Posted on 07/27/2014 2:20:23 AM PDT by markomalley
Viewed from the outside, the pointy-roofed building in a suburb of Nashville, Tennessee deep in the heart of America’s Bible Belt, looks very much like a church.
And stepping inside, where a congregation is swaying along to music, listening to sermons and discussing ways to help their local community, it sounds very much like a church too.
There is, however, one rather fundamental missing ingredient that sets this congregation apart from the hundreds of others turning out to worship this Sunday morning in Nashville: this is a church without God.
“I pass seven big churches between my house and the main road two miles away, there are plenty of churches in Nashville, but we needed a place for us,” says David Lyle, a founder-member of the Nashville branch of the “Sunday Assembly” secular church movement.
Started in London in January 2013 by a pair of British stand-up comedians, Sunday Assembly offers a church experience but without the “God part” and, according to organisers, it is starting to catch on in America.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
It’s like Sam Kinison...in reverse..except not as funny.
So it has a similar background to the “Church” of Scientology, started by a novelist.
The United Methodist Church has been trying this for years.
Speaking of novelists, I’m reminded of Flannery O’Connor’s novel “Wise Blood”, with Hazel Motes and his “Church Without Christ”. Its congregation consisted of Hazel Motes...
“The church with no God”
Unitarians?
CC
We already have Episcopal church.
Sounds like a good way to get money from the marks.
Church without God. Shoot, go into Politics, same thing.
The article carefully avoids mentioning the number attending this get-together. The fact that they could all go out to lunch together suggests quite a small group.
As Western Civilization sinks deeper and deeper into the mire of decadence, the lost are lost further and further in the same mire.
Pretty much what L. Ron Hubbard said.
I once attended a Unitarian funeral.
I couldn’t tell who the mourners were, who the minister was, etc.
People came in, sat down for a few minutes. Said nothing. Heard nothing.
Thank you...a correct comment.
While true, don’t lose heart. Unbelievers have always been among us. We have to accept the fact that we aren’t going to win every soul:
Matthew 13 New International Version (NIV)
The Parable of the Sower
13 That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the lake. 2 Such large crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat in it, while all the people stood on the shore. 3 Then he told them many things in parables, saying: “A farmer went out to sow his seed. 4 As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. 5 Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. 6 But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. 7 Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. 8 Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. 9 Whoever has ears, let them hear.”
Find a good, Bible-believing church, and get involved. You’d be surprised how quickly fears fade. Trust in God, and don’t fear the world’s inability to believe in Him.
“The church with no God”
Unitarians?
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Reminds of the old joke:
What do you get when you cross a Unitarian with a Jehovah’s Witness?
Someone who comes and knocks on your door for no reason.
How so very special ... yawn!
I wonder how such a gathering would receive occasional Christians who showed up Sunday morning, joined the conversation, and asked, “aren’t you missing something?” Think Paul in the agora in Athens.
We have long had a religion with no deity, it is called secular progressivism.
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