Steve Regis, Friern Barnet, London Wondering Wanderer At 15 or so, by virtue of (what were then to me) unsatisfactory answers to my questions, I rejected Confirmation in the Church of England. At 16, (less virtuously) seeking to keep my eye on a church-going girl I fancied, I fell under the spell of a preacher. By 18 I was committed to the Ministry of Word and Sacrament in the Congregational Church (later United Reformed Church).
By 38 I was on my way out of that ministry.
At the time I wanted to say that, just as God had led me into the ministry, so he led me out of it. Whatever the truth, I flourished for a while. Particularly so in Barnet in the early 1970s – producing a plethora of worship and drama events in the Mill Hill Council of Churches. Exciting times – until I became exhausted in the telling and had nothing more to say; and/or much of what I might say would not go down well with the majority within my congregation or my fellow clergy.
Furthermore, whatever I said would not be heard by any outside church walls unless we found another language – because its language no longer spoke in an alive and relevant way to many, if not most, people.
As part of my psychotherapy training I undertook a Jungian analysis which did much to aid a revaluation of my beliefs. One day I remarked that I saw myself as helping the church to come to terms with the ‘dark’ side of our nature. ‘Good luck,’ my analyst replied. But, as with many in SOF, I ran out of luck and was unable to change things within the church.
So I needed to take up the challenges of modern-day living without the protection of my ministerial cloth. Yet a vocational aspect never left me; which was and is to find the means to convey ‘things that really matter’. Thus, wherever I was and whatever I did, it was always the writing that meant most to me. My Abrahamic-like journey has continued ever since, but unlike Abraham I have never quite found a place of rest.
First as a minister, then social worker and later psychotherapist and trainer and ever the family man, I have continued to explore life (often referring to it as ‘Life’, which for me largely replaced what once I ascribed to ‘God’) as I search for a language to describe ‘things that really matter’.
Some years ago – while attempting to make meaningful contact with erstwhile colleagues in the URC ministry at a residential conference – I sat in the library devouring Don Cupitt’s book Radicals and the Future of the Church. Also about that time someone introduced me to Richard Holloway’s writings. I found myself then, as I do now, sitting somewhere between them. But also apart, for their language is still largely addressed to those familiar with an ‘old faith’ who seek a new faith, rather than those who have no faith but seek some way.
Back then I looked into the Sea of Faith and was quite taken; but maybe not enough. In any event I kept my distance. Now, having taken a second look more deeply, I find much that has appeal – seeing this as an agreeable ground on which to stand. A ground that is not very solid and could disappear – along with its dwindling band of my contemporaries who grew up in the early post-war years within a society still familiar with the Bible and Christian symbolism.
And I must say how it feels good, both to mix with and be welcomed by others from such a background as I search for something more suited – not only for myself but for succeeding generations.
For me, these past few past months have been a resurgence of studying material that explores what coming from and moving out of a Christianised milieu might mean. I remain unsure where this leaves me or leads me. However, currently I find myself wanting to put on one side the more specialised Christian roots in order to seek what now branches out from humanity’s religious roots as a whole; asking for instance, What can words and phrases such as: ‘soul’, ‘forgiveness’, ‘being human’, ‘good and evil’, mean today? 29th August: John Lilburne John Lilburne, affectionately known as ‘Freeborn John’, died of fever 29th August 1657, probably aged 43. At the time, he was on extended leave from imprisonment at Dover Castle, visiting his wife and 10 children at Eltham.