AFTER GOD Alison Webster reviews Don Cupitt’s last-but-one book published in the summer — After God: The Future of Religion (Weidenfield, £1 1.99) A Future in Innocence? rehearsing the book’s contents: if you're reading this then you can certainly read the book. Be assured that it is worth it: conversational as ever; clear as ever; funny as ever.
Suffice it to say that in this book Cupitt outlines his theory of the history and the future of religious meaning. He explains why religious meaning, in its traditional sense, has collapsed; how our postmodern human condition calls us to reinvent it, and how this reinvention involves the “aestheticisation” of religion — that is, Cupitt advocates seeing religious living in terms of artistic practice and symbolic expression, and religious life as “an expressive, world-building activity through which we can get ourselves together and find [a] kind of posthumous, or retrospective, happiness” (p.XIV).
I like the reminder of what’s happened to religion, which comes through his account (in Foucauldian terms) of its “genealogy”. Don’s genealogy, of course. There is no “objective” genealogy, just as there is no objective history — and that’s the point. Take it, as with everything, as partial. Indulge yourself by enjoying an account of the history of religion that has an aesthetically pleasing neatness and simplicity. Believe him: he’s telling you stories.
I like the way Don brings postmodern philosophy into conversation with theology — so rare and such a treat. [== waste words in this review “The point of non-realist theology, for me, is that in doing this we become absolutely accountable for the nature of the God/religious life we recreate.
That’s why non-realist theology is potentially more rigorous, in terms of ethics, than realist theology.” Indeed, interestingly, he claims that the postmodern project has its origin in theology: “the postmodern ‘crisis of representation’ started with God...It was in the area of theology that thinkers first found reason to wonder how human descriptive language can be thought of as hooking on to or encompassing its topic.” (p.52) Finally, I like his candid expression of ambivalence towards giving up realism: “A Christian non-realist like me may often find himself dropping back into the old type of God consciousness, praying or worshiping because he wants to or because it helps. And why not? I actually think I love God more now that I know God is voluntary...” (p. 85). This helps us towards a more sophisticated understanding of religious identity than the usual “take it or leave it” dichotomy that we are so often stuck with through thinkers like Daphne Hampson.
But there are two areas where I have difficulty with After God. Firstly, Don’s deployment of the concept of innocence. He says: “Today, religious terrorism ought to be unendurable, and Nietzsche’s great doctrine of the ‘innocence of becoming’ expresses the happiness and the sense of rebirth we feel when we finally get the old fear, melancholy, and spiritual sadomasochism out of our psychology. We are not accountable, we are not chronically in the wrong, and there is no reason whatsoever for thinking that the whole of our existence is somehow blighted” (p.108). Then, quoting Nietzsche: “No one is accountable for existing at all, or for being constituted as he is, or for living in the circumstances and surroundings in which he lives. The fatality of his nature cannot be disentangled from the fatality of all that which has been and will be” (p.108). Finally, Don says, “Nietzsche eloquently celebrates the restoration of the innocence of the transient world of Becoming. Why should we not restore the innocence of religion? Why should there not be religion that is free of illusion, untruth and power worship?” (p.109).
Here two things appear to be muddled up together: the innocence of religion and innocence as human ontology. The idea of “restoring” anything smacks somehow of getting back to authentic “essentials” which fits ill with Don’s overall approach, but we’ll let that pass. I understand the concept of restoring the “innocence of religion” if we’re talking about liberating ourselves as religious subjects from the old authoritarian mind-set that constitutes realist theology. But the point of non-realist theology, for me, is that in doing this we become absolutely accountable for the nature of the God/religious life we recreate.
That’s why non-realist theology is potentially more rigorous, in terms of ethics, than realist theology. It is realist theology which gives human beings ready ammunition for oppression: sorry, we don’t mean to oppress you as women, gays, or whatever, we do it only because God’s objectively revealed nature demands it. When, as non-realists, we oppress and subjugate others, we have no one to blame but ourselves. In other words, we are absolutely not innocent.
There are two other things muddled up in Cupitt’s use of Nietzsche: our role in how we are constituted, and our accountability for what we become. Whilst I’m willing to accept that there are aspects of the former over which I have no control, and can therefore not be held responsible (the context into which I’m born, for instance), it seems to me that we are responsible for the latter — for how we use the power and resources at our disposal.
It’s at times like this that I miss the influence of feminist theorists in Don’s work. They really have thought through these philosophical and ethical issues. Take Donna Haraway, for instance — a scientist and philosopher of science. She has worked on the difficult question of how you can challenge oppressive ideological structures which are based on “realist” mindsets (eg so-called “objective scientific discourse” which isn’t at all) without disqualifying oneself from making competing truth-claims, which is an ethical imperative. She speaks of the need for “situated “End of innocence?” photo: Ferdinando Scianna, Sicily knowledges”, and “partial and locatable truths”. But her schema depends on each and every one of us being, “responsible for what we learn how to see.” There is no innocence here.
My second difficulty is a related one, and it focuses on Don’s understanding of identity. At one point Don ventures the following insight: “It is very postmodern suddenly to realize that we no longer actually need roots, identity, stability, or a provenance. We can do without all those things. Me, I don’t want them any more. I prefer to be without identity.
I'd like to belong to no ethnic group, and to have no Other” (p.99). Well tough, Don. Like it or not, you have an identity. You are that collection of forces that made you, and what you did with them, and what you are doing with them, and how others helped you, and how they hindered you. So are we all.
You cannot disinvent the ways in which you were helped in your career by your maleness, your whiteness, your tallness, even. None of these is blameworthy, but all are important. And what about the ways in which you were hindered: by your radicality, the trouble you caused to the establishment, your refusal to give in. These are more blameworthy (or credit worthy) perhaps, but don’t forget these things.
And don’t think that “Otherness” will disappear so easily. There is a misplaced optimism here: that if we could all just forget where we come from, we will all become the same.
Not so. We need to understand our roots, not forget them; to be accountable for the identities we create for ourselves, not pretend there is such a thing as an “identity-less” position.
So, Don, as ever, I'll go all the way with you. But not in innocence, please. I thought we’d left that behind long ago.
Alison Webster is author of “Found Wanting: Women, Christianity and Sexuality” (Cassell, 1995). She is coeditor of the journal “Theology and Sexuality” and Co-ordinator of the Christian Socialist Movement.