Exploring identities between the religious and the secular through the attendees of an ostensibly ‘Atheist Church’

ABSTRACT

The Sunday Assembly has a complex relationship with atheism and religion. It holds events which look and feel like religious worship, but uses this format to create a ‘godless congregation’. Described as an ‘atheist church’ by the media, members prefer to talk about inclusive communities. If the Sunday Assembly simultaneously embraces and rejects both atheism and religion, then how do attendees identify and describe themselves? We add to the growing literature exploring identities between the religious and the secular, presenting a qualitative study based on interviews with Sunday Assembly attendees. We interrogate three concepts: non-religion, the secular sacred and indifferentism to examine how the identity of Sunday Assembly attendees can be better understood. Our findings show that a significant number of attendees publicly identify as indifferent towards religion, while privately maintaining a more strongly non-religious identity, thus suggesting that for Sunday Assembly attendees, inclusivity is imperative.

KEYWORDS:

• Non-religion
• secular sacred
• atheism
• indifferentism
• Sunday Assembly

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Tim Mortimer currently works as a Programmes Coordinator for a leading British interfaith charity, Three Faiths Forum (3FF) and is particularly interested in faith-based social action, interfaith dialogue and (non)religious identities.

Melanie Prideaux is an Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Leeds. Her research interests are primarily in the role of religion in British public life, and particularly relations between religions and between religions and the state.

Notes

1 The charter, in full as it appears on the website:

‘We’re not here to tell you how to live your life – we’re here to help you be the best version of you you can be.

The Sunday Assembly:

1. Is 100% celebration of life. We are born from nothing and go to nothing. Let’s enjoy it together.

2. Has no doctrine. We have no set texts so we can make use of wisdom from all sources.

3. Has no deity. We don’t do supernatural but we also won’t tell you you’re wrong if you do.

4. Is radically inclusive. Everyone is welcome, regardless of their beliefs – this is a place of love that is open and accepting.

5. Is free to attend, not-for-profit and volunteer run. We ask for donations to cover our costs and support our community work.

6. Has a community mission. Through our Action Heroes (you!), we will be a force for good.

7. Is independent. We do not accept sponsorship or promote outside businesses, organisations, or services.

8. Is here to stay. With your involvement, The Sunday Assembly will make the world a better place.

9. We won’t tell you how to live, but will try to help you do it as well as you can.

10. And remember point 1 … The Sunday Assembly is a celebration of the one life we know we have’. (The Sunday Assembly 2017)

2 While choice of song varies, often to reflect the theme of each individual Assembly, Nina Simone’s ‘I Got Life’ is regularly played. The song contains the line ‘Ain’t got no God’ but continues to note all the things in this life that people do have. This reflects the broader approach of the Sunday Assembly.

3 There is no information available about the membership or attendee numbers, however, the Facebook pages of individual assemblies typically have hundreds of ‘likes’ with some having many more (e.g., London over 5000, Brighton over 1000).

4 Throughout this study, the limitations of terminology used to describe the ‘not religious’ is acknowledged. We use Day and Voas terms here as they refer to the very extremes of religious and secular categorisation thus leaving maximum breadth to explore the spaces in between.

5 We take Lee’s definition of the secular as ‘something for which religion is not the primary reference point’ (Lee 2012, 135).

6 In order to code individuals into one of these three positions account was taken of what identity labels they selected, as well as their wider comments about their own identity. Attendees were coded with the pole of religion or atheism if they identified solely with overtly religious or irreligious statement. Anyone who identified with a religion or atheism, but also with a more liminal term or statement such as ‘Unsure’ or ‘Agnostic’ was coded into the ‘in-between spaces’ category.

7 The name of this section changes depending on the speaker. So at the next assembly is could be (for example) ‘Elliot is doing his best’.

8 The New York chapter of the Sunday Assembly eventually became two separate groups, one remaining a Sunday Assembly and one becoming more actively atheist, evidencing that this tension can sometimes be difficult to contain within one group (Engelhart 2014).