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.