Contents
Articles
- Promoting Ourselves, Ronald Pearse
- SoF Meets Rock of Ages, Michael Morris
- Educating the Spirit, Derek Chorley
- Uplift Down Under
- Arctic Circles, Iain Robertson
- SoF and the Quaker Tradition, David Boulton
- Everyone a Pilgrim, Don Cupitt
- Redemption by Beauty, David Bryant
- God as Love, Not Monster, David Dulley
Reviews
- Eco-humanism: Tomorrow's God?, Don Cupitt
Interviews
Regulars and Occasionals
- Postscripts, SEAfarer
Editorial
Contributions for the April issue should reach the editor by March 20. Send (with stamped addressed envelope) to David Boulton, Hobsons, Dent, Cumbria LAI0 5RF REPENT! “Lie year 1995 marks the nine hundredth anniversary of the First Crusade. In November 1095 at a church council in Clermont in the Auvergne, Pope Urban II called for Christians to take up arms against Islam, to drive them out of the ‘‘Holy Land’’.
Christian and Moslem fought, killed and pillaged in the name of the same God, sharing a common tradition - Abraham and the patriarchs, the prophets and Jesus - and invoking the same spiritual values. They inflicted appalling damage on each other, but they also deformed themselves and destroyed what spiritual integrity they may once have laid claim to.
Of course it was all a long time ago. In the Dark Ages.
Christians wouldn’t behave like that today, would they? See how the Orthodox Serbs and the Catholic Croats turn the other cheek towards the Bosnian Muslims! See how the Christian West, having seen off godless Communism in one cold war, eagerly lines up for another with ‘‘Islamic fundamentalism’’!
Life is hard without an enemy to demonise!
Here is a suggestion. An anniversary is a good time for repentance. Why not make 1995 the year the Christian churches say Sorry. The World Council of Churches could say Sony globally, national churches nationally, local churches locally. In areas where there is an Islamic presence, the apology, the repentance, could be delivered face to face in interfaith meetings.
Doesn’t Islam have a lot to repent of too? They may think so, and act accordingly. But Christians - and inheritors of the cultural traditions of the Christian West - have a few beams to toss out of their own eyes before picking at the motes in others’.
We don’t have to agree with Islam: to share its view of human rights, women’s rights and liberal democracy. We just have to say Sorry, and then begin to try to understand what we have in common and where we differ.
The Sea of Faith Network, through individual members and local groups, could help kick-start the process. Talk up repentance! Suggest your local church (or humanist group, for humanism too is a product of our culture) finds a way of saying Sorry. Better 900 years too late than never. ee ee PROMOTING OURSELVES Ronald Pearse A version of this essay, by the Network Secretary, first appeared under the title ‘A Personal Perspective’’ in 5 Years of Making Waves, published last year to celebrate the Network’s fifth birthday. We reprint it here because it raises important issues which need to be thought through by members and local groups.
And please do it now, or you'll forget! ea Poetry by post In my letter in the October issue I touched on the idea ol SoF forming special interest groups. In particular, I felt that the sharing of poems written by members could be an enriching experience. I would therefore like to try out the idea of having a postal poetry group, and will volunter to co-ordinate it.
It would be a forum for SoF folk to share their own reflections, in verse, on themes touching on Sea of Faith.
I envisage producing a short newsletter three or four times per year (depending on amount of material) which would be circulated among subscribing members. There will obviously have to be a small subscription to cover the production costs, In order for it to be worth starting, | think a minimum of ten people interested in contribu g on a fairly regular basis is required. It would be desiravic to circulate the newsletter more widely to those who simply wish to read poetry, but I suspect that there might be quite a few in that category and my limited resources would be unlikely to cope!
So, if you write poetry of any kind (doesn’t have to thyme!) please write to me if you feel you would like to share your work with a wider SoF audience. -. David Herbert, 67 Howard Close, Cambridge, CBS 8QU.
— David Herbert, Cambridge
In place of Christmas A cri de coeur from a struggling adherent of S Christmas, the start of a beautiful and heart-rending stury, has once again brought to a head the confusion of my thoughts. I suspect I am not alone in a longing to believe the story; and indeed for many years I suppose I did - more or less! Now, with a sense of desolation, I no longer do. Yet what can I put in its place? - Sylvia Batley, 5 Watling Street, Leintwardine, Craven Arms, Shropshire SY7 OLW.
— Sylvia Batley
Electronic networking I’m writing on behalf of the Steering Committee of the SoF Network (New Zealand). At our Annual Meeting in September the suggestion was made that we explore linking our Network and the UK Network (and any other similar national groups) via the Internet (the worldwide connection of computer networks). The reasons may be thought of as both practical and theological.
On the practical side the Internet provides for a cheap and fast method of exchanging ideas and information between individuals. It may also be used to ‘‘broadcast” to and receive input from a large group of participants via a bulletin board. One possibility would be to share our respective magazine and newsletter by making the text available electronically. This would speed and cheapen distribution and make for a more responsive dialogue and a greater feeling of participation.
Some of us in Wellington have been considering “‘network’’ as a paradigm of human relationships, and have begun a tentative analysis of how this network may be fostered to enhance human community. The Internet is mushrooming at an astonishing rate. Through its 3000odd user-groups it is developing as a sub-culture with its own argot and ethics. Its organisation is both anarchic and co-operative, based on the assumption of free access and the sharing of resources and information. Because the technology of telecommunications of text, voice and images is serving as a powerful agent to bring about a form of global community, it seems imperative for us to be involved in discovering the nature of the network, and exploring its religious dimension.
If the SoF Network (UK) or one of its members is willing, we envisage that we could start exploring (networking) in a small way. It simply requires someone at both ends who has an electronic mail account, possibly through an educational institution or business. Ideally these ‘‘nodes’’ should be easily accessible to the SoF core groups at each end so that local communications (by whatever means) are facilitated and the content of the exchanges is shared, Acknowledging that only a proportion of members will have access to computers and modems, I think the next step would be to send e-mail to a small number of multiple addresses at each end. We should like to see how the communications develop informally before considering any more elaborate structure.
— Ralph Pannett, Wellington, NZ