Atheist ‘preacher’ talks from the heart

Date

June 25, 2013

Former preacher Jerry DeWitt leads a secular service in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Photo: Jennifer Zdon/New York Times

It was Sunday, and 80 people were drawn together in a hotel ballroom in this Deep South town by a common conviction. 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 charismatic man in black, with a Southern accent.

”Oh, it’s going to be so hard to not say, ‘Can I get an amen?”’ he said with a smile. ”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.”

Mr DeWitt acts so much like a clergyman because he was one.

He left the church and found himself ostracised in his home town and from his family.

Since then the 43-year-old has become a prominent advocate of atheism, providing an emotional counterpoint to more academic exponents like Richard Dawkins and the late Christopher Hitchens.

Sunday’s service marked the start of Community Mission Chapel in Lake Charles, which Mr DeWitt called a fully fledged atheist ”church”.

A 2012 Pew Research Centre study found that while only about 6 per cent of Americans identified as atheist or agnostic, they were among nearly 20 per cent classified as religiously unaffiliated. That was up from 15 per cent in 2007, a greater increase than for any traditional faith.

Mr DeWitt counts himself among hardline atheists, but he believes something may be lost when someone leaves the church; a sense of community and a connection to emotion. ”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,” he said.

Atheist Joshua Hammers said there was something comfortable 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 in April. ”Most other atheist leaders are academics and intellectuals, and Jerry’s not like that. He’s just talking to your heart.”

New York Times