David Boulton uses the Pope’s abolition of Limbo to argue that Heaven, Hell, angels, demons and God are best read as poetry rather than literal prose, imaginative creations of the human mind.
David Boulton reviews Christopher Hampton’s anthology A Radical Reader on English radicalism, 1381-1914, and asks whether SoF’s radical theology has produced matching social action.
David Boulton describes the growth of nontheist and nonrealist Quakers, including the book Godless for God’s Sake, and argues that Quaker traditions of deeds over creeds welcome this religious pluralism.
David Boulton reviews Nigel Leaves’s Surfing on the Sea of Faith, which covers Cupitt’s ethics and religion and surveys non-realist writers within the Sea of Faith networks; he finds it valuable but partisan.
David Boulton reports on his 2004 visits to the Westar, SnowStar, Australian and New Zealand networks, comparing them with SoF UK and their shared reluctance to link radical theology with radical politics.
David Boulton criticises Jonathan Miller’s BBC4 series Atheism: a Rough History of Disbelief for reducing religion to ‘does God exist?’, ignoring thinkers who ask what ‘God’ means and God as myth and symbol.
David Boulton reviews Dinah Livingstone’s poetry collection Presence, noting its mix of personal memory, radical politics, Latin American solidarity and Tyndale.
David Boulton reviews Anne Ashworth’s poem-sequence The verb to be is everywhere irregular, an alphabetical poetic journal of a year published by Sea of Faith.
David Boulton reviews Bill Cooke’s history of the Rationalist Press Association, The Blasphemy Depot, and the long divide between abolitionist atheists and religious-humanist ‘substitutionists’, placing Sea of Faith within it.
David Boulton reviews Jim Herrick’s Humanism: An Introduction, welcoming its liberal humanism and urging Sea of Faith to strengthen its links with the wider humanist family.
