Die onderstaande berig in vandag se NYT vertel
van ‘n erediens vir ateïste in die diep, konserwatiewe suide van Amerika.
Ek het so pas Alan de Botton se boek, Religion
for Atheists klaar gelees.
Albei hierdie stukke skryfwerk vertel van die
inherente verlange by elke mens om na die hoogste waardes en norme te soek op ‘n
manier wat ‘n mens kan vier.
In die laaste ses jaar het 15 % mense in Amerika
hul band met godsdiens los laat raak.
Maar hul behoefte na die dieper dinge bly. Hulle kan net nie meer met tradisionele vorme van godsdiens sin maak nie.
In die Amerikaanse geval wil die organiseerder
die behoefte aanspreek deur ‘n diens waar daar geen verwysings na God is nie.
In De Botton se boek, veel ryker en
intelligenter, is daar ‘n besinning oor die inhoude in tradisionele godsdienste
wat in sekulêre kringe oorgeneem en bewaar kan word.
Alles vertel dat daar verpakkinge aan die
evangelie is wat nie meer met mense resoneer nie.
Die uitdaging is om die evangelie so te vertaal
dat mense daarby aanklank vind, maar sonder om die unieke impak daarvan prys te
gee.
Dit hoef nie noodwendig 'n kwessie te raak nie. Trouens, voortdurende vernuwing is steeds weer 'n kenmerk van egte geloof. Spiritualiteit beklemtoon dat die geestelike reis ‘n proses is wat in die
onbekende strek: in nuwe tye gaan mense altyd nuut op God se aanraking reageer –
altyd in gesprek met die getuienisse van die verlede.
Dit is al ‘n prestasie om van hierdie uitdaging
bewus te raak. Nog groter is die prestasie om antwoorde op die uitdaging te
vind. Daarom is dit nuttig om ‘n artikel soos die een hier onder deur te lees.
BATON ROUGE, La. — It would have been easy to
mistake what was happening in a hotel ballroom here for a religious service.
All the things that might be associated with one were present Sunday: 80 people
drawn by a common conviction. Exhortations to service. Singing and light
swaying. An impassioned sermon.There was just no mention of God.
Billed as Louisiana’s first atheist service and
titled “Joie de Vivre: To Delight in Being Alive,” it was presided over by
Jerry DeWitt, a small, charismatic man dressed all in black with slick, shiny
hair.
“Oh, it’s going to be so hard to not say, ‘Can I
get an amen?’ ” he said with a smile, warning people that this was going
to be more like church than they might expect. “I want you to feel comfortable
singing. And I want you to feel comfortable clapping your hands. I’m going to
ask you to silence your cellphones, but I’m not going to ask you to turn them
off. Because I want you to post.”
As Mr. DeWitt paced back and forth, speaking with
a thick Southern accent, his breathy yet powerful voice occasionally cracked
with emotion. The term may be a contradiction, but he is impossible to describe
as anything but an atheist preacher.
Mr. DeWitt acts so much like a clergyman because
he was one.
He was raised Pentecostal in DeRidder, La., a
small town near the Texas border. In 2011, after 25 years as a preacher, he
realized he had lost all connection to the religious point of view that had
defined most of his life. He left the church and found himself ostracized in
his hometown and from his family. Since then, Mr. DeWitt, 43, has become a
prominent advocate of atheism, giving lectures around the region and providing
an emotional counterpoint to more academic atheist exponents like Richard
Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens.
With Sunday’s service — marking the start of
Community Mission Chapel in Lake Charles, which Mr. DeWitt called a
full-fledged atheist “church” — he wanted to bring some of the things that he
had learned from his years as a religious leader to atheists in southern
Louisiana.
The percentage of religiously unaffiliated
Americans appears to be on the rise. A 2012 Pew Research Center study found that
while only about 6 percent identified as atheist or agnostic, they were among
nearly 20 percent classified as religiously unaffiliated. That was up from 15
percent in 2007, a greater increase than for any traditional faith.
Mr. DeWitt counts himself among the hard-line
atheists, but he believes that something may be lost when someone leaves the
church — not just the parts about God, but also a sense of community and a
connection to emotion.
“There are many people that even though they come
to this realization, they miss the way the church works in a way that very few
other communities can duplicate,” he said in a phone interview. “The secular
can learn that just because we value critical thinking and the scientific
method, that doesn’t mean we suddenly become disembodied and we can no longer
benefit from our emotional lives.”
Some in the audience had a difficult time coming
to atheism. Joshua Hammers, a member of an atheist organization in Lake
Charles, said he had been completely separated from his community and social
life when he left the Pentecostal church in which he was raised. For him, there
was something comfortable, a reminder of childhood, about hearing Mr. DeWitt
preach.
“We were at the Reason on the Bayou conference,
and everything else was just like a lecture,” Mr. Hammers said, referring to a
secular rally held in April at Louisiana State University. “Then Jerry got up,
and he was just, you know, preaching the message. Most other atheist leaders
are academics and intellectuals, and Jerry’s not like that. He’s just talking
to your heart.”
Services are gaining traction as outlets for
organized atheism in places like London, Houston, Sacramento and New York, as
well as at universities with humanist chaplains. In a deeply conservative
region like the Deep South, they can serve a vital purpose: providing a sense
of camaraderie in what many have found to be a hostile environment for
nonreligious people.
“Here, we have a very strong sense of community,”
said Russell Rush, a former youth pastor from DeRidder. “When you go into an
actual church, it’s almost like having a family reunion. When you leave that
lifestyle, and leave that church life behind, a lot of times you can feel
ostracized. Things like this let fellow atheists and agnostics know that
they’re not alone.”
Mr. DeWitt sees services like his as giving a
human shape to a broad intellectual movement that is in its infancy. He
believes that he and the others in the room are building something meant to
last.
“Though this movement has had starts and stops
throughout world history, right now it’s important to remember that we are
young,” he said after a singalong to a song of that name by the band Fun.
“Someday, what you are doing will become normal. Isn’t that a feeling?”
