Stephen Mitchell is a retired Anglican priest and founder member of the Sea of Faith network. He helped organise its first conference and was the first Steering Committee chair. He’s always seen the network as common ground between atheists, agnostics and people of faith. Even the most fundamental of believers will acknowledge the human and creative side of faith. He’s explored and worked out his faith through writing a few books – Agenda for Faith, God in Bath, Past Perfect – and a recently created blog www.canonfodder.co. Before becoming a priest he taught music and he continues to arrange, compose and make music in retirement. As a priest he ministered in schools, cathedrals, and village churches. He recently rejoined the Steering Committee and is keen to see the network grow through the enthusiasm of its new members, and the development of its impressive website, magazine and educational activities.
Traces the history of the Sea of Faith magazine and network, produced by early home computing, through founding editor Clive Richards. It argues the Network must adopt current technology and web tools.
Review of Don Cupitt’s The Fountain as a secular theology and a challenge to SOF. It is a new religious story about how to live and die, symbolised by the fountain.
Stephen Mitchell’s sermon answers Stephen Hawking’s claim in The Grand Design that God is not needed. A theory of everything cannot explain joy, love or meaning, and God is found in daily living, love and...
Stephen Mitchell’s Christmas Eve sermon argues the church is a means to the Kingdom of God, not an end, and that accepting the human condition through the incarnation means building justice and peace on Earth.
Stephen Mitchell’s sermon on the 40th anniversary of the moon landing sees human life as fragile and earthbound, and urges celebrating human achievement and living in the present.
Stephen Mitchell reviews Jürgen Moltmann’s autobiography A Broad Place, tracing his theological journey from wartime Germany to a theology of life, and recommends it to SoF readers despite stilted translation.
Stephen Mitchell reviews Don Cupitt’s Impossible Loves, on love for the dead, God, the unattainable and impossible ideals, and notes Cupitt’s admission that he remains in love with an impossible God.
Stephen Mitchell reviews Kit Widdows’s novel Fourth Witness, a first-person retelling of John’s Gospel by the beloved disciple that makes Jesus accessible to modern readers.
Stephen Mitchell argues that ‘non-theism’ has become a cover for atheism, as ‘non-realism’ became ‘unreal’, and that SoF should engage orthodox Christian ideas of God as being itself and leave the question of God open.
Stephen Mitchell reviews Don Cupitt’s The Great Questions of Life, which returns to the founding questions of philosophy as people ask them in everyday language, and recommends it as an introduction to Cupitt.
