It could be interesting to compare the atheists’ “church without God “ - on the one hand with churches with suffocating or empty man-made rules/regulations who claim that God is their King, but He isn’t really that to the attendees.
27 Jul 2014 - America
Step inside where people are swaying along to music, listening to talks and discussing ways to help their local community, it sounds very much like a church, too.
There is, however, one rather fundamental missing ingredient - this is a church without God.
Started in London in January 2013 by a pair of British stand-up comedians, Sunday Assembly offers a church experience but without the ‘God part’.
In America…for Kris Tyrell, a 28-year-old atheist who was raised as a Catholic but brings up her six-year-old daughter, Kai, outside any faith, the Sunday Assembly provides a welcome opportunity to belong to something without having to believe and to positively embrace a life without God.
“The idea is why not steal all the good bits about church – the music, the fellowship, the community work – and lose the God stuff,” he says.
“Not having a church doesn’t mean I don’t have a moral code,” says Landry Butler, a 46-year-old graphic designer who co-founded the Nashville branch. “I want to get away from this idea that ‘you have to have God to be good’. You don’t.”
“Sunday Assembly is all about coming together to celebrate the one life we know we have,” she shares the snappy motto, ‘Live better, Help Often, and Wonder More’.”
The Sunday Assembly model includes music, active participation, short talks, humour and pop music.” Sometimes there is a long moment’s silence, at which the congregation is invited to “turn down their inner volume knob” and be grateful to this impersonal universe that you have a place, and people in it that love you.”
But mostly the emphasis is upbeat and life-affirming. One member talks about coping with depression; then a life-coach talks about the importance of self-knowledge.
It all ends with a quotation from Albert Einstein – “Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving” – before coffee and doughnuts are served, followed by lunch at a local Southern barbecue restaurant.
