I have, to put it mildly, my doubts about atheist “churches”, but not about the real need for many of those who struggle with the idea of a god for some sort of ritualized community. The “Sunday Assembly” was designed to fill this gap, but now appears to have evolved in a manner that can satisfy another persistent urge: the need to differentiate true believers (so to speak) from those who have got it wrong.
The world’s most voguish – though not its only – atheist church opened last year in London, to global attention and abundant acclaim. So popular was the premise, so bright the promise, that soon the Sunday Assembly was ready to franchise, branching out into cities such as New York, Dublin and Melbourne.
“It’s a way to scale goodness,” declared Sanderson Jones, a standup comic and co-founder of The Sunday Assembly, which calls itself a “godless congregation.”
But nearly as quickly as the Assembly spread, it split, with New York City emerging as organized atheism’s Avignon. In October, three former members of Sunday Assembly NYC announced the formation of a breakaway group called Godless Revival.
“The Sunday Assembly,” wrote Godless Revival founder Lee Moore in a scathing blog post, “has a problem with atheism.”
Moore alleges that, among other things, Jones advised the NYC group to “boycott the word atheism” and “not to have speakers from the atheist community.” It also wanted the New York branch to host Assembly services in a churchlike setting, instead of the Manhattan dive bar where it was launched.
Jones denies ordering the NYC chapter to do away with the word “atheism,” but acknowledges telling the group “not to cater solely to atheists.” He also said he advised them to leave the dive bar “where women wore bikinis,” in favor of a more family-friendly venue. The squabbles led to a tiff and finally a schism between two factions within Sunday Assembly NYC. Jones reportedly told Moore that his faction was no longer welcome in the Sunday Assembly movement.
Moore promises that his group, Godless Revival, will be more firmly atheistic than the Sunday Assembly, which he now dismisses as “a humanistic cult….”
Well, however structured, such sort of assemblies are unlikely to appeal to the likes of me, but I must say, if I had to choose, Godless Revival seems—based on this account—like the way to go. Grumbles about a “humanistic cult” are all too believable, and opting for a dive bar “where women wore bikinis” clinches it.