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Research

Sunday Assembly – an atheist church?

Melanie Prideaux & Tim Mortimer

Research Summary

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? A qualitative study based on interviews with Sunday Assembly attendees is presented. The 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.

Researchers

Melanie Prideaux & Tim Mortimer

Research Institution

University of Leeds

What is this about?

This research is about the Sunday Assembly, a movement with 80 chapters in 8 countries that focusses on community, service, a lack of doctrine or deity and inclusivity. Meetings resemble Anglican church services but the structure is used to create a godless alternative. The movement began in London in 2013, receiving a considerable amount of media attention as an ‘atheist church’. But the Sunday Assembly publicly rejects an atheist label or concern with related themes. The Sunday Assembly thus presents a good opportunity to study a range of issues related to religion and non-religion.

What was done?

The data were gathered through an online survey, promoted through social media, and semi-structured interviews and participant observation over a six-month period at two different Sunday Assembly meetings in the UK: Leeds and London. Thirty individuals were either interviewed or responded to the survey. The fieldwork was conducted during 2013–2014 in the first year of the Sunday Assembly.

Main findings and outputs

  • The expressed identities of Sunday Assembly attendees are complex.
  • The three concepts of non-religion, the secular sacred and indifferentism help to explain them.
  • The data show that attendees of the Sunday Assembly reject classification, both of the poles of observant religion and overt irreligion, and further of classifying their identity between these poles.
  • Sunday Assembly attendees often identify publicly with indifferentism or indifference to issues of religion or belief, though the details of their interview answers often suggest that they are not so indifferent.
  • Privately, respondents regularly identify as non-religious.
  • Many are reluctant to be identified with the Richard Dawkins style of atheism, which, together with organised religion, is sometimes described as aggressive.
  • The public display of indifference is due to a secular sacred boundary around the concept of inclusivity.
  • It is non-negotiable for Sunday Assembly members that all should be included without judgement.
  • An abrupt distinction between non-religion and the secular is problematic. Sunday Assembly members do not primarily identify as non-religious, but inclusive.

Relevance to RE

Within RE, there is continuing discussion of the nature of non-religious worldviews and how to approach teaching about them. The research provides evidence, insights and discussion on an interesting example. RE teachers might use it to help develop their knowledge base on non-religious worldviews (even though the researchers find that non-religious is not the best way to describe the Sunday Assembly). They could also find the material useful in preparing to teach about the Sunday Assembly, e.g. as preparation for hosting visitors in lessons and thinking about the questions pupils could ask and explore with them.

Generalisability and potential limitations

The researchers discuss some limitations of the research. The scale is quite small and the study took place when the Sunday Assembly was in its infancy. They suggest, however, that the study raises questions that would repay more detailed, updated studies.

Find out more

The full article is: Tim Mortimer & Melanie Prideaux (2018) Exploring identities between the religious and the secular through the attendees of an ostensibly ‘Atheist Church’, Religion, 48:1, 64-82.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0048721X.2017.1386135

 

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