Practicing martial arts and fencing were both positive social influences on me, but I don't feel that martial arts instructors are an adequate substitute for the sort of community influence a good priest has.
In fact, one of the events that got me thinking about the value of secular priests in the first place was a priest who brought some of his congregation to the New York Fencers Club, of which I was a member, which shared facilities with the Peter Westbrook Foundation, so that they could watch a demonstration, and he gave a speech to them about the transformative power that that sort of athletic and competitive environment could have on their lives. It was an impressively inspirational speech, and he didn't bring up God or religion at any point, and it left me thinking that he would be a great help to the community regardless of any sort of religious authority, even though he only occupied his position because of the framework created in the community by religion.
I think that depends on the instructor. My sensei had (and still has) a lot of influence on the local community. Martial arts taught me how to strive for excellence: by accepting constructive criticism from those who have greater knowledge, using friendly competition as motivation to improve, etc. I think the ability to take criticism and the desire to improve oneself are extremely important for pursuing rationality as well, and they're not often taught well in a traditional "Western" setting. In a dojo, where one can experience immediate physical applications of the principles, such values are more likely to sink into a person's mind.
In the comments of a recent thread, another poster pointed out that religious individuals tend to report higher levels of happiness than nonreligious individuals. I suggested that the social network of churches, rather than the direct effects of theistic belief, might be responsible for this difference, and after doing a bit of searching around to see if the available studies support such an explanation, found a study that indicates that this is indeed the case.
Religious churches may be far from optimal in the services they provide to communities, but they have a great positive impact on the lives of many individuals. And not just as friendly social gatherings and occasional providers of community service; I've known priests who were superb community organizers and motivational speakers, who played an important role for their congregations to which I know of no existing secular analogue.
It seems probable that a secular organization could effectively play the same role in a community, but would anyone be likely to take it seriously? Since people who're already religious may be inclined to reject the value of a secular authority filling the role of a church, and atheistic individuals may not be inclined to attend, either due to reversing the stupidity of religion, or due to asocial and anticooperative values, it's uncertain whether a secular organization that adequately filled the role of a church would get off the ground in the first place in the present social climate.
So, what are your feelings on the prospect of secular church analogues? Do you think that they're appropriate or practical? Do you expect them ever to become common in real life?