The following really struck a chord with me because I volunteered with Habitat for Humanity in Detroit multiple times a week for an entire year and always felt like an outsider. I realize Habitat is an overtly Christian organization, but it’s true that if you want to volunteer in your community, often the only options ARE religious organizations, where nonbelievers trying to do good end up in awkward situations and feel the need to hide their atheism (at least I did).
“Churches are also the main hubs for volunteer work, which is much more central to life in the welfare-state free America than it is in Europe. As another of America’s leading public atheists, the philosopher Daniel Dennett, put it to me, “The sad truth is that in many parts of the country, if you want to join forces with your neighbours and do something good, and you look around for an organisation that will help you do that, that’s the churches.” Matt Elder, for example, used to go on mission trips to help build houses for poor people in Mexico, and “would go again in a heartbeat”. But now it would just be too difficult. “You don’t quite belong as you did. It’s kind of a lonely feeling.””
“There are so many places in the US that are just saturated with religion. Everything is interwoven – their families, their schools, their business – so that if you were not part of the club, part of the group, you get ostracised and people go through really horrible experiences of not belonging any more.” If that sounds like the experience of leaving a cult, perhaps that’s because, as Winell argues, “in its raw form, fundamentalist Christianity that believes that the Bible is the word of God is basically a giant cult.””
Newspaper copy editor, semi-new homeowner, amateur baker who is in love with words, sarcasm, news, pop culture, bright colors, music, design, books, Detroit, DIY.
