Mortimer, T and Prideaux, M (2018) Exploring identities between the religious and the secular through the attendees of an ostensibly ‘Atheist Church’. Religion, 48 (1). pp. 64-82. ISSN 0048-721X
Abstract
The Sunday Assembly has a complex relationship with atheism and religion. It holds events which look and feel like religious worship, but uses this format to create a ‘godless congregation’. Described as an ‘atheist church’ by the media, members prefer to talk about inclusive communities. If the Sunday Assembly simultaneously embraces and rejects both atheism and religion, then how do attendees identify and describe themselves? We add to the growing literature exploring identities between the religious and the secular, presenting a qualitative study based on interviews with Sunday Assembly attendees. We interrogate three concepts: non-religion, the secular sacred and indifferentism to examine how the identity of Sunday Assembly attendees can be better understood. Our findings show that a significant number of attendees publicly identify as indifferent towards religion, while privately maintaining a more strongly non-religious identity, thus suggesting that for Sunday Assembly attendees, inclusivity is imperative.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | (c) 2017, Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Religion on 13 October 2017, available online: https://doi.org/10.1080/0048721X.2017.1386135 |
Keywords: | Non-religion, secular sacred, atheism, indifferentism, Sunday Assembly |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures (Leeds) > School of Philosophy, Religion and History of Science (Leeds) > Theology and Religious Studies (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 13 Nov 2017 16:07 |
Last Modified: | 13 Apr 2019 00:38 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Taylor and Francis |
Identification Number: | 10.1080/0048721X.2017.1386135 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:123838 |