Smyrna Atheist Helps Revive 140-Year-Old Primitive Baptist Church

Lew Southern and other members of his civic group have worked tirelessly to save Collins Springs Primitive Baptist Church at 4775 North Church Lane in Smyrna.

After 140 years, the building had been sold to developers, fallen into disrepair and was in danger of being destroyed by vandals. But Southern and his friends were determined to bring the church back to life.

The ironic thing, though, is that Southern is an atheist. So are his friends who helped restore Collins Springs. The civic group the Smyrna man belongs to is the Atlanta Freethought Society (AFS), an educational non-profit dedicated to promoting life without religion.

Ed Buckner, chair of the AFS activism task force, defined a Freethought member, or Freethinker.

“Our purpose in life is to promote life without religion: atheists, agnostic, freethinkers,” he said. “Freethinker is kind of the broadest most general term. There are people who would never call themselves atheists, but they call themselves Freethinkers. To an Orthodox Christian they will appear to be atheists because they live without a belief, don’t act on any belief in God.”

 AFS bought Collins Springs with the intention of converting it into their headquarters and meeting hall. Cosmetically, there wasn’t much the group needed to do to convert the church into their hall. Primitive Baptists don’t adorn their churches with steeples and stained glass.

“When we took over the building all we had to do was refurbish it back to condition, which was a huge task, but at least we didn’t have to worry, ‘Oh are we going to take down all the old icons and throw them away?’” Buckner said.

 Southern and the other volunteers still had their work cut out for them. After being sold to developers in the early-2000s, the 140-year-old-church lay vacant for several years. Eventually AFS bought the building and began the daunting task of bringing it back to life.

“Well the place was in really bad shape,” Southern said. “First off, the ceiling was covered up with old Celotex acoustic tiles that were falling in places. And we pulled out and spent days pulling out the tacks and nails. About a dozen windowpanes were broken out. Some kids had to be throwing a rock, that’s the only way that could happen. Weather had come in. The ceiling had fallen in through restroom on the left side over there. Right after we bought it someone stole the outside air conditioning unit for the metal.”

Much of the work to restore the church was done by volunteers.

“Now, I’m a bricklayer,” Southern said. “My father started me as a bricklayer apprentice. The landing here was cracked, so I just re-built them. I had not laid bricks in 47 years.”

Buckner spoke highly of Southern’s work.

“Lew probably did as much work as everybody else put together, maybe twice as much as everybody put together,” he said. “We don’t have any paid staff and have never had even a part-time paid staff. He’s multi-talented. A Leonardo da Vinci.”

Southern also restored the church’s original pews, though now they’re called seating benches. The lectern also remained, but now it’s used for guest lecturers, not preachers.

AFS kept the cost of the restoration low by recruiting volunteer labor. Southern and Buckner calculate that they received $30,000 in free labor from volunteers. They also used salvaged materials for parts of the reconstruction.

“We scrounged materials,” Southern said. “The ramp out there for example, that’s out of boards that somebody got out of a salvage pile. Somebody was expanding a big house and they’d ripped the deck off the side of the house to add to it. And one of our guys was driving by and he said, ‘What are you going to do with that lumber?’ ‘I’m going to take it to the dump,’ ‘No, no, no!’ So he went home and borrowed a pick-up truck and we made those benches out of it.”

Another challenge the Freethinkers faced was making the building safe for use.

“The building was not up to code,” Buckner said. “We had exit signs, we’ve got doors that open out, we’ve got a handicap ramp.”

After months of hard work, the restoration was completed in 2008, and AFS moved in to its new hall in late-January. Southern beams with pride as he tours the building and its grounds, pointing out the steps he made, the benches he varnished and the hedge he planted.

After 140 years, the building is no longer Collins Springs Primitive Baptist Church, but Atlanta Freethought Hall. The Freethinkers kept the original hand-carved sign as a nod to the building’s origins.

Sunday’s AFS monthly meeting will feature a talk, “Thoughts of a Black Atheist,” by Ben Burchall, a former minister who is now the Executive Director of Black Nonbelievers of Atlanta. The program will begin at 1 p.m. with a potluck lunch beforehand. The program is free and open to the public.

For more information about the Atlanta Freethought Society and the Atlanta Freethough Hall, visit http://www.atlantafreethought.org/.