A Godless Community: An Exploratory Study on the Sunday Assembly and its Attendees

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A godless community

An exploratory study on the Sunday Assembly and its attendees

Emma Binnendijk

10830928

Supervisor: mw. dr. U.L. Popp-Baier

Second reader: mw. dr. C. Ivanescu

Master Thesis

Research Master Religious Studies

University of Amsterdam

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Introduction

Throughout the Western world, interest in religion is rising amongst a-religious people. People are looking for ways to enjoy the merits of religion without the God that was traditionally used to define religion in the Western world. A famous proponent of religion for atheists is Alain de Botton. He argues in his book Religion for Atheists that religion has a lot to offer for secular societies. De Botton proposes that atheists should use the good ideas of religion and use it to their benefit.1

There are many examples of religion for atheists in The Netherlands: Ricky Koole’s Dienst voor

ongelovigen (service for non-believers) which consists of lectures and music;2_{Bijbel voor ongelovigen}

(Bible for non-believers) which is an adaptation of Genesis as a novel by Guus Kuijer (Nieuwenhuis 2015); Preek van de Leek (sermon by a layman) in which public figures preach about what inspires them in a religious service-like setting.3

Similar to the Dutch Dienst voor ongelovigen and Preek van de Leek, there is an international network called Sunday Assembly. This initiative was started by Sanderson Jones and Pippa Evans with their first meeting taking place in January 2013. The website states “they both wanted to do something

that was like church but totally secular and inclusive of all- no matter what they believed”.4_{The Sunday}

Assembly is a secular congregation that celebrates life under the motto ‘Live better. Help often. Wonder more.’.5

The Sunday Assembly has grown enormously since its start in 2013. When this research was designed and conducted (2016 and 2017), the organization had more than seventy congregations in eight countries.6_{The Sunday Assembly has been featured regularly by big media outlets such as The}

Guardian (Brown 2013), Vice (Cheadle 2014) and the BBC (“Scores Assemble at Atheist ‘Church’.” 2013). The rapid growth of the organization and the media coverage shows that the organization

1_{http://alaindebotton.com/religion/. Accessed July 4, 2017}_.

2_{http://rickykoole.nl/wordpress/dienst-voor-ongelovigen-en-alle-anderen/}_._{Accessed July 4, 2017}_. 3_{http://www.preekvandeleek.nl/}_._{Accessed July 4, 2017}_.

4_{https://www.sundayassembly.com/story. Accessed July 4, 2017}_. 5_{https://www.sundayassembly.com/story. Accessed July 4, 2017}_. 6_{https://www.sundayassembly.com/assemblies. Accessed July 4, 2017}_.

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generates a lot of interest. In contrast to the widespread interest in the media for the phenomenon of Sunday Assembly, academic research on the organisation remained scarce.

State of research in 2016

As mentioned in the preceding paragraph, the research for this thesis was designed and conducted in 2016 and 2017. The choices made for this research regarding relevance, methods and theories are thus based on the literature available at that moment.

The only research based on empirical data available in 2016 was Hannah Dick’s article Atheism

in Religious Clothing (2015). In this article, she looks at the Sunday Assembly as an example of an

atheist church. According to Dick atheist churches are a way of positioning atheism as a religious expression rather than purely as a rejection of religion (Dick 2015, 382-387). Dick’s categorization of the Sunday Assembly as an atheist church is probably based on the fact that the Sunday Assembly used this label itself in the beginning, but later on the Sunday Assembly comments on the phrase ‘atheist church’ as follows:

“The phrase “atheist church” was something we used when starting out. It seemed like a good shorthand phrase to explain what it is (and definitely helped us get press attention which has been vital in getting Sunday Assembly off the ground). However, we focus not on Atheism but on celebrating life. We actively discourage the use of ‘atheist church’ as a way to describe the Sunday Assembly.”7

The Sunday Assembly describes itself as “radically inclusive” and says that they “don’t do

supernatural but we won’t tell you you’re wrong if you do”.8_{The radical inclusivism of welcoming}

everyone regardless of their background or religion, is one of the things that makes the Sunday Assembly and its attendees interesting to me, since most organisations similar to the Sunday Assembly adhere to a specific set of beliefs such as atheism or humanism. These types of organisations are

7_{https://www.sundayassembly.com/faq.}_{Accessed July 5, 2017.} 8_{https://www.sundayassembly.com/faq}_{. Accessed July 5, 2017.}

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known in religious studies as non-religious9_{organisations. Quite some research has been conducted}

on non-religious organisations with a specific profile. Most of this research focusses on atheist organisations (see e.g. Quack 2012; Hunsberger and Altemeyer 2006; Catto and Eccles 2013). The Sunday Assembly is a unique case of non-religion, since it does not have a specific profile concerning its beliefs.

Research goals & method

Because very little was known about the Sunday Assembly in 2017 -while being an interesting and unique case of non-religion- this thesis examines who attend the Sunday Assembly meetings, what they believe and which role their beliefs play in attending the Sunday Assembly. The main research question for my thesis will be What is the role of a person’s beliefs in his motivation to attend the

Sunday Assembly?. The sub questions will be the following:

1. Who are the attendees of the Sunday Assembly? 2. Why do people attend the Sunday Assembly? 3. What do the attendees believe?

4. Are these beliefs affirmed in the Sunday Assembly meetings?

In order to answer my research question, I have conducted fieldwork and qualitative interviews within the Sunday Assembly communities in Amsterdam and Utrecht. The interviews are modelled after Abby Day’s research on beliefs without using questions about religiosity (Day 2009). By finding out why people attend the Sunday Assembly and which beliefs the attendees have, I will be able to clarify whether these beliefs play a role in the motivation to go to the Sunday Assembly meetings and whether the attendees share beliefs with each other. In my analysis, I will also take in account the

9_{The use and definition of the term ‘non-religion’ will be discussed in chapter one. For now, the reader} can keep in mind that non-religious phenomena are phenomena which are primarily defined by their relation to religion, but are not religious.

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values of the Sunday Assembly itself, and whether they align with the beliefs of the attendees.10_The

values that are important to the Sunday Assembly are summed up in their motto: ‘Live better. Help often. Wonder more’.

Relevance

The lack of research on the Sunday Assembly in 2017 is the reason this thesis focusses on the Sunday Assembly and the attendees of its meetings. Through the theoretical lens of non-religion, this thesis focusses on what the Sunday Assembly entails, who attends the Sunday Assembly meetings and why people come to the meetings. This endeavour will shed light on a problem identified by Lois Lee. Lee argues that researchers assume that forms of non-religion “are primarily intellectual rather than

social, practical, symbolic, aesthetic and/or material” (Lee 2012, 136). The study conducted in this

thesis focusses on one of the relatively rare institutionalized forms of non-religion (Lee 2012, 141) which has a strong social component to it and is thus not a solely intellectual manifestation of non-religion.

The first reason why I would qualify the Sunday Assembly as non-religion is the reason of its conception: the wish for something like a church, but without God. The second reason is the form of the meetings. The meetings consist of songs and singing-a-long, a lecture, a moment of silence, a personal story about the topic of the month’s meeting, and cake and coffee after the meeting.11_This

structure is very much like the structure of church services. So, by conception and form, the Sunday Assembly relates to religion, while the organisation does not consider itself religious. It calls itself a secular congregation. This is according to the Sunday Assembly “a gathering that looks a bit like church

but has no religious background or content.”.12

10_{The definition of ‘beliefs’ and ‘values’ and the relation between these concepts will be discussed in} chapter one.

11_{https://www.sundayassembly.com/faq}_{. Accessed July 5, 2017.} 12_{https://sundayassembly.online/faqs/}_{. Accessed June 8, 2020.}

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Apart from the fact that there was no empirical research on the Sunday Assembly in 2017, the Sunday Assembly adds an interesting new case to the few studies that have been done on institutionalized non-religion (e.g. Quack 2012; Smith 2013; Hassal & Bushfield 2014). Those studies all focus on non-religious groups with a distinct profile, such as atheist, rationalist or humanist. Because the Sunday Assembly has no specific ideology, it might attract an ideologically more diverse group of people than organizations with a certain ideology. Whereas organizations with a clear stance concerning religion will attract people who agree with this stance, the attendees of Sunday Assembly meetings could all have different attitudes towards religion. This makes the question who attends the Sunday Assembly meetings and why even more interesting.

Structure of this thesis

The first chapter of this thesis discusses the theoretical framework used for this research. It focusses on the discussions concerning the use and definition of the terms ‘non-religion’ and ‘belief’. The second chapter is an overview of the methodological choices made concerning the data collection and analysis. The subsequent chapter provides the reader with the history of the Sunday Assembly and a description of a Sunday Assembly meeting. The fourth chapter presents the analysis of the interviews with the attendees of the Sunday Assembly. And lastly, the final chapter consists of the final conclusion and discussion of this research project.

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1. Theoretical Framework

In this chapter, the two main concepts for this thesis – non-religion and belief - will be discussed. These concepts are far from undisputed amongst scholars, so I will explore the history of the use of these concepts as well as the discussion about their merits and uses. This chapter will give the reader insight in how the terms ‘non-religion’ and ‘belief’ are used in this thesis.

1.1. History and definition of the concept of non-religion

In this part of the chapter, I will give a short overview of how the concept ‘non-religion’ developed in the sociology of religion. The largest part of this section will present the discussion on the definition of non-religion. I will discuss the positions of Lee (2015), Quack (2014) and Jong (2015) on how to define non-religion. In addition, I will substantiate the choice for using Lee’s position for my research. Although Lee’s position is most preferable due to the theoretical and practical reasons that I will discuss, Lee fails to provide her reader with a workable definition of religion and non-religion. Therefore, I will complement Lee’s position with McKinnon’s definition of religion (2002).

For a long time, there was very little to no interest among scholars of religion in what we now call non-religion. One of the first extensive explorations of a category related to non-religion is Campbell’s book Towards a Sociology of Irreligion (1971). He defines irreligion as a form of response to religion. Such a response can include attitudes of hostility, disregard and indifference to religion. Campbell emphasizes that irreligion is not the same as unbelief and that irreligion is only possible if one is aware of religion. If a person is not aware of religion, he cannot respond to it, thus he cannot be irreligious (Campbell 1971, 20-24). Campbell’s use of irreligion is restricted to negative or indifferent responses to religion. He does not take in account positive responses to religion, which makes his concept quite narrow. Whereas the term ‘irreligion’ is restricted to a negative attitude or indifference towards religion, ‘non-religion’ is broader and encompasses every response to religion, as long as it is not a religion itself (Lee 2015, 203 - 204). While irreligion is always a form of non-religion,

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non-religion is not automatically irreligion – the same way that all sofas are furniture, but not all furniture are sofas.

Let’s take a look at two examples to illustrate those two concepts. In the introduction several examples of ‘religion for atheists’ are mentioned. Those initiatives use religion as an inspiration for their activities and incorporate elements of religion. This means that these initiatives are positive towards religion, even though the organisers don’t necessarily feel at home in a truly religious setting.13_{The response to religion in these instances is positive, which means that these initiatives are}

not irreligious. They are cases of the broader category of ‘non-religion’, since these initiatives are related to religion. An example of an irreligious stance can be found in the famous atheist Richard Dawkins. He is very critical of religious ideas, as well as of the role of religion in our society (Dawkins 2006). This active negative stance towards religion, is irreligious in Campbell’s definition. But it also falls under the broader category of ‘non-religion’, as does every response to religion, regardless of the type of response.

After the release of Campbell’s Towards a Sociology of Irreligion there was no big surge in interest in the subject of irreligion or non-religion. It was not until the 2000’s that a general interest in the subject emerged. As to why this interest was (re)kindled Bullivant and Lee speculate that “It might

relate to the rise of visible forms of non-religion, such as the New Atheism, or to the rise of visible forms of religion, which many societies might feel as an encroachment on what are possibly, for the first time, powerful non-religious or secular investments and normativities.” (Bullivant & Lee 2012, 22).

Whatever the reason was for this rise of interest, ‘religious nones’ and non-religion became a hot topic. At first, most studies looking at non-religion focused on atheism. Steadily the interest widened to other types of non-religion. Within the scholarly community, the realization grew that the group of people who are not religiously affiliated is not homogeneous and therefore require further research (e.g. Lim, MacGregor & Putnam 2010; Singleton 2015; Silver et al. 2014).

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Even though the interest in subcategories of non-religion was considerable, the ‘master category’ of non-religion remained underdeveloped. There had been no profound discussion on the core concepts of the field of non-religion (Lee 2012, 129). The lack of a substantiated ‘master concept’ resulted in non-religion becoming a rather elusive term that was being used without any clear definition. In some research, non-religion was used as a term to describe a-religiousness, while sometimes non-religion was used as a category atheists or rationalists belong to. In 2012 Lois Lee published a research note in which she described the lack of theory concerning non-religion and in which she posed a working definition. In the next section, the issue of how and if we should define non-religion will be discussed.

Three approaches of (not) defining

After the publication of Lois Lee’s research note (2012) the discussion concerning how to define non-religion expanded, partly due to the efforts of the Non-Religion and Secularity Network (NRSN). Lois Lee has made the most extensive contribution towards a tangible definition of non-religion (2015). Johannes Quack (2014) argues that scholars should let go of fixed definitions for non-religion and that they should use a more relational approach to non-religion. Jonathan Jong (2015) takes this point even further by arguing that the terms ‘religion’ and ‘non-religion’ should be abandoned completely by scholars. I will discuss the arguments of these three authors and consider the advantages and disadvantages of their approaches.

Lee defines non-religion as “any phenomenon – position, perspective or practice - that is

primarily understood in relation to religion, but which is not itself considered to be religious.” (2015,

32).14_{By this definition, non-religion is not everything that is not religious, but it is everything with a}

meaningful differentiation from religion. This means that non-religion is a relational concept (Lee 2012, 136). If a person would have no idea of the existence of religion at all, he could not be non-religious. In Lee’s words: “It [non-religion] is used to indicate not the absence of something (religion)

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but the presence of something (else), characterized, at least in the first place, by its relation to religion but nevertheless distinct from it.” (Lee 2015, 32).

This definition includes many different phenomena. Lee herself includes atheism, agnosticism and some forms of secularism. On the other hand, she excludes many forms of ‘New Age’ since they have “their own core principles and practices, differentiation from religion being a secondary rather

than primary consideration.” (Lee 2012, 131). Whereas atheism and agnosticism depend on religion

for their existence – without religion, you cannot be an atheist - ‘New Age’ can exist without the notion of religion, even though there are similarities between the two phenomena.

When saying a phenomenon is non-religious, it is important to keep in mind that a phenomenon cannot be purely non-religious. Rather, it is a way of saying that the non-religious elements are dominant or are dominant to our (scholarly) interests (Lee 2015, 36). Lee urges her readers to see non-religion as a characteristic of a phenomenon, rather than a complete description. Organizations or institutions can have non-religious characteristics, while also having a-religious or religious characteristics. These characteristics, although they may seem contradictory at first sight, are not mutually exclusive (Lee 2015, 35).

A relational approach to non-religion is also used by Quack (2014). Quack criticizes Lee’s definition for being too narrow and exclusive, as it does not include humanism, rationalism or many forms of New Age. He thinks the boundaries of Lee’s definition are too rigid and strives towards a more inclusive concept of religion. Quack proposes to stop defining religion and to use non-religion as a way to describe the relationship between a religious field and a position outside this religious field. He argues that a religious field is always embedded in a religion-related field and that the borders between those fields are constantly up for debate. These borders always depend on the perspectives of the person assessing them.

The religious-related field consists of phenomena that are not religious, “while at the same

time they stand in a determinable and relevant relationship to a religious field.” (Quack 2014, 450). It

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related field from the perspective of “religion’s other side” (Quack 2014, 447 & 449). Quack summarizes his point as follows:

“In order to find a “master concept” for studies on nonreligion, it [the article] suggests that scholars reflect on different relationships between a specific religious field and the phenomena related to it (and therefore “nonreligious”). The attempt is thus not to define “religion” and “nonreligion” but to understand why and how people declare themselves nonreligious or are described as such. “(Quack

2014, 463)

Jonathan Jong takes this point further by arguing that scholars should abandon the terms ‘religion’ and ‘non-religion’ altogether. Those terms should only have social functions, not scientific ones, according to Jong (2015, 16). Jong reviews the way religion has been defined throughout the years. He identifies two main problems in defining religion: making sure that the definition is not too exclusive, and at the same time not too inclusive (2015, 16-18). Jong praises the way in which the cognitive science of religion approaches religion. Instead of looking for ‘the silver bullet’ that explains religion, this field looks at the different traits that can be found in religion and analyses these traits separately. These are traits that exist in religious and a-religious contexts alike and share the same psychological mechanisms in those different contexts. For example, the belief in fate or predestination is often part of religion, but a-religious people can also believe in fate. This is the case with many traits that are often ascribed to religion, such as belief in supernatural agents, ecstatic experiences or obedience to moral codes. Because those traits occur and co-occur in religious as well as a-religious contexts, it makes no sense to treat them as religious phenomena according to Jong. It would be more feasible to look at the distinct trait, instead of looking at the religious system in which it might be embedded in a certain context. This is the approach which the cognitive science of religion takes, and which Jong advocates (Jong 2015, 19 - 20). Following this line of thinking Jong concludes that:

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“… There is no such thing that answers to the name ”religion”; there are only distinct phenomena that sometimes co-occur and are contingently related to one another, sometimes in things we habitually label religious and sometimes in things that we habitually label secular.” (Jong 2015, 20)

Thus, Jong argues that religion as a distinct phenomenon does not exist and that the perceived distinction between religion and secular is artificial and in fact non-existent. Following the argument that religion cannot be defined and should not exist as a scientific term, Jong rejects non-religion and Lee’s definition of non-religion as useful categories, since they are “parasitic” upon the definition of religion (2015, 20-21).

To define or not to define

Later in this chapter I will turn to Jong’s critique of the use of the term ‘religion’ and his remarks on non-religion being parasitic on religion. First, it is necessary to review the merits of defining or not defining religion and non-religion. Quack argues that the boundaries –and thus the definition- of religion and non-religion depend on their context, and there is plenty of merit in Quack’s thoroughly relational approach.

An example of Quack’s approach is his exploration of the different relation and boundaries between religion and indifference to religion by comparing two cases in Germany and India (Quack 2017). Because of the vastly different role of religion in society and social life in those two countries, the underlying stance of indifference to religion looks very different in the two cases. Marion, the German respondent, was able to describe herself as not religious and not partake in any religious activity because in Germany religion is seen as a ‘intellectual and private decision’. This stands in stark contrast with Indian society where being Hindu is mostly ‘indicative of a social and cultural identity’. This makes that Prakash, the Indian respondent, calls himself Hindu and partakes in some Hindu rituals with his family. Despite these differences, both respondents “take the path of least possible

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indifference to religion, but due to the different role of religion in society this indifference doesn’t look the same (Quack 2017, 213-215).

As this example shows, Quack’s approach does justice to the complex reality of phenomena we call religious and non-religious. The idea of a religious field and a religion-related field that are constantly influencing each other seems a correct way of representing the complex reality concerning religion, non-religion and secularity in a scholarly debate. This approach prevents reification of categories that are fluid and under constant debate.

On the other hand, Quack’s approach also raises objections. By not defining religion and non-religion, but still using these terms, Quack seems to take the easy way out. Quack uses terms with a long history of debated definitions. These definitions are full of implicit or explicit assumptions about culture, perspective and importance of the phenomena (see also Asad 2002). Nevertheless, Quack uses these terms without explaining at any point which meaning he attributes to them and he seems to assume that people know what he means when talking about religion and non-religion. By not giving any definition for what religion is and still using this term, Quack leaves the meaning of religion open for interpretation. Of course, when you do give a definition about what you mean by religion, it would defeat the purpose of Quack’s approach. Based on this, the vagueness of the concepts in Quack’s approach is a serious disadvantage in my opinion.

If people - and scholars in particular - do not make clear what exactly they are talking about, no constructive dialogue can take place. When you are not sure what others mean when talking about religion, it will cause confusion. Of course, scholars have disagreed about the definition of religion for centuries. At least they knew that they were in disagreement, and they made clear what their stance in the matter was. By not defining at all you risk completely misunderstanding each other.

In addition, not defining non-religion might work on an analytic level, but for this thesis there is also a practical consideration involved in the choice to define or not to define non-religion. As mentioned in the introduction, the Sunday Assembly seems to be as a rather unique case of institutionalised non-religion and will be approached through the lens on non-religion. Therefore, I

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have to establish whether the Sunday Assembly can be defined as non-religion. This is much easier when you decide to define the concepts you are working with. Thus, for the sake of clarity and because of practical considerations, I am a proponent of defining (non-)religion. Of course, this brings along quite some problems and considerations, which I will look into in the next section.

Critique on using and defining non-religion

I will discuss three main critiques of using and defining the term ‘non-religion’: the scholarly value of the terms ‘religion’ and ‘non-religion’, the problem of reifying the – perceived - religion/non-religion dichotomy and the problem of ‘non-religion’ being parasitic on the term ‘religion’.

As stated before, Jong argues that the phenomenon religion – and thus non-religion- does not exist. According to Jong, what we call religion are separate phenomena that are related and happen to occur together in religious as well as a-religious settings (Jong 2015, 20). This fact does not mean that the term and category ‘religion’ has no value for scholars. The fact that the concept of religion is so widespread and commonly used, means scholars should not ignore it. Even if you see religion only as a human construct without any intrinsic value, it is still an interesting research object. Religious studies can be seen as a study of a culturally dominant concept, as Lee points out (2015, 26).

Lee uses a similar argument for using the categories ‘religion’ and ‘non-religion’, despite the critique that using these terms reifies an “empty binary” (Fitzgerald 2015, 264 in Cotter 2016, 22). Lee argues that her choice to use the term ‘religion’ is justified by the fact that it has been “the established

centre” in Western thinking for most of our scholarly history. This resulted in thinking in religion

related terms such as ‘non-religion’ or ‘spiritual but not religious’ (Lee 2015, 26). The thinking on religion and its relation to non-religion and spirituality is of course part of a discourse in society and therefore evolves in time. Nevertheless, religion as the centre of this thinking is a constant in the history of this societal discourse.

Both points of critique discussed are countered with the argument that religion and the reification of the binary conceptualisation of religion and non-religion can be used in scholarly settings

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by the virtue of their existence in our society. As scholars, we should indeed be careful to use these terms without any reflection but casting them aside would deny a reality of classification of something that does exist throughout Western society.

The third problem of using the term ‘non-religion’ is that it is parasitic on the term ‘religion’ (Jong 2015, 20). This means that all the problematic aspects of the term ‘religion’ are also part of non-religion. The most persistent discussion about religion is about its definition. If you do not know how to define religion, your concept of non-religion is not clear. The persistent discussion about the definition of religion does not mean that you cannot use a working definition. As long as you make clear what you mean by religion, you should be able to work with the concept. Lee also emphasizes that when working with religion-related terms, it is important to be very clear on your definition of religion. Furthermore, when taking on all discussion surrounding religion, there are also benefits of using the term. According to Lee religion is more inclusive than most concepts that are raised as an alternative, such as theism. Another advantage of using the term ‘religion’ is that it brings diverse approaches such as lived religion and material religion methodologies (Lee 2015, 26-27).

Discussing the three critiques on using the term ‘(non-)religion’ leads to the conclusion that (non-)religion can be used because the term has been the centre of scholarly discussion for centuries and because the term bears meaning to our society and individuals. It is important to clarify how and in what fashion the term ‘religion’ is used and to be aware of all the pitfalls the use of religion as a concept may bring.

Since I will be using Lois Lee’s definition of non-religion, I will also use her definition of religion. Lee chooses to focus on “mainstream notions of religion” (Lee 2015, 27), as described by Knott (2005). Knott calls this the “common sense starting point” for research in Western contexts. This common sense starting point contains religious institutions, their practices, beliefs, traditions and adherents (Knott 2005, 59 & 61). Lee is aware of the critique on this definition of religion but states that:

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“Despite critique, this conventional definition still shapes the majority of what is said about religion in Western popular and academic discourses, whether in sociology, anthropology, politics, philosophy, history, or in the arts.“ (Lee 2015, 27)

Lee does not specify further how we should see this mainstream notion of religion, which causes some vagueness on what religion defined in this fashion does and does not entail. Therefore, I will also look at the work of McKinnon who has a similar idea on defining religion through the common sense conceptions of religion (2002). McKinnon rejects the idea that religion has an essence, which should be the centre of the definition of religion and argues that we should use Wittgenstein’s notion of family resemblances to reach a definition of religion (2002, 68-72). McKinnon says:

“Thus, if we are looking to define “religion” we should not be looking for the element that distinguishes religion from non-religion, but we should explore a set of family resemblances between things we call religion.” (McKinnon 2002, 71)

According to Wittgenstein “the “meaning” of a word is best understood by its use” (McKinnon 2002, 73). This means that the term ‘religion’ is part of the “common language game” of people and the specific language game in the academic study of religion (McKinnon 2002, 76). Thus, people know what is meant with a certain term, even if it is not specifically defined for them. The result of placing religion in the language game is that there are no “natural boundaries” to religion. Nevertheless, you can draw one if you want to (McKinnon 2002, 72). Taking in account that there is no essence to religion, McKinnon concludes his article with the following definition:

“Religion is best identified using a sociological nominalist family-resemblance approach beginning by denoting particular traditions that are “religions”, such as Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and those traditions which resemble them in any number of ways.” (McKinnon 2002, 80).

This definition reflects how religion is used and defined in this thesis. Because the definition of non-religion is parasitic on the term ‘religion’, this definition is important in order to make clear what non-religion is or can entail. Non-religion will be defined as “any phenomenon –position,

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considered to be religious.” (Lee 2015, 32), in which religion is defined through the common sense

conception of religion, as formulated by McKinnon.

1.2. History of the concept of belief

As with (non-)religion, the term ‘belief’ has quite a long history in religious studies. Abby Day dedicates her first chapter in Believing in Belonging (2011) to tracing back the use of belief in anthropology and sociology of religion and how different authors are influenced by their predecessors. In this section, I will discuss this history concisely.15_{The differences between the concept of belief in the sociology of}

religion and anthropology of religion will be addressed. In addition, the criticism on the use of the concept will be discussed. Thereafter, we will turn to a review of Abby Day’s research on belief and how she conceptualises belief. This part of the chapter concludes with the conceptualisation of the term ‘values’.

Day distinguishes between two main strands in the history of the use of ‘belief’. Within anthropology, belief was explained in functional terms: belief was what worked best for the collective in a certain time and place. In this strand belief was usually placed in a small-scale and often domestic context. In sociology, belief was seen in more substantial terms: belief was what worked best for individuals to give meaning to a chaotic universe. Sociology of religion focussed on institutional and societal contexts to research belief. The anthropological strand is mostly influenced by Durkheim, while in the sociological school Weberian influences are dominant (Day 2011, 5).

Weber argues that people around the world and throughout time search for meaning. People form beliefs in Gods to achieve this meaning, even though events in this world often challenge people’s beliefs. This search for meaning, is a “universal, and individually driven, human need”. Although this search comes from an individual drive, it is shared amongst people, who design institutions to construct this sense of meaning (Day 2011, 7-9). Durkheim argues that belief is not just

15_{For a more extensive discussion of the history of belief, see Day (2011) and Lindquist & Coleman} (2008).

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accepting the pre-formed ideas of society, “but rather something that was produced through the

performative engagement with others.” (Day 2011, 10). This means that rituals are more than just “external translation of inward states.” (Lindquist and Coleman 2008, 3). Durkheim thought that

collective rituals are necessary to create beliefs.

Clifford Geertz combined the anthropological and sociological strands in thought on belief. He argues that cultural patterns make humans what they are, not the individual or social interaction alone. Geertz makes the distinction between the ideas of belief as a cognitive understanding and belief as a lived experience through ritual. Geertz sees belief as the latter and he rejects it as merely cognitive understanding. Thus, belief becomes a practice instead of an idea (Day 2011, 14). Even though Geertz places belief in the midst of rituals, he also insists, “that religious belief cannot be seen as involving

pure induction from experience, but rather a prior acceptance of authority which later transforms that experience.” (Lindquist and Coleman 2008, 3).

Criticism on the use of ‘belief’

Rodney Needham (1972) shifted the discussion about belief from what belief entails and means to people to how scholars use the term. Needham concluded his review of ‘belief’ by stating that this concept cannot and should not be universalized and that scholars are not clear on how they use this term. According to Needham, scholars need to distinguish between “received ideas to which a people

subscribe” and “what was their inner state” (Needham 1972, 2). Needham argues that scholars should

try to find out what this ‘inner state’, or psychological category of belief is about.

In similar fashion to Needham, Jean Pouillon also explores the different meanings of the term ‘belief’ on a linguistic level. Pouillon argues that there are different ways to use the word ‘belief’. He distinguishes three different usages of the word ‘belief’ in English and French. The first type of belief is the acceptance of a fact on a cognitive level. The second type is the internalization of a statement as one’s own. These two types seem to correspond with Needham’s first category. The third type of belief is what Pouillon called ‘believing in’ and contains putting confidence or faith in someone or

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something (Lindquist and Coleman 2008, 5), which is part of someone’s inner state to put it in Needham’s words. Pouillon describes believing as an ambiguous stance. When a person believes in something, he holds it true, but adds doubt to the statement at the same time: “To believe is to state

a conviction, but with the added nuance ‘I am not sure’. “(Lindquist and Coleman 2008, 5).

Malcolm Ruel (1982) also distinguishes between two different ways that the term ‘belief’ is used in a similar manner as Needham and Pouillon: a cognitive type of belief and belief on a more profound and deep level. Ruel calls those two types of belief weak and strong beliefs. When trying to define or conceptualise belief, scholars discuss belief in the strong sense. In those cases, the use of the term is connected to the Christian use of the word. This is highly problematic according to Ruel, because he argues that belief means different things to different people in different times. According to Ruel, there are four misconceptions when it comes to belief: that belief is central to all religions in the same way it is central in Christianity; that belief guides and explains behaviour; that belief is a psychological condition; and that it is belief and not the object of belief, which is most important (Ruel 1982, 27-29).

Ruel’s first point of critique, that scholars use the term ‘belief’ only in its Christian capacity, is also voiced by Asad. He “argued that religion, and belief, were historically contingent and shaped by

powerful leaders who authenticated and legitimized certain forms of belief and not others.” (Day 2011,

17). Asad also criticized Geertz’s proposition that rituals are a way of performing already held – pre-formed - beliefs. According to Asad, this proposition was not substantiated by any evidence. This brought the anthropology of religion back to the Durkheimian strand, which entailed the idea “that

beliefs were produced by rituals of belonging.” (Day 2011, 16-17).

This distinction between pre-formed and performed beliefs is also made by Joel Robbins. He distinguishes between believing in and believing that. ‘Believing that’ is what Day calls a pre-formed and propositional way of using belief. This type of belief is mostly present in the Protestant culture. To ‘believe in’ is according to Robbins a more cross-cultural and performative way of believing. It

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means “… having faith or trust in the object being believed”. When anthropologists want to analyse a culture, they should look for what people believe in according to Robbins (Day 2011, 17-18).

Scholars seems to agree that roughly put there are two ways as to use belief. These are believing that: a more cognitive type of belief, which entails assumptions and expectations about the world. And believing in: putting faith and confidence in something. Day calls these two types pre-formed or propositional belief and perpre-formed belief. As put by Ruel, Asad and Robbins the way that scholars approach ‘belief’ is also influenced by their own cultural context, since most scholars conceptualise belief in a way that is very Christian.

Where to locate belief

Within sociology of religion, scholars struggle to pinpoint the role of religion and belief in our – perceived - secular society. Most scholars seem to agree that the role of religion in our society is changing, possibly as a reaction to pluralism. Beliefs seem to keep on existing outside of religion and religious doctrines (Day 2011, 18-26). Nevertheless, the way that sociologists of religion address belief is still highly influence by Christian religious language and propositional form of believing (Day 2011, 6).

Day adds the critique that the institutionally unaffiliated are neglected in studies concerning belief. Very little is known about what the people in this group believe and why they sometimes identify as Christian. Day tried to find out “… how and why people today in Euro American modern

societies construct, negotiate, and perform beliefs.” (Day 2011, 27). She did this by interviewing 68

people. Her research design objective was to find out what the general population believes without asking religious questions. Day’s decision to not use religious language in her questions was prompted by the idea that the religious language used in surveys and censuses force religious answers from the respondents, which leads to false outcomes of the surveys (Day 2011, 32-33).

Day designed interview questions that would “probe what people believe in, where they

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that touched upon religious, ethical, or metaphysical themes, to see “where people locate power,

authority, and meaning” (Day 2011, 37). In her research Day chose a Weberian approach, by not

beginning with a hypothesis or definition of religion and belief, but by getting these inductively (Day 2011, 36).

Day’s questions were divided in an opening question (what do you believe in?), questions about morality, questions about meaning and transcendence and a final question regarding religious self-identification. Day chose these questions to probe her respondents on (metaphysical) matters that religions deal with. These are matters such as why things happen the way they do (Day 2011, 37). Day incorporated questions about morality because belief and morality have been very connected in (Christian) history. Whether there is a connection between the decline of religion and changing moralities in societies is a question often debated in sociology of religion. This question links to the presumed shared individual search for meaning and coherence in the world (Day 2011, 129-130).

Day concludes her research with the notion that scholar’s understanding of belief should be relocated in the social sphere: “… in conditions of late modernity, belief to many people is an

expression of how they belong to each other.” (Day 2011, 27). She identified two main belief

orientations: anthropocentric and theocentric. Most of Day’s respondents are mainly focused on people and believe in their relationships with people. This is the group Day calls anthropocentric. The minority of Day’s respondents said their most important relationship is their relationship with God. These are the theocentric people (Day 2011, 156-157). Day argues that belief is not just propositional, but that it is multidimensional. Day discerned seven dimensions of belief (content, sources, practice, salience, function, place, and time) and concludes that belief is like a worldview that manifests itself in these dimensions (Day 2011, 158).

Belief as a multidimensional phenomenon

From the review of the literature on belief, it becomes clear that it is a hard concept to define, as is the case with religion. Day concludes that belief is multidimensional. This conclusion seems to do

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justice to the complexity of the concept. It also incorporates the different ideas throughout time and different disciplines on how to approach the concept. Day herself calls her concept of belief as being multidimensional ‘holistic’ (day 2011, 6).

A multidimensional approach to religion is not uncommon. Küçükcan reviews in his article (2005) several stances on how to approach religion as a multidimensional phenomenon and how many and which dimensions should be included in this approach. The main argument in favour of using a multidimensional approach is the notion that “any construct as complex as religion is likely to be

multidimensional in nature” (Hill & Hood 1999, 269). This is supported by research on religious

commitment (Küçükcan 2005, 62).

These ideas could also be applied on the concept of ‘belief’. The importance, role, and content of these dimensions may differ over time, place and context. Therefore, it is important to take all dimensions into account. By doing this, ‘belief’ is a concept that can be used in a cross-cultural manner and does not favour one type of belief over the other (Day 2011, 156). Based on this, this thesis will define belief as a multidimensional concept. In the context of her research, Day found seven dimensions of belief (Day 2011, 158). These dimensions will be used in the analysis of my data. I will elaborate on this in chapter two.

Values and their relation to belief

In the analysis of my interviews I turn to the question how the beliefs of my respondents relate to the values of the Sunday Assembly. Whereas the meaning of the concepts of ‘religion’ and ‘belief’ are extensively discussed by scholars of religious studies. ‘Values’ seems to be such an ‘common use’ term, that conceptualisation of the term is neglected. The terms beliefs and values are often used together without clarifying their relation (e.g. Day 2011; Catto and Eccles 2013). Nevertheless, in order to be able to draw useful conclusions about beliefs and values, these difference and relationship between those concepts should be clarified.

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Hitlin and Piliavin (2004) provide an overview of the research on ‘values’ over the years and throughout disciplines. It becomes clear that the research on and conceptualisation of ‘values’ is very balkanized across different research disciplines. A common denominator in the different definitions of the concept ‘values’ is the idea that values motivate to certain behaviours or actions (359-362).

Several studies on belief and values, use a similar way of defining values. Values are life goals that guide behaviour and beliefs are defined as assumptions about how the world functions (e.g. Bond et al. 2004; Leung et al. 2007; Goodwin, Polek and Bardi 2012). This approach to beliefs is similar to a propositional or ‘to believe that’ way of seeing belief as becomes clear from this quote by Leung et al.:

“Although axioms [beliefs] and values both serve as general guidelines for choices and behaviours, these two types of construct differ in the way they operate. Values provide the ‘what’ answer, in a sense that they define what one should pursue, be it wealth or social justice. Axioms [beliefs] provide the ‘how’ answer, because how one construes the social world bear on the strategies and actions adopted for goal achievement.” (Leung et al. 2007, 94).

This distinction between the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ of our behaviour works well enough in theory, and as long as you approach belief as the cognitive type of ‘believing that’. But when you use belief as a broader concept, as is the case in this thesis, this distinction becomes very hard to maintain. Day mentions that through her multidimensional approach of belief, she “began to understand beliefs

being more connected to personal values, trust and emotion than to facts, propositions or creeds.”

(2011, 44). In this approach values are part of belief – although Day never elaborates on what she means with the term ‘values’. Instead of strictly separating the two terms, it might be more feasible to incorporate ‘values’ as part of beliefs. Therefore, I pose to see values as the component of beliefs that guide peoples actions, defined as “Trans-situational goals, varying in importance, that serve as

guiding principles in the life of a person or group.” (Schwartz et al. 2012, 664). These goals are part of

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This chapter presented the theoretical framework for this thesis. It is important to have a clear definition of the concepts involved in research. Without clarity of concepts, research cannot fully contribute to the scholarly debates on related topics, and it would be unclear for the researcher and readers of this thesis what is meant by the concepts involved.

In the introduction the Sunday Assembly is approached as a unique case of non-religion. Therefore, the category of ‘non-religion’ is explored in this chapter. After reviewing the discussion concerning the definition of ‘non-religion’, I favour defining non-religion over not defining it and using it as a purely relative concept. The use of the term ‘religion’ and ‘non-religion’ is justified because ‘religion’ has dominated scientific work in the West for centuries. The term has also value to researchers because it is accepted and broadly used in our society.

The research in this thesis explores the role of a person’s beliefs in their motivation to visit the Sunday Assembly. As this chapter shows, the term ‘belief’ is a contested term. Scholars have debated for centuries whether it has to be seen in a substantial or functional way, whether it can be located in the individual or in the community and whether beliefs are pre-formed or performed. Day’s research led to her conclusion that belief is a multidimensional concept. This line of thought will be followed in this thesis. This multidimensional concept of belief also encompasses values, which are defined as life goals that guide people’s behaviour.

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2. Method

The previous chapter discussed the theoretical considerations for my thesis. This chapter considers the more practical side of the research by discussing the methods used for data collection and data analysis. The aim of this chapter is to list and explain the choices made regarding methodology.

2.1. Participant observation

Since few empirical studies had been conducted on the Sunday Assembly and its attendees while designing and executing this research, fieldwork was conducted to answer my research questions. The fieldwork for this thesis consists of participant observation and semi-structured interviews. My interest in the Sunday Assembly as a subject for my thesis was raised very early on during the education of my master’s degree. Even before I wrote my thesis proposal and before I had a clear idea of what exactly I wanted to do research on, I attended two meetings to explore the possibilities for my research:

31/01/2016 – Sunday Assembly meeting in Venue, Utrecht (exploratory visit) 28/02/2016 – Sunday Assembly meeting in Venue, Utrecht (exploratory visit) Five meetings were attended while conducting fieldwork:

18/12/2016 – Sunday Assembly meeting in Mezrab, Amsterdam 15/01/2017 – Sunday Assembly meeting in Mezrab, Amsterdam 29/01/2017 – Sunday Assembly meeting in Venue, Utrecht 18/02/2017 – Sunday Assembly meeting in Mezrab, Amsterdam 26/02/2017 – Sunday Assembly meeting in Venue, Utrecht

Before I started attending the meetings in Utrecht in the beginning of 2016, I contacted the Sunday Assembly Utrecht through Facebook Messenger to ask permission to attend their meetings. I briefly described who I am and that I was interested in the Sunday Assembly as a possibly subject for my upcoming thesis. I received a swift reply with permission to attend. I repeated the request for

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permission to the Sunday Assembly Amsterdam through Facebook Messenger before I started my fieldwork. Once again, I got permission to carry out my fieldwork in this community.

My method as participant observer is best described as participant-as-observer according to the four roles in Gold’s typology of researcher roles (1958). This role involves being in regular interaction with the participants and participating in their lives, while being known as a researcher to the participants involved (Bryman 2008, 410). During my fieldwork, this meant that I made myself known to the organization beforehand, went to the Sunday Assembly meetings and participated during the meetings and during the social interaction afterward. Whenever I started a conversation with someone, I made sure to let him or her know early in the conversation that I was conducting fieldwork at the Sunday Assembly for my thesis. Although this might have influenced the course of the conversation, I did not want to talk to people under false or concealed pretences.

During and directly after the meetings I made field notes on what happened, how many people attended and my conversations with people. During the five meetings I attended, I tried to make contact with different kinds of people. During the first meetings I attended, I found it easiest to start conversations with people who attended on their own. Later on during the fieldwork, I pushed myself to start talking to people who were there with friends, or who were active in the organization of the Sunday Assembly.

2.2. Sampling of respondents

I used purposive sampling (Bryman 2008, 415) in order to be able to interview as many different types of attendees as possible. This meant that I approached participants strategically to achieve diversity amongst my respondents concerning sex, age and how often someone had attended the Sunday Assembly. Since the Sunday Assembly community is rather homogeneous – I will discuss this further in chapter three - diversity in age was hard to achieve.

The choice for a diverse sample of attendees for my interviews was made to get the broadest picture of attendees as possible. I did not want to restrict myself to long-term attendees, because this

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group might deviate in their beliefs from persons who attend only sporadically. During my fieldwork, I noticed that there seemed to be a core-group of people who attends very regularly and who are active in the organization. I got the impression that the meetings are very much a social gathering for this core-group. The other attendees are mostly first timers who have heard about the Sunday Assembly through Facebook or friends. These first timers seem to be a large part of the totality of attendees. Although regular attendees might have a better-informed view on the Sunday Assembly, I found it important to also take in account the people who might not be attracted to the Sunday Assembly because of the social aspect of meeting friends, as much as the core-group of attendees seems to do.

During the meetings, I took the initiative for making contact with people, which means that there was no problem with self-selecting respondents in this stage of approaching respondents. I usually started a conversation with the people who were sitting next to me, or I walked up to people during the coffee and cake time. I started the conversation by asking if someone was a regular attendee and if he or she lived in Amsterdam/Utrecht. Usually people answered the questions and returned these questions to me. At that point, I made myself known as a researcher. I would ask if I could interview this person and obtained someone’s name and e-mail address. All twelve persons I approached this way agreed to an interview and to give this information. I told every person I would contact them when I was ready to conduct my interviews.

When I was ready to conduct my interviews, I emailed the twelve people I had met. Four of them have not responded to my emails, despite several attempts to contact them. Two respondents did answer my mails but were on holiday during the period I wanted to plan the interviews. Six respondents agreed to meet me for an interview. These respondents are all persons who have attended the Sunday Assembly at least three times, so I have not been able to interview attendees who only attended one time. Because some respondents did not respond to my mail, there has been a process of self-selecting.

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2.3. Interviews

The interviews were conducted in semi-structured fashion. In a semi-structured interview, the researcher uses a predetermined list of questions about the topics the researcher wants to cover during the interview. At the same time, the researcher has the freedom to deviate from the predetermined questions if he or she feels it helps the interview, i.e. when the researcher wants to ask additional questions or when a topic has already been discussed (Bryman 2008, 437-438).

Because of the non-religious nature of the Sunday Assembly, I expected most attendees to be religiously unaffiliated and to some extent a-religious. This meant that I had to find a way to question them about their beliefs in an a-religious way. I soon found out that practically all surveys and questionnaires about belief have a religious or spiritual approach to belief. Abby Day also encountered this problem during her research for Believing in Belonging (2011). Day developed questions to research belief without asking religious questions. To find out what my respondents believe, I used an adapted version of Day’s list of questions. I will elaborate on the changes I made in Day’s list after presenting the interview questions. In order to answer the four sub-research questions, the interviews also focus on who the respondents are (demographics & a short introduction), why they attend the Sunday Assembly meetings and whether their beliefs are affirmed by the Sunday Assembly. The interview questions were:

1. Introduction

Could you shortly introduce yourself? (Name, age, education, background)

2. Questions on why the respondent attends the Sunday Assembly

How often have you attended Sunday Assembly meetings? How did you get to know about the Sunday Assembly? Which aspects do you like best about the meetings? Are there aspects you like less? Which?

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3. Questions about belief

What do you believe in?

Has there ever been an inspirational figure to you, real or fictional?

Are there any books, movies, TV programs which have significance for you and influenced you? What are rights and wrongs for you? Examples?

How do you know these things? How do you put that into practice?

How much influence or control do you think you have over your life? Do you ever think about the purpose or meaning in life? If so, what? What happens after you die?

When are you happiest? When are you most unhappy? What frightens you?

What do you do to comfort you during those times? What, or who, is most important to you in your life? How would you describe yourself religiously?

None; Christian; Buddhist; Hindu; Jewish; Muslim; Sikh’; or anything else?

4. Affirmation of beliefs by Sunday Assembly?

Which values do you feel are important for the Sunday Assembly? Do you feel that these values are expressed during the meetings? How? Do you feel these values align with your beliefs? In what way?

Do you feel as if the other people that attend the meetings believe the same things? Why? Do you find it important that the other attendees believe the same things?

As for the changes I made, I omitted two questions from Day’s original list: the question whether a person’s ideas on rights and wrongs have changed and the question on how the respondent thinks

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the universe came into being. I omitted the question on the changing idea on rights and wrongs because for my research I am mostly interested in the current beliefs of my respondents, not in their history of their beliefs. In addition, I felt that if any big changes about this subject had taken place, my respondents would mention this anyway. As for the question about the beginning of the universe, I also felt that if a respondent would have very strong beliefs on this, he or she would mention this him- or herself.

I also made a change in the order of the questions. Whereas Day followed her opening question about the respondent’s beliefs with the question about rights and wrongs, I decided to follow the first question with the questions about the inspirational figure and important movies, TV programs and books. I felt as if two successive abstract and existential questions would be hard on my respondents. Therefore, I decided to follow the first question on beliefs with two more concrete questions, to give my respondents the possibility to explore more concrete matters after such an abstract question about beliefs.

Since my respondents – with one exception - are Dutch, I interviewed them in Dutch. This meant that I had to translate the interview questions. The translated questions can be found in Appendix I. The translation of the word ‘belief’ caused difficulties. The most direct translation of the word ‘belief’ is ‘geloof’. As with belief and believing, geloof has a derived verb, geloven. At the same time, geloof is in Dutch a synonym for religion. The word geloof brings along instant religious connotations. This might be a problem because the goal of the interview is to question belief without using religious vocabulary. Despite the religious connotations of geloof there was no other suitable translation that would have the same meaning as the word ‘belief’. Words as vertrouwen (trust),

waarden (values), or overtuiging (conviction) did not convey the same meaning as belief. Therefore, I

chose to use geloof despite the possible problems this may cause.

The interviews were recorded digitally with consent of the respondents. Before the start of the interview, I encouraged my respondent to let me know if questions were unclear to him or her. I also discussed that I would give the respondents pseudonyms in the thesis and asked them to what

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extent they wanted to have their personal information anonymized16_{. Shortly after conducting each}

interview, it was transcribed verbatim. The transcribing ensured that every aspect of the interview could be coded and analysed.

As stated above, five of the interviews were conducted in Dutch. In order to use quotes from the interviews in this thesis, I translated the parts of the interview I wanted to quote to English. One interview was conducted in English. For this interview, I used the English interview questions.

2.4. Coding & Analysis

To keep track of my data and codes, I used Atlas.ti for my coding and analysis. In order to get to know the program, I consulted Gibbs’ chapter Getting Started with Computer-Assisted Qualitative Data

Analysis (2012, 105-123) and Friese’s book Qualitative Data Analysis with ATLAS.ti (2012).

The coding categories for the interviews were partly predetermined. The predetermined categories are the seven dimensions Abby Day found during the coding and analysis for her research. These dimensions are: content (what do people believe), sources (the origins of people’s beliefs), practice (how do people put their beliefs in practice), salience (the importance of beliefs), function, place (where do people locate their beliefs), and time (belief formation over time) (Day 2011, 158-173). These codes were used for concept-driven coding of the interviews (Gibbs 2012, 44-45). During the coding and analysis, it became clear that the categories ‘time’ and ‘place’ were only rarely mentioned. Therefore, I decided to omit these categories from my final analysis.

2.5. Conclusion

This chapter reviews the methods used for the research in this thesis. I have conducted participant observation during five Sunday Assembly meetings and have conducted six semi-structured

16_{I realised that even with pseudonyms the respondents could easily be recognised through their personal} information. I discussed this with my respondents and offered to omit certain personal information that could give away their identity. All respondents agreed with using their personal information, even though people would be able to find out that someone was a certain respondent.

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interviews. For those interviews, I used a question list consisting of my own questions and the questions used by Abby Day (2011). I used concept-driven coding, for which I used Day’s seven dimensions of belief. The next chapter will discuss the history of the Sunday Assembly and will present the results from my participant observation.

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3. The Sunday Assembly

This chapter discusses the history and vision of the Sunday Assembly in general and the history of the Sunday Assembly communities in Utrecht and Amsterdam. The chapter also provides a general outline of a Sunday Assembly meeting and a description of one of the meetings I attended in Amsterdam.

3.1. History and vision of the Sunday Assembly

The Sunday Assembly started in 2013 and was initiated by Sanderson Jones and Pippa Evans, two comedians. Evans left church when she was young and missed the community feeling while Jones wanted to celebrate life in a non-religious way (Burn-Callander 2014). Their first meeting of “a

church for people who don’t believe in God” was held in January 2013 and attracted 200 people. A

month later 300 people attended the meeting. They wanted “part atheist church, part

foot-stomping show and 100 percent celebration of life” and “all the best bits of church but with no religion” (Cheadle 2014). In a short time, the Sunday Assembly expanded to other cities and

countries.

The Sunday Assembly describes itself as “a secular congregation that celebrates life”17_{. The}

vision of the organization is “To help everyone live life as fully as possible”18_{, and its mission is “A} Sunday Assembly in every town, city and village that wants one”19_{. The motto that is found}

everywhere on the website and during meetings is Live better. Help often. Wonder more. It is mentioned in the introduction that the Sunday Assembly called itself an atheist church at the start, but rejects the term at the moment. The Sunday Assembly charter clarifies the Sunday Assembly stand on theism and atheism:

17_{https://www.sundayassembly.com/story}_{. Accessed July 11, 2017.} 18_{https://www.sundayassembly.com/story}_{. Accessed July 11, 2017.} 19_{https://www.sundayassembly.com/story}_{. Accessed July 11, 2017.}

A Godless Community: An Exploratory Study on the Sunday Assembly and its Attendees