Secularist "assembly movement"
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,216
    This discussion was created from comments split from: Acoustics, organ & piano..
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  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,980
    I recently encountered something called the "Assembly Movement." Their services last about an hour - that one hour limit must be a Catholic thing - with pop music, maybe some dancing, speeches about science, poetry, and then you are on your way home. Apparently, the movement is for those who miss the congregational environment but don't believe in God or organized religion. I don't know whether to call them the low-church heathen, evangelical pagans, fuzzy-minded agnostics, or what. They advertise themselves as folks who distrust God and the supernatural. However, everything we would call bad about contemporary evangelicalism is embraced.
  • noel jones, aagonoel jones, aago
    Posts: 6,611

    I recently encountered something called the "Assembly Movement."



    You're an adventuresome person - did you enjoy the dancing? More, more, we want to know more.
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,980
    Apparently, it is sweeping the globe and is quite successful. Get out your tambourine and prepare for the euphoria - or was that the rapture?
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,216
    http://youtu.be/yYWp5qeKDSw
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,414
    Don't call them low church. Actually, many low church people are equally as Catholic-minded as high church ones - they just don't like the ceremony. It's the broad church ones that are apt to be anything from true believers to theists to agnostics and even atheists. These are the ones who like BCP services but really don't believe a word of it.
  • melofluentmelofluent
    Posts: 4,160
    "Assembly" and "movement," huh?
    As a boomer, "assembly" meant getting out of the classroom, to the auditorium and whatever activity awaited there, always a fifty-fifty proposition.
    "Movement." Well, living in Oakland/Berkeley that word has a specific meaning, but it has a more universal meaning biologically, the latter being of more necessity.
    Ergo, "assembly" = Woodstock, and "movement"= Altamont. Youngters will have to look up the latter.
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  • vansensei
    Posts: 219
    I feel like this could shine in a place like Western Europe where the majority are secular.
  • ghmus7
    Posts: 1,483
    Are you sure you weren't at Mass?
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  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,980
    Are you sure you weren't at Mass?


    The congregation was wearing too many clothes for it to be a mass.
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  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,216
    A propos of nothing, I just remembered the story which literary critic Joseph Pearce tells about visiting Ireland years ago when he was an unbeliever. Many people he met wanted to know whether he was a Catholic or a Protestant, and he had to explain that he was an atheist. And the reply came back: "But I mean, are you a Catholic atheist or a Protestant atheist?"
    Thanked by 4CharlesW CHGiffen Gavin Ben
  • eft94530eft94530
    Posts: 1,577
    Is the assembly movement just
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitarian_Universalism
    taking the next step?
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  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,980
    Could be. It was founded in England two years ago but according to the Saturday Evening Post which has an article in the latest edition, "it is sweeping the U.S. at hyper speed." It was founded by Sanderson Jones and Pippa Evans who are two London comedians. The Humanists have embraced it readily.
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  • Jeffrey Quick
    Posts: 2,086
    The U-Us had a dowdy reputation. Then they got taken over by the witches. Now they have no reputation at all, and it's time for The Next Cool Thing.
    "The last time Jesus Christ was mentioned in a Unitarian church was when the janitor fell down the stairs." -- James Blanchard, former governor of MI (and U-U).
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,980
    Probably true! LOL. The local Unitarian church installed a rebuilt late 19th-century Pilcher organ in their building. Nice! I said that organ was too nice to waste on pagans. LOL.
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  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 2,311
    It sorta reminds me of Wise Blood by Flannery O’Connor. What reminds me more of that work, however, are atheist ministers.

    I am befuddled and a bit amused by their use of American non-denominational Christian trappings…
  • Richard MixRichard Mix
    Posts: 2,798
    EFT: Is the assembly movement just
    taking the next step [towards Unitarianism]?

    Carmina burana sing-along coming up at Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,482
    Carmina burana sing-along coming up at Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley


    This is the first time I've ever been interested in visiting a UU church.
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,414
    What if we had Palestrina sing-along?

    Or Tallis??

    Des Prez???
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  • francis
    Posts: 10,824
    I would never attend Carmina Burana... anywhere... sing a long or not, thank you very much.

    MJO, if you set up a sing a long on Palestrina or any of the great polyphonists, you will have a host of supporters of which I will be one, I am sure of that!
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