Churches we Recommend: possibly changing

If you've ever taken a look at the sidebar of my blog, you'll notice that there is a list under the heading, "WE HEATHEN ATHEISTS RECOMMEND THESE CHURCHES, OMG" where we actually recommend several churches. Why would some atheists recommend churches, you ask? These churches are on this list because we found their teachings to be outstandingly moral* and ethical. These are all churches that we "faith infiltrated" and were pleasantly surprised to see that they advocated ideas such as tolerance of other faiths, helping people without proselytizing, the importance of church/state separation, the messages that nonbelievers are not destroying the world, etc. We've visited 32 churches since we began our Faith Infiltration project one year ago.

We recommend churches because we think that some people need religion – they need the community, the spirituality, the little bit of supernaturalism in their lives – and that if they need to belong to a religious community, there are some out there who are a candle in the dark and a force of good in a world that is increasingly polemic.

One of our favorite churches was Copper Creek Christian Church. Most of our reasons for recommending this church were that we found the philosophy of the pastor, Keith, to be very ethical and moral. Case in point: he showed up at one of our local St. Louis Atheist meetups and we became fast friends with him.
We learned recently that the board members at Copper Creek voted to "let go" of Keith due to "leadership differences". To put it bluntly: he was fired from his position as pastor at the church. Keith explained simply that some of the reasons we liked his church and chose to recommend it are ultimately the reason that he is now unemployed.

Churches have every right to fire pastors if the pastor is not in line with their philosophies, so I am not suggesting that Copper Creek acted in an illegal or discriminatory manner. However we must say that we are disappointed with this. Keith was really doing something different with his church.

We intend to infiltrate Copper Creek again. We'd like to hear what the new leaders have to say, and see if their philosophy has changed. Sometimes, one person can make all the difference. Check back with us – we also intend to interview Keith to get more details, and we've contacted the leadership at the church as well.

*If you want more details about why the churches we recommended are moral and ethical, check out our Faith Infiltration of those churches here:

Copper Creek
Divine Science
Unitarian Universalist