atheists who preach not doctrine or deity but to “live better, help often, wonder more.”
During Sunday service, you can find the band onstage—greeted by roaring applause—rocking out to everything from Beatles hits to Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer.” That’s how it works at the assembly’s services: They’re part karaoke and part potluck, mixed with speakers who take the mic to share their insights on life and paired with moments of reflective silence.
The nascent movement has made great strides in its first year—there are now more than 35 chapters around the world. California alone is home to four of them, and more are on the way, thanks to the assembly’s “40 Days and 40 Nights” tour across the United States, the United Kingdom, and Ireland.
Each chapter is independently run, and to keep a single person from taking all the glory for such a popular idea—or from hijacking the services and preaching his or her own message—there is a different speaker at each service.
“What if it is taken over by someone with their own agenda?” the organization writes on its blog. “That is a big worry of ours, so we think that making sure that no one person speaks at more than 50 percent of the Assemblies is a great way of nullifying that risk.”
Jones and Evans' championing of the nonreligious hasn’t always been met with the openness they preach to their flock. Their global road show has stirred the ire of many nonbelievers, who have taken to social media to share their distaste.
There have even been mutterings of a “schism” within the atheist community caused by the Sunday Assembly, and some have left their assemblies to pursue their own versions of atheism.
"'Atheist churches' like Sunday Assembly do atheism no favors," tweeted Michael Luciano, a self-described "self-respecting godless heathen" and editor for PolicyMic, casting the idea off as foolish.
"Creating a church-like atheist institution plays directly into the hands of those who fundamentally misunderstand the philosophical underpinnings of the theism-atheism debate," he wrote.
Evans shrugs off such claims, and she views the departures as a good thing.
“We are about what unites us, not what divides us. And cake mainly,” Evans jokes. “We aren’t about atheism. This is not an hour of militant shouting.”
While nearly half of Americans say the growing number of “people who are not religious” is bad for society, the number of religiously unaffiliated Americans, or “nones,” is only increasing, according to an October study from the Pew Research Center.
One-fifth of the U.S. public, and one-third of adults under 30, fall into this group. Nearly 6 percent of Americans—13 million people—are self-described atheists or agnostics. Many atheists express a deep longing for the togetherness they experienced in their earlier religious life, says Bradly Nabors, an expert in religion and sociology at the University of Southern California.
“The Sunday Assembly is kind of like a new opportunity and a religious experience for the nonreligious,” Nabors says. “It's very meaningful, and there's something to be said about togetherness.”
That longing is what drove together Evans and Jones, and that sentiment draws thousands of people worldwide. With only two services under its belt, the Los Angeles chapter of the Sunday Assembly expects at least 200 congregants for its gathering this weekend.
“I was Catholic once upon a time, and when I left religion I didn't know any atheists, let alone a place where people would celebrate life in a God-free context,” says Amy Boyle, 33, codirector of the L.A. chapter.
Boyle says that for her and many of the congregants, the idea of religion conjures up ideas of dogma or conforming to a set of rules. She’s drawn to the generosity of the assembly’s volunteers, who donate their time to the cause, and encouraged by the reassuring messages she hears after service.
“We hear ‘Where have you been all my life?’ or ‘This is what I’ve been looking for,’ ” she says. “It's amazing to see what people can do when they share a common interest and a common value together. It's powerful.”
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Original article from TakePart
