One year on from being sacked as a Church of England vicar for publishing a book on Christian humanism and supporting Sea of Faith, Anthony Freeman looks back on what turned into his annus mirabilis.
TWELVE MONTHS A FREE MAN!
God may not be “‘real’’ but s/he is certainly good! A year ago I faced a future without a home, without an income, and without any secure prospects of either. Today, as I write in response to David Boulton’s invitation to ‘‘tell us what it feels like one year on’’ I can report that it feels very good indeed!
It still seems strange that I am prohibited from preaching or taking services, but even that is not without its compensations. It is quite salutary after 23 years to be reminded what Church of England worship is like when viewed from the pew rather than the pulpit or the altar.
And Jacqueline and I have a freedom never known in our life before to go away for the weekend (although, if truth be told, our freedom is severely curtailed by our devotion at the shrine of Leo, our cat, whose every whim is our command and whom we find very hard to leave even for one night).
Our most pressing need - somewhere to live - was supplied by the great generosity of a landlord who was a complete stranger but who had heard of our plight and offered to repair for our use a semi-derelict house in a small village between Oxford and Banbury. We agreed terms in early July and actually moved in the week before Christmas. Building work is still going on as I write, but it is a delightful house in a charming part of the world, and very strategically placed for friends to call in as they drive up and down and to and fro across the country. It was the first and greatest blessing of the past twelve months.
My last day of employment by the Church of England was July 31 1994, and the next day I duly presented myself at the Job Centre to ‘‘sign on’’. (This was too much for the TV correspondent of the Church Times who, having heard it reported on television, declared in her column that it could not possibly be true. What a faithless generation we live in...). I was applying for various parochial, educational and administrative positions, both within and beyond the Church of England, with a totally negative result. Then, in September, right out of the blue came the second great blessing: an offer of work. If I would become a self-employed journalist, then I could be guaranteed two and a half days a week editing a new academic journal to be launched the following month.
Half a loaf is better than no bread, so I accepted, and found myself the managing editor of The Journal of Consciousness Studies.
With a home and a modest income assured, Jacqueline and I felt we could relax a bit and we booked an autumn holiday. The next week - again right out of the blue - came an invitation to visit Toronto, all expenses paid, to stay with an elderly Jewish gentleman who had heard about me and wished to meet me. (By this stage I was tempted to compose an autobiography of the kind which a born-again evangelical might write, enumerating all the Lord’s blessings since her conversion. It was indeed becoming our annus mirabilis). The result was a wonderful two weeks, including a trip to Niagara Falls on my birthday, and the only ‘‘work’’ involved was a short TV interview and a lecture at Trinity College.
Since then things have quictened down a little, but still there is never a dull moment. After it was announced in the press that I was moving to north Oxfordshire, I was approached by a GP in the West Midlands about doing some educational work in his inner-city practice. He was not able to pay more than expenses, but if I could give some time to researching and writing a suitable report on the proposed work, funds might become available from the local health authority.
Thanks to the generosity of Sea of Faith members, who had made a collection for Jacqueline and myself at the time of last year’s conference, I was able to offer him two days a week for the three months from Christmas to Easter. The health authority thought my report was wonderful(!), but there was no firm offer of funding, so I had to apply myself to other work. I am pleased to say that they have now come up with some money, and ‘Sceptics say that Cupitt-style beliefs may be all very well in a Cambridge senior common room but they lack the power to see you through life’s crises. I can testify that this is not so.
Being true to your own beliefs must always be more sustaining than a second-hand faith’ although I am too busy to take up the work again, the project will go forward and I have been asked to act as an external consultant.
Meanwhile I breathe the air of the world of consciousness studies. It has been hard work finding my feet in a multi-disciplinary area including philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, physics, mathematics and I don’t know what else besides. But in many ways it is all very familiar. For example, last month I interviewed the philosopher John Searle about his new book The Construction of Social Reality (shades of Lloyd Geering).
As a result, I have been invited to attend an international conference in Arizona next year in order to chair and take part in a panel discussion on realism in philosophy and religion!
Five years ago I would never have had the confidence to take on an assignment like that. The change I have been most aware of in myself, ever since my first Sea of Faith conference but especially since the whole ‘‘Freeman affair’’ erupted in public, is this new confidence I have to speak about my faith. Sceptics say that Cupitt-style beliefs may be all very well in a Cambridge senior common room but they lack the power to see you through life’s crises. I can testify that this is not so. Being true to yourself and your own beliefs must always be more sustaining than a second-hand faith. Whether your beliefs are radical or traditional, religious or secular, they must be true for you. It was painfully obvious at the debate I had in Westminster last November with the Bishop of Oxford that the difference between us was simply this: I was speaking for what I believed in while he was saying what was expected of him. Never mind who was ‘“‘right’’ or ‘‘wrong’’ theologically: he was palpably disabled by having to keep to the party line rather than follow where his own heart and head might lead him.
So one year on, I have a faith to live by, a house in the country, enough money to survive and lots of rewarding work. Many people today would give their right arm for just one of those four, and I can certainly say that things have turned out far better than I dared to hope twelve months ago.
Of course there are also the drawbacks. Like a phone call from Maxine Green saying since I am now a profesional editor, and since David Boulton’s other commitments mean he has to give up editing Sea of Faith magazine, the Steering Committee just wondered whether I might perhaps...just for one issue...
So keep the contributions to SoFmag rolling in. I do not want to end up writing all the articles myself - for your sakes as well as mine.
The address to which contributions for the next issue should be sent is on page 2.