Verdict
Patti Whaley has sent me a summary of the evaluation sheets filled in by more than 70% of those who were at our 1998 conference. Here’s what you told us.
All three main speakers achieved 65% or more in the “excellent” or “very good” categories. Cupitt was favourite. The plenary Q&A session ranked less well: loose questions, too many speeches from the floor — and “shoot the sound technician!” Base groups very popular — 77% “excellent” or “v.g.” Specially high ratings for the workshops on “Introduction to the Quaker Meeting”, “Spirituality through Meditation”, “Agnostics at Prayer”, “Evangelical Worship”, “Rites of Passage”, “Bereavement” and “The Jesus Seminar”.
The bookshop sold over £4000worth of books, making £200 for SoF.
Worship sessions were appreciated, as were the choir and circle dancing.
A common suggestion was that the conference epilogue should be more participatory and “have a more definite ending”.
Sheffield was liked for its compactness, helpful staff and “lovely bar”, but Leicester was strongly preferred.
Some criticisms over lack of women speakers, lack of creche facilities, not enough time for real debate at AGM, and not enough encouragement for new candidates to come forward for the steering committee. But typical comments: “Four cheers for those responsible”, “One of the best conferences I have ever attended”, “It is a privilege to have been able to participate”. And just “Thanks!”.
Surfing the SoFnet
A reminder that the Network has its own website address and an e-mail list of some 80 members from the UK, New Zealand, Australia and the USA. For those who are IT-literate, it’s a great way of, well, networking.
To subscribe, send an e-mail to pattiwhaley@compuserve.com. The website address is currently http://www.emma.cam.ac.uk/fellows/cupitt/sea of faith/sofhome.html, but don’t spend too much time trying to memorise it as Patti tells me that she, David Herbert and Eddy Grabczewski are trying to organise a move to a different site where we can have a sensible name like www.sof.org, or something.
The Lambeth rant
Who can say the Lambeth Conference at Canterbury did no good? Apparently it generated enough income for its hosts, the University of Kent, to refit 30 self-catering student houses and redecorate a further 60 study bedrooms - hopefully strictly for single-celibates and heterosexuals.
I wonder if the departing bishops filled in evaluation forms?
How many “excellents” for Bishop Jack Spong? How many for the African evangelical whose rant against homosexuals — “Repent — or go to Hell!” - was beamed to millions on television?
And any for poor Dr Carey, whose idea of leadership was to follow the most backward and bigoted of his mitred flock?
Richard Holloway, Bishop of Edinburgh, surely got it right in The Guardian: “Tolerance is something Christianity learned from secular society rather than from its own unaided efforts. For most of our history, Christians have thought of intolerance as a virtue, and that it was right to persecute those who disagreed with us in order to save their immortal souls. Liberal democracies are fairly recent arrivals on the human scene and churches are only now learning to copy their virtues”. And some churches and churchmen are very slow learners.
Hot as hell
There are scientific fundamentalists too. A Spanish physicist has calculated that the temperature in Hell is 445°, working from the reference in Revelation to “the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone” — 445° being the temperature at which brimstone (sulphur) boils. This apparently rules out the centre of the earth as the location of Hell, as the temperature there is more like 600°. But there are hydrothermal vents on the bottom of the ocean where 445° have been recorded. Could Satan be not so much a serpent as a hot-blooded eel?
Quick plugs
...for the big London SoF conference on November 7, with Karen Armstrong, Don Cupitt and David Hart as speakers (details on page 18).
For a one-day workshop called “The Lightness of Being: a constructive investigation of the liberated world of Don Cupitt”, at Newcastle University’s Centre for Continuing Education on October 17, run by Gordon Smith, joint convenor of North-East SoF (details from 74 St George’s Terrace, Jesmond, Newcastle NE2 2DL). And for three publications: the new SoF Rites of Passage Information Pack compiled by Teresa Wallace (details from 5 Lennox Street, Edinburgh EH4 1QB); Thoughts, Feelings and Actions, a new set of 260 haiku by Margaret Chisman (£4.50 from The Bungalow, Near the Station, Tring, Herts HP23 5QX); and a tiny little booklet, Prayerful Life, for SoF-types who ask “What do we mean when we say Our Father?” (Grace Cottage, Abbotsford Road, North Berwick, East Lothian EH39 5DB).