Nashville.SundayAssembly.com

Steve and I watched Morgan Spurlock's "Inside Man" episode with fascination last night as he explored the reasons people would be attracted to a weekly gathering of atheists in Nashville, Tenn., the "buckle of the Bible Belt". SundayAssembly began in November as an off-shoot of a similar gathering in London, England, and has already outgrown its weekly meeting space, moving to two sessions.

Cofounder Sanderson Jones calls SundayAssembly "all the best bits of church, but with no religion and awesome pop songs (such as Bon Jovi's "It's My Life")."

The format for the gathering on Sundays is borrowed from mega-churches, where parishioners clap, sway and get emotional to songs before a motivational speaker stands up and shares a message. Midweek offers opportunities for small groups to meet in homes and share on a more personal level and for the pop band to practice its music.

"It's not about whether you believe or whether you don't believe," Sanderson Jones, says, "it's just about celebrating life in some community without labels. We've got this awesome motto: Live better, help often, wonder more. People seem to dig that."

According to journalist Morgan Spurlock, an agnostic himself, who served as a guest motivational speaker at SundayAssembly, "One in five people in the U.S. declare themselves as being unaffiliated (religiously), and with the under-30 crowd it's one in three people."

Spurlock asks the question, "What's driving people to be unaffiliated with organized religion?"

 Spurlock says that SundayAssembly is creating "a welcoming environment where people can enjoy one another, enjoy community and what the church has created, but in a way where they don't have a lot of dogma or doctrine."

Spurlock and Sanderson both acknowledged the fundamental need of human beings to connect with one another. Heidi Hall, a journalist with The Tennessean, asked if atheism can "be isolating."

Indeed, it can, Sanderson acknowledged. SundayAssembly gives like-minded people the opportunity to gather, share, and, as Spurlock said, "make people feel safe."

I'm just listening to the conversation. There are a lot of wise and true observations here.

--Posted by Mama O.