A few pastors were predictably irritated, including the Reverend Kyev Tatum, a Baptist minister who's also head of the Fort Worth chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Last Christmas, Tatum threatened to organize a boycott of city buses after DFWCoR tried to buy ads on the sides of several of them proclaiming "Millions of Americans Are Good Without God."
When the South Dallas billboard went up, Tatum was, once again, incensed. He called it "irrational" to spend money on ads when the atheists could be focusing on social issues like poverty.
Photo by Anna Merlan
Aron Ra poses for photos with Houston street preacher David Stokes.
Photo by Anna Merlan
Houston street preacher David Stokes believes "hell awaits" atheists and an assortment of other people whose lifestyles and beliefs he opposes.
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"Do something. You know?" he said. "Don't say something. Do something." In fact, he added, "We have a garden over there that has about two, three thousand pounds of greens that need picking to give to the poor folk. Pick some greens." They'd be taken to another ministry, he added. "We'll tell them, 'The devil might have picked it, but the good Lord sent it.'"
About a dozen DFWCoR members soon showed up and picked greens for several hours. Then they sent the pictures to the media.
Barely a month later, DFWCoR followed up with another media blitz, a campaign they dubbed "Our Families Are Great Without Religion." It showed smiling pictures of families looking cheerful and un-Hell-bound. A planned billboard along Interstate 30 went up on schedule. The atheists also signed a contract with the Arlington location of Movie Tavern, paying around $3,000 for a six-month contract to show an ad before movie trailers.
But their godlessness foiled them again. Movie Tavern abruptly backed out of the agreement, under circumstances that remain unclear. "We have never in the history of Movie Tavern run an ad of a religious nature, and we never will," a spokesperson said at the time. Current American Atheists president Dave Silverman was furious, and implied that the incident might be lawsuit-worthy (although AA never did end up filing a suit).
When Movie Tavern backed out, another theater, the Plano Angelika, agreed to run the ads, Moore said. "It's an Easter miracle!" he said in an interview. But the day after those words were printed, the Angelika claimed they had been deluged with angry phone calls. They refused to run the ad, too.
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It's Sunday morning, a few weeks after the convention, and Zach Moore is heading to church. He's been invited to speak to a Sunday school class for adults and teens at Trinity Harbor Presbyterian in Rockwall. He's wearing a corduroy coat and jeans and looks right at home.
"I love it," he says sincerely. "I grew up in a small reformed Presbyterian church a lot like this one." He actually shares a blog, called Doubting Thomases, with one of Trinity Harbor's congregants, where the two discuss faith and faithlessness.
"I've never met a Christian I didn't like," Moore tells the parishioners when he arrives, his hands folded meekly in his lap. That said, he adds, "I appreciate the opportunity to come here and tell you that all your most cherished beliefs are untrue." He smiles. A few people laugh uncomfortably. Most don't.
Moore speaks at churches fairly often; it's part of his mission to make atheists more visible. His other, arguably more challenging, goal is to make them more cohesive as a group.
To explain why that's necessary, he points back at the Pew poll from this year showing the rise of "unaffiliated" Americans. "It's definitely encouraging to see that this trend is continuing, and especially so that it's even more pronounced in the millennial generation," he explains in an e-mail. "I think the religious in this country know they have a serious demographic problem on their hands, but I think they're incapable of solving it."
That said, "It's also a bit concerning, because religious institutions do provide social support and community, as well as facilitate tremendous charitable initiatives. Those who leave a religious community lose much of that."
Moore and DFWCoR have been instrumental in organizing those "charitable initiatives" for DFW's atheists. A group of DFWCoR member groups recently sent teams to Light the Night, a walk raising money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. The Fellowship of Freethought also adopted a stretch of Northwest Highway, which they clean every other month. They do the same with the shoreline of White Rock Lake. They also offer "Secular Sunday School" programs for children, along with Camp Quest, a weeklong summer camp for the children of atheist families.
Atheist groups and activities like these are badly needed throughout the South to convince nonbelievers that they're not alone, and to lend them a sense of community and purpose, says Elizabeth Cornwell, director of the Richard Dawkins Foundation. When Dawkins tours the United States on his frequent speaking engagements, the Bible Belt is where they get the best turnout.
"People feel beleaguered," Cornwell says. "The best thing is for people to be able to see one another." And she's especially encouraged by atheists in Texas. "There seems to be a great deal of activism and organization here, which is terrific."
The lingering question is what nonreligious communities should look like and what role atheist groups should play in their members' day-to-day lives. There seems to be an uncertainty or disagreement among them about whether these groups should roughly take the place of religious organizations, or should look as little like them as possible.
