{"id":20574,"date":"2013-11-01T09:10:18","date_gmt":"2013-11-01T13:10:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/?p=20574"},"modified":"2013-11-01T09:17:34","modified_gmt":"2013-11-01T13:17:34","slug":"church-without-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/church-without-god\/","title":{"rendered":"Church without God"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Church of England parish is hosting The Sunday Assembly<\/a>, whose vision is: \u201ca godless congregation in every town, city and village that wants one.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

From here<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"_70838730_sunday_sanderson_cropped\"St John the Evangelist in Leeds can rarely have hosted such an ungodly meeting.<\/p>\n

The Sunday Assembly – dedicated to providing “the best of church but without God” – was on the latest stop of its UK tour.<\/p>\n

Spilling out through the open door of the 400-year-old church came voices united in a rendering of Queen’s Don’t Stop Me Now.<\/p>\n

Inside, a couple of hundred people – average age about 35 – clapped rhythmically, swaying in the venerable pews.<\/p>\n

[\u2026.]<\/p>\n

The event is a brazen copy of a church service.<\/p>\n

As well as emotional and uplifting songs, there was a talk from a woman who had turned her life around by volunteering, another from a scientist about the human propensity to misperceive reality and a minute’s silent reflection.<\/p>\n

During a rendering of Dire Straits’ Walk Of Life a collection was taken.<\/p>\n

“We both wanted to do something like church but without God and we just nicked the order of service,” admits Mr Jones.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A Church of England vicar was in attendance to pick up tips for developing a nuanced view to the more crass beliefs of Christianity, stumbling blocks such as the Virgin Birth and Resurrection:<\/p>\n

Canon Adrian Alker’s job is to attract people like Andy to the Church of England by fostering imaginative new ways for it to practise and explain Anglican Christianity.<\/p>\n

He accepted that many in the Church’s target audience have become disenchanted with what they perceive to be compulsory but dubious doctrines – such as a belief in the birth of Jesus to a virgin and that Jesus was physically resurrected from the dead.<\/p>\n

Canon Alker said the answer was not for the Church to place less emphasis on God, but actually to make more effort to explain a more nuanced idea of what God was.<\/p>\n

“I think doctrine does develop,” he said. “It wasn’t born in Palestine 2,000 years ago. I think there should be open discussion, and [there] often is, about these core elements of the Christian faith.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Canon Adrian Alker doesn\u2019t seem to realise that we have already tried that in Canada. The Sunday Assembly bears an eerie resemblance to \u2013 not just a tofu hamburger \u2013 the Anglican Church of Canada. It:<\/p>\n

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