I’m not a personal fan of Sunday Assembly — that’s fine if it floats your boat (it doesn’t mine), but the whole idea of aping a church bugs me a little bit. Is this the best we can aspire to? Developing our own hokey rituals?
But at least it’s not the worst model. The day movement atheists start promoting services patterned on Heath Mooneyham’s Ignite church of Joplin, Missouri is the day I become a Catholic. Wait, no, I retract that — there’s too much danger it could actually happen.
Mooningham is the “redneck pastor”, a toxically manly kind of guy who worships dudebro Jesus and the cult of the gun.
Notably absent are crucifixes, inspirational proverbs or any other Christian iconography you might expect to see in the home of a spiritual leader. I didn’t even see a Bible.
“I don’t need a bunch of shit on my walls to tell you that I love Jesus,” Mooneyham says.
He takes me down to a secret room on the lower level and flips a switch to reveal an arsenal of assault rifles, shotguns and ammunition. His most cherished weapon is a .50 BMG sniper’s rifle, which can tear through a target more than a mile away. Church members chipped in $3,800 to buy it for him in celebration of Ignite’s fifth anniversary last year.
“You pull that trigger and it makes your pecker hard,” he says.
You can guess how he treats women.
After a few more pints, the pastor starts in on a second female bartender. “Are you coming?” he asks, taking a long pause to let the sexual innuendo set in. “I mean tomorrow. To church.” The men all laugh.
The uncomfortable employee sizes up the hulking man in front of her with the mohawk and tattoos in a football jersey and says no, she doesn’t plan on going to church.
“What’s the matter? Do you have freakin’ daddy issues?” he persists. Actually, her father is a Baptist minister. The pastor has struck out, but Brad Blankenship, Mooneyham’s friend and cousin, offers a more aspirational interpretation. “That’s a real chick at a real job that’s been ruined by religion,” he says. “That’s the type of person who needs to hear Heath’s message.”
Watch the highlight reel…I mean, lowlight…to see how he reacts to other kinds of people.
It does appeal to a certain type of person, I guess.
After the crowds have filed out, I notice Todd Ebbinghaus in the lobby, mostly because he has a beard that extends to his chest and baseball cap with “redneck” written across it. “This place truly takes down any barrier that could prevent you from hearing God,” says the 40-year-old beer-maker, who also happens to be a software engineer. “I keep telling my friends there’s a lot of hot chicks here,” he says. “And they’re looking for dudes with big balls.”
There’s a lot of talk about balls. I guess this is the church for people who love their testicles, think with their testicles, and want others to worship their testicles.
Ugh. As if the tornado hadn’t done enough damage to that town…
Ah, aspiring to fill the gap left by Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church, is he? Being a sexist, misogynistic, channel-money-for-overseas-to-local-church-funds while channeling-church-funds-to-buy-his-way-onto-the-NYT-best-sellers-list has worked out so well for Driscoll, after all. *goes off to find a barf bag*
Guess he didn’t get the NRA memo. You’re not supposed to admit the gun/boner connection.
Do they worship Jesus, or Zardoz?
The Joplin metro area had a population of 174,237 as of 2011. While there are little pockets of communities where everybody knows one another well, there’s heavy traffic from truckers, tourists, and a few thousand university students passing in and out of the city every year. It’s not a massive city, but it certainly isn’t a small town where everybody knows everybody. Exactly how repellent do you have to be to have to drive twenty miles away for a bar?
Todd, you may be suffering from orchitis. You need antibiotics, not hot chicks.
I think that the “How awful can a Christian church get?” question was definitively answered by the Salem Witch Trials, not to mention the Spanish Inquisition.
Great, thanks a lot, PZ. I just got done facepalming so hard that I almost broke my nose at an opinion article someone sent me about how a loaded shotgun left outside wouldn’t kill the mail carrier or the children playing outside since OMG GUNZ DON’T KILL PPL, SHOULD WE ALSO BAN SPOONS FOR MAKING US FAT!?!?
I thought I was going to be able to keep myself from vomiting at the gun part, but the “hot chicks” part was too much. BRB.
“m not a personal fan of Sunday Assembly”
–
kinda one step above Satanism…WHY BOTHER!?
According to this article “Pastor Heath Mooneyham was arrested in Joplin for a DWI on Sept. 16”.
I guess the Testicles for Jesus Club has a drinking problem?
I don’t know what sunday assembly is like in other places, but the one I go to in London features a band, singing along to Queen and the like, meeting other people, poetry, comedy, short talks on a wide variety of subjects, a moment of reflection, and organising community action. Now while those things bear some resemblance to more modern churches, and indeed SA was started by an ex-Christian who missed positive aspects of church like the singing, it isn’t really like church at all. Each gathering follows a format, but there are no solemn rituals. What it provides is a sense of community, uplifting vibes, feeling like part of a movement for good, and so on.
We could do interpretative mime rather than sing, or have a moment of primal screaming rather than reflection, but churches have been providing for certain needs for a long time, and there is no need to reinvent the wheel. Of course atheists can do other things than SA, and if you are not into poetry or singing Don’t Blame On The Boogie in a room full of non believers, then at least the one I go to is not for you.
+It
Don’t forget the witch hunts going on right now in some places.
And once again, this Gawd shows what lousy aim he has. He sent a tornado through Joplin, that missed this quasi-“church”. I guess that is this douche-bro’s validation that he *deserves* to be the leader of this flock of sheeple. But sheeple that have to be lured to him by handing out guns, guns, guns, and tickling their testicles.
*barf*, *yukh, plooey*
– so disgusted, I couldn’t read through the entirety of that linked expose. So glad I missed Joplin on my several cross country drives (CA <–> NewEngland)
If only McGrath and the other apologists would work on converting these people before they waste our time preaching to us about how we don’t understand True™ Christianity.
It’s appropriate that a man worshiping bullets would be given the caption/title Lead Pastor.
PZ, you mention Sunday Assembly in passing. I’d love to read a full-length blog post of yours on the topic. It sounds like you have some opinions to share…
That interpretation is a bit uncharitble. Perhaps they are simply talking about a high society soiree?
Lead Pastor: Fun With English Spelling
He sounds like a character out of a Garth Ennis comic.
And here I thought the Satanists and the Pastafarians had the market cornered with the whole “making religion a mockery of itself”.
Because if you wrote all that down as a satire of American Christianity and stuck it in a novel, a good editor would reject it for being too on the nose as an insulting caricature and ask you to tone it down.
This is a tough one. No matter how awful they are, they can always get worse.
1. The Phelps. The Southern Baptists. The Mormons. The polygamists of the FLDS and other Mormon spinoffs (who are arguably not xians anyway). The faith healing cults where 25% of their kids die before age 18.
There are two many competitors for the Most Awful Xian Cult. You have to pick the worst ten or twenty.
PS God/jesus are just sockpuppets. Heath Mooneyham worships a god not coincidently just like him. And just as mentally ugly.
I doubt I’m making much of a prediction when I predict someone connected with this church will be arrested for sexual assault or gun violence. Quite likely for an incident involving both.
“You pull that trigger and it makes your pecker hard,”
Well, for some of us, it’s consensual intimacy with an adult person(s) of the gender(s) to which we are attracted, but yeah. Different strokes, right?
Seriously, though. That may literally be the saddest and most disturbing thing I’ve ever heard.
Why would God need to urinate on a wall?
well it is nice to see that someone has finally taken of the pretense of sweet Jesus off of muscular Christianity
you can’t accuse them of hypocrisy.
uncle frogy
“That’s a real chick at a real job that’s been ruined by religion,” he says.
How has religion ruined bartending?
Awww. Who knew that the gift for a church’s fifth anniversary was lead?
With all this linkage between weapons and male genitalia, is it any wonder these types are usually called gun nuts? (Which just made me think of “truck nuts,” and so I had to look; yes, someone’s already made “gun nuts”…)
Hmmm. Now if you could make the music death metal, and drop the speeches amd poetry, and shift it to saturday evening, I might actually like this Assembly business.
#17: I have opinions, but they are entirely personal — I am completely uninterested in attending Sunday Assembly, but you might find it enjoyable, and I wouldn’t think you were an idiot for finding it so.
25. Area Man ,
Trying to wash out the shit stain that is rev. Mooneyham?
Too much beer
Could God create a beer so big that even He could not hold it all?
I’ve been to one Sunday Assembly in London. I enjoyed it, but I do realize that it may not be to everyone’s taste. Unfortunately, I’ll be missing the inaugural one here in Ottawa (Canada) – http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/sunday-assembly-ottawa-6380693373 , in case anyone is interested.
However, one thing I noticed: The Sunday Assembly’s gender balance is close to 50/50. So they must be doing something right that other activities/events in the atheosphere may be missing.
theobromine:
Obviously they need more 4chan and Dawkins to fix that proportion right up.
Behind the macho posing and swagger I see a guy desperately longing to see the old school male props, posture, and standing remain a viable life path. It is a social structure they have wanted to inhabit since childhood but one which has been failing since the mid-70s. There are good reasons that the traditional country boys are angry and desperate. Reasons they cling to their Bibles and guns. Reasons their suicide and alcoholism rates are up.
For those interested, about 60 Sunday Assemblies are meeting for this first time this Sunday, effectively doubling the count.
PZ is right in that it’s not for everyone, but those who enjoyed the social aspect of church will certainly enjoy Sunday Assembly. No woo, no spiritual stuff, no boring hymns… it’s basically like a TED talk plus a rock concert with a local cover band, for free.
Check out http://www.SundayAssembly.com for the list of venues that are launching. I’m with the Sacramento one, at Sacramento.SundayAssembly.com.
Went once to the Sunday Assembly, the impression I got is that it caters to those godless who used to like going to church.
It’s nice, I found it’s not really my thing.
I was thinking about heading to the Amsterdam one, but I’m already the Religious Advisor for my running club that meets on Sundays. I’m responsible, among other things, for the weather – I have to drink a beer if it rains on us. Or if it’s particularly sunny.
On the Sunday Assembly thing, I’ll just quote two items from their FAQ:
It sounds like they’re aiming for a blandly inoffensive celebration of life, one to which you could safely bring your “religious grandma” (their words). Which is fine, as far as it goes. If you want a singalong, some poetry, tea and cake, and meeting new people who won’t force Jesus on you, it sounds like this is the place to be. Just don’t expect it to achieve anything, because that would be political and alienating.
@Moggie: not sure what you mean by “don’t expect [SA] to achieve anything”. Would you raise a similar objection to atheist crafting, RPG, or soccer/football groups on those grounds? Humans are social animals. Providing a celebratory get-together for non-believers who may be otherwise socially ostracized and unable to participate in such things is an achievement by itself. Building a base community to provide a place for non-believers to hang out together does not preclude (and arguably encourages and promotes) them doing philosophy, social justice or even politics with some of the same people.
I agree with Moggie. It certainly sounds like they’re discouraging it, if not precluding it — because it is not “in the keeping of Sunday Assembly” or because “Sunday Assembly is not political.” Whatever that means.
Honestly, I really don’t get in what sense a talk about powering a house with a potato is something to “celebrate in life.” That sentence just screams “bonehead with an agenda” to me. And I don’t get how a talk about “mindfulness” is supposed to be any less alienating (to some people) than a talk about “atheist/humanist/godless philosophy” or “politics” (to other people). If you want to exclude certain kinds of people, with certain interests, in your organization, then that’s the sort of bullshit that you write. If you genuinely want a place for everyone to actually build something of their own accord, which isn’t decided in advance by some pompous windbag, you leave that kind of shit out.
@consciousness razor:
Sure, they are discouraging or even precluding such things at the Sunday Assembly events, because that’s not what the events are for. A similar example* is CFI’s Living without Religion meeting groups. They are explicitly intended as a peer support group for people who are considering leaving their religion, or having issues coping with the consequences of having done so. We most certainly do preclude philosophical discussions of atheism, and advocacy of political positions from these meetings, which isn’t to say that such things aren’t completely appropriate at another event. (As for a potato-powered house (though I’m sure the example was hyperbolic), that would be an example of a practical application of cool science – not everybody’s cup of tea (or slice of spud), but quite a reasonable thing for a rationalist to do a presentation on.)
But seriously, as I mentioned before, I think one of the most notable things is that SA has succeeded in doing one of the things that much of the rest of the organized atheosphere has been unable to achieve – near gender parity in both leadership and attendees. As someone who has worked on this issue in my local groups, while I realize that there are pros and cons to the SA model, I would like to understand what they are doing right in this case.
* To clarify: I am not suggesting that there are any formal links between CFI and Sunday Assembly.
My sunday assembly is once a month, about 6-7 times/year. I take the motorcycle out to the track and get my knees down…. :-)
http://www.southbayriders.com/forums/attachments/224491/
Eeek, I had a relative of mine post about this on good ole FB, in a totally adoring way, rather than in a “Can you believe this asshole?!” kind of way. I am disappoint.