Spotlight on Atheism and Humanism III: Sunday Assembly Boston

       

        Atheism is likely a logical result of Western reactions to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In the West, humanism has had similar origins. In particular, Christianity has dominated the Anglo-American world until non-belief became a viable intellectual option towards the end of the 19^th century.

James Turner, a prominent historian, argues that non-belief became a viable option not as a result of actions or beliefs of the less devout, but rather due to devout Christians expecting God to conform to human standards of morality and reason. Now, in the 21^st century, non-believers are starting to come together in communities that could potentially be considered religious.

The Boston chapter of Sunday Assembly is one of two such communities in the Greater Boston Area. Sunday Assembly was first founded in England when two comedians Pippa Evans and Sanderson Jones missed the community of church, but not its beliefs. Thus, their goal was to start a community based on non-belief.

Sunday Assembly Boston meetings are typically held in a space shared with Democracy Now. The assemblers that were gathered at the first meeting I attended were mostly younger and white, though a few were a bit older. From what I could glean, it seemed that most of them were atheist or agnostic, but I was told that there are even some traditionally religious people who occasionally attend.  

            

         The chairs were set up in rows almost like pews, and since the meeting was delayed I inquired about the leadership structure of Sunday Assembly. I learned that the founders wanted it to be egalitarian with no single leader. Ironically, a good portion of this meeting emphasized that Sunday Assembly Boston was following the leadership of its founders.

Continuing to ask about the governance of Sunday Assembly, I asked, if they did not want to have a single leader why did they not organize the chairs in a circle like the Quakers. He was unfamiliar with them and any other congregational style of church governance. (In fairness, the majority of churches with a congregational style of church governance have pew seating).

         In retrospect, it is not surprising that he was unaware of the Quakers; Sunday Assembly was modeled on contemporary evangelical Christianity and the Anglican Church. The founders did not search for different types of religious community, but settled on familiar models.

A leader was wearing a shirt with ‘live better’ inside a triangle. This triangle was an awkward design. The words were difficult to distinguish due to the letters being stacked on top of each other like an eye exam chart. When I asked several of the leaders about this design, they did not have an answer, though at my second visit they did.

          When the meeting started, we stood up to sing Michael Jackson's Man in the Mirror played on a speaker system. The assemblers (congregants?) sang along mostly without any gusto or enthusiasm reminiscent of Eddie Izzard's sketch mocking the singing at Anglican churches. Though, the enthusiasm at my second visit was much better.

         

We then broke into pairs and played Tic-Tac-Toe with a twist. Instead of a normal 3 x 3 grid, we were given a 4 x 4 grid adding 7 more squares to the typical Tic-Tac-Toe board. We were told that the objective was to score as many points as possible and that each Tic-Tac-Toe was worth one point. The point of this exercise was to contemplate the possibility that life is not composed only of win-lose situations, but also win-win situations (and presumably also lose-lose situations though this was not made explicit).

There were two speakers. These speakers told their life stories with emphasis on their humanistic achievements. The second speaker was an astronomer who advocated his own motto: ruth and truth. Ruth means compassion and is the root of ruthless. Thus, he was advocating compassion and truth as humanist ideals.

         

The first speaker dominated the question and answer portion of the second speaker, asking him how he reconciles his Unitarianism with his humanism. This repeated questioning betrayed the questioner's lack of understanding of Unitarian Universalism, because from its inception to its current practice Unitarian Universalism is deeply connected to humanism. 

         While this was an interesting exchange the questioner was not affiliated with Sunday Assembly. However, this and other aspects of the meeting left me with the impression that assemblers and their speakers do not know much about their religious options.

         We sang two more songs at the end of the meeting, including David Bowie’s Space Oddity. Though they changed some of the lyrics: “And may God’s love be with you” was changed to “And may our love be with you,” removing even ornamental (and historical) references to God.

         Before deciding to officially review Sunday Assembly Boston I decided to attend a second Assembly. This meeting was held in a lecture hall at Harvard University giving it a less religious feeling than the first.

Pop songs were still sung and there was still a speaker. However, this speaker was much better and the songs were sung with more enthusiasm. They even gave context to the song choice and speaker, making it feel much less haphazard. 

The speaker was a national poetry slam winner, who was working on a graduate degree in education at Harvard University. His poems were mostly about race, poverty, and family and were thought provoking as well as entertaining. You should check him out at www.clintsmithiii.com

I found it commendable that some of the leaders remembered my first visit and were better prepared for questions. One person even joked that I was not being asking difficult enough questions.

          Why triangles? They have a history of being used as symbols for certain members of the downtrodden like homosexuals, who were forced to wear pink triangles in Nazi concentration camps. Why not Unitarian Universalism? Sunday Assembly provides community to those who want a place free of any mention of God. Etc.... 

         Being a relatively new organization (to date the Boston chapter has had only 14 meetings) their lack of organization and coherent belief systems (at least in their first meeting) are somewhat unsurprising. And they are quite likely still evolving.

Bottom line:

         Is Sunday Assembly religious? Even the assemblers were divided on this question. And frankly, I am puzzled as well. If I strictly adhere to my preferred conception of religion as community, then I have to say that they are religious. However, the flaw of this theory is that organizations not normally considered religious could easily be included in the category of religion. 

          Sunday Assembly fits the community theory, but does not require its members to have any specific metaphysical system. Though, arguably, the de facto metaphysic is materialistic. Nor does it require specific actions, like prayer, meditation, chanting, or reading of a Holy Text outside of the meeting.

        Would I join? Probably not. I do applaud their attempt at a non-religious community, but despite their advertisements, I feel as though my appreciation of religion would cause friction in their community. Though, I will likely visit again to see what they are up to. 

        My next post will be about the Humanist Hub, loosely affiliated with Harvard University, which I think is a better model of what organized non-belief can be. 

          

Spotlight on Evangelical Christianity IV: My visit to Park Street Church

Not all evangelical churches include ecstatic worship like Jubilee, nor are all evangelical   churches anti-intellectual. Park Street Church was founded in 1809 and ever since it has been a major part in the intellectual life of Boston. At the time of Park Street’s founding there was a Boston based debate between Unitarians and the Trinitarians. The congregants of Park Street decided that they would found a Trinitarian, specifically Congregational, Church. 

What is Congregationalism? It is a form of church governance which allows each church to determine its own leadership structure. Often the leadership in these churches are non-hierarchical, where the lead minister is not overburdened with all of the leadership decisions. The senior minister of Park Street, Gordon Hugenberger, proudly told me that if I really wanted to know about the workings of the church I should ask the congregation and some of the other leaders.

Park Street Church is such a fixture in downtown Boston that many people walk past it without realizing it is a working church. As you enter, there is a large modern room straight ahead, complete with high tech screens for announcements. Displayed on one wall is a quilt depicting the history of Park Street Church. Just past this quilt is a small library and a description of future foreign missions needing volunteers. The sanctuary is located on the second floor and has an old fashioned appearance complete with organ pipes, old, but well maintained, pews, and a balcony. In the morning service, most of the seating in this large sanctuary was filled with congregants. With a weekly attendance of 2000, Park Street Church is technically a megachurch.

The service started with worship, but the choir was away at retreat, so in the morning service the congregation was the only source of music. The worship consisted of traditional hymns sang in a traditional fashion. There were a few who threw themselves into the worship, but mostly people just stood and sang.

The title of the sermon was 'Why the Bible'? Rev. Dr. Gordon Hugenberger. Hugenberger started the sermon talking about romantic relationships and how conversation dwindles over time the longer one has been married. He then compared this relationship with one's relationship with God and how reading the Bible is necessary for this relationship with God.  

Sometimes the term 'Bible' is used to denote authority (i.e. the Bible of Gardening). Based this usage, we understand that the term 'Bible' indicates comprehensiveness, authoritativeness, and an ability to be understood by both expert and novice. The Bible is a comprehensive, authoritative, and understandable guide to a spiritual and moral life. Unlike the Vedas and Buddhist Sutras written by 'religious geniuses,' the Bible claims divine inspiration, which is the source of its authority. Later holy books, such as the Quran and the Book of Mormon copy the Bible in their attempt to be comprehensive, authoritative, and understandable.  

According to Hugenberger, the Bible, in its comprehensiveness, authoritativeness, and ability to be understood, began with Exodus. This is both the first book written and the first time religion made moral and legal demands. The Ten Commandments was a covenant similar to other governmental covenants written at the same time that Moses lived. God, through Moses, was trying to build a kingdom, not just to have followers who worshiped Him. But, even in the Old Testament there was grace. God did not say 'follow these laws then I will redeem you', God redeemed the people of Israel and then told them the moral rules. Thus, being ethical is merely our gratitude for being redeemed by God. Covenants are relational, and having a relationship with God seems to be the essence of Christianity for Hugenberger. 

After the service I was able to speak briefly with Herman, one of the candidates for a leadership position. He is a lawyer by training and judge by profession. This conversation was exactly what you would expect from a conversation between a philosopher and a lawyer. I asked him my traditional first question "What is religion?" Reluctant to answer this question, he said it depends on definition and who you talk to. Eventually he did answer a couple of my standard questions. In a mostly non-committal way he offered that Christianity was a relationship with God. He also gave a non-committal answer to the question of whether Christianity was a religion. Christianity was more than a religion; it transcends religion. 

The morning service ended around 12:30 and I came back for the 4:00 evening service. The evening service's worship was quite different. Instead of traditional hymns there was a contemporary worship service, with drums, guitars, and even a piano. As they set up, I noticed a guy covered in tatoos, but unfortunately did not see him as a worship leader during the service. The music itself was standard contemporary Christian worship songs and I wondered if the extensive set up was worth it. Like the first service, the congregation's participation in the worship was mostly somber, with a few excited worshipers, including a middle aged black man in the balcony area,

The second sermon had the same title "Why the Bible?," but mostly different content. In this sermon he relayed the struggles of the famous Rev. Billy Graham and how early in his career he was starting to have doubts about the veracity of the Bible. Graham then had a revelation by a tree stump when he was out walking that confirmed his belief in the authoritativeness of the Bible. While its true that you can look into the history of Exodus, find that it does match the covenant structure that kings made, and that God was trying to build a kingdom. You don't really know this until you have the experience.

Like the first service, there was communion, in the first service it was made plainly clear that only those who trust in Jesus and are Christian should partake in the Lord's Supper. In the second service this was more implicit, but was still rather obvious that non-believers were prohibited from this ritual.    

Bottom Line:

Park Street Church would be a great place if you are an educated Christian. Virtually everyone I talked to not only had a Bachelor's, but also either already had a graduate degree or was working towards one. There is also a large Asian contingent and on their website they bill themselves as international. In comparison to Reality, the average age appears to be older. Though there was nothing that wowed me in the services, Park Street Church is historic, well attended, and is generally a solid church. The sermons are scholarly, but that is to be expected given their congregation. Stay tuned for my interview with Associate pastor Walter Kim.