On November 25 I referenced the Sunday Assembly in a wonderful quote one of the founders gave about the value of church. After one year of existence, this “godless church” has experienced its first church split. No one can make this stuff up!
Sunday Assembly NYC has broken away and formed their own “denomination” called Godless Revival. According to Godless Revival founder Lee Moore, Sunday Assembly has a problem with atheism. “(Sunday Assembly founder Sanderson) Jones advised the NYC group to ‘boycott the word atheism’ and ‘not to have speakers from the atheist community.’ It also wanted the New York branch to host Assembly services in a churchlike setting, instead of the Manhattan dive bar where it was launched.
“Jones denies ordering the NYC chapter to do away with the word ‘atheism,’ but acknowledges telling the group ‘not to cater solely to atheists.’ He also said he advised them to leave the dive bar ‘where women wore bikinis,’ in favor of a more family-friendly venue.”
No one can make this stuff up! Just like us Protestants, the definition of a word and whether the service is contemporary or traditional caused a split.
“Moore promises that his group, Godless Revival, will be more firmly atheistic than the Sunday Assembly, which he now dismisses as ‘a humanistic cult.’
“Jones described the split as ‘very sad.’ But, he added, ‘ultimately, it is for the benefit of the community. One day, I hope there will soon be communities for every different type of atheist, agnostic and humanist. We are only one flavor of ice cream, and one day we hope there’ll be congregations for every godless palate.’”
And there you have it. We will now have several atheist denominations.
Do you know what the common denominator is? Human behavior. Our church schisms, going back through our 2,000+ year history, all come back to human behavior and nothing more.
Yet God still chooses to use the Church as His hands here on earth. Amen.
