Congregations
for atheists are springing up all over the planet. There’s already a
schism: celebrate life without a deity, or preach atheism. The
celebration is winning.
Plans
to set up almost 400 “atheist churches” on five continents are underway
after the extraordinary success of one small congregation that began
holding godless services just over a year ago.
Word about the religion-free church spread like wildfire after the first Sunday Assembly was held in a deconsecrated church
in Highbury, North London, in January 2013. By September, 100
congregations will be holding services from Singapore and South Africa
to Sao Paulo and San Diego. A further 274 teams currently are working on
plans to launch their own assemblies.
The church’s first General Assembly is being held this weekend with
leaders from all over the world gathered in South London. In 150 years
of the Anglican Church’s Lambeth Conference, it’s safe to say none has
begun quite like this--with a raucous group karaoke rendition of “I’m So Excited,” but
then Sunday Assembly is a very different kind of world religion. Their
gatherings resemble traditional church services with singing, lessons
and the chance to interact with members of the community. The only thing
missing is God.
Sanderson Jones, the group’s leader and CEO, and a
stand-up comedian by trade, says the young organization is replicating
the traditional church structure as it expands. But he says the empire
is also attempting to harness the organizational knowhow and social
interaction of Grindr and the National Rifle Association.
“We’re right on the buckle of the Bible Belt. … A lot of people tell me I’m going to Hell.”
“This
is the first time we’re coming together like this,” he said. “We’ve had
such a short time but I think we’re going to build something
magnificent, something that’s going to last.”
The group’s rapid
expansion has caught everyone by surprise. It is currently growing by 26
per cent each month but there is no end to Jones’ ambitions. “There are
1.1 billion non-religious people in the world,” he told The Daily
Beast. “We want to have a godless congregation in every
town, city and village that wants one.” In other words, as he told the
gathering of leaders on the opening day of the conference: “We’re going
to need a bigger boat.”
LEON NEAL/Getty
In
order to help as many people set up assemblies as possible, Jones has
started to study the mechanics of running a huge organization. “My
Twitter feed has got a lot less funny -- people are wondering ‘why is he
retweeting a pdf of different corporate governance structures in social
enterprises?’” he said. The research has led him to marvel at the
N.R.A., one of the few organizations with what is considered the holy
trinity of benefits and service, a membership community and a media
platform. “Another good example is Grindr and Tinder,” says Jones. “If
St Paul was alive today he wouldn’t be writing letters he’d be writing
code.”
Jones is constantly exploring ways to create an equally
efficient network with even bigger growth potential, but this weekend
before he got down to all that, it was time to get down. The lyrics of
the second track of Saturday’s musical opening, Pharrell Williams’
“Happy,”were projected on a big screen.
Clap along if you feel,
Like that’s what you wanna do.
They did. Two women from The
Netherlands swayed from side-to-side; an enthusiastic chap from
Newcastle, in the northeast of England, danced in front of his seat in
the auditorium; and a broad-shouldered man with graying dreadlocks from
Tennessee clapped in time with the music.
That man was Landry
Butler, 46, a designer from Nashville, who became co-organizer of his
local Sunday Assembly back in November. He was raised in a deeply
Christian family, who often took him to three different church services
every weekend. “I gave it up for Lent,” he said with a deep laugh.
“We’re right on the buckle of the Bible Belt. More than 90 percent of
people in Nashville are Christian and not everyone approves of what
we’re doing. A lot of people tell me I’m going to Hell.”
“My
mother didn’t want to talk about it until I appeared in the newspaper,
and then she got interested,” said Butler. “She still says she’s praying
for me, but that’s okay. We’re not trying to sell atheism - it’s not
for me to get involved, no matter what stupid crap people believe.”
While
Butler is setting up an atheist bulkhead in a deeply religious area,
Jan Willem van der Straten is operating in a totally different
environment. The 24-year-old is working to open the first Sunday
Assembly in Amsterdam in September. He was brought up in a secular
family, and his parents were stunned when he started taking an interest
in religion. He still describes himself as a Christian.
“People used to
say: ‘Ah, Willem, you can have a good beer with him, but he’s got this
funny religion thing.’ For the first time this is a church that my
friends might want to come to,” he said. “I don’t have the baggage of
religion; I have the baggage of atheism.”
As the assemblies
multiply and spread, the disparity between communities has thrown up a
series of issues. One of the hot debates to be decided this weekend is
whether to continue to use the word “godless.” For those in countries
where religion has receded in recent generations it feels more natural
to say Sunday Assembly is a "celebration of life." The American chapters
argue that everyone would assume it was a religious group if you didn’t
explicitly explain otherwise.
The continued prominence of Christian belief in the U.S. also affects the way atheism is seen. The church suffered its first schism
earlier this year when New York organizers fell out with the founders
over the strength of the anti-religious teaching. “They wanted to do a
celebration of atheism not a celebration of life,” said van der Straten,
who has been working at the London headquarters for the past three
months.
The genius of Sunday Assembly is that it shares far more
with an ordinary church service than it differs. There have been scores
of atheist groups in the past, but few have attracted such warmth and
affection.
“The thing that we’ve got is that we’re the only
non-religious service that works. Rationality is part of it, but we also
have the emotional connection,” Jones said. “We are speaking to the
whole human.”
Sunday Assembly is already talking to an awful lot
of humans. Jones wonders if they might manage to start 2015
congregations by 2015. “It might just be a little bit historical if it
goes on like this. We could have a profound impact,” he said.
“Throughout history there’s been these moments when an idea takes off:
the Great Awakenings. We could suddenly create a great moment.”
