Sea of Faith Magazine " exploring and promoting religious faith as a human creation " HOW IT ALL BEGAN by Ronald Pearse My own part in the 'S.o.F.' story began in November 1983 when I had business with Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and met its dean. Previously I had only glanced at one of his books but the encounter with this kind and pastorally-minded priest encouraged me to spend a book token, early in 1984, on his 'Taking Leave of God'. I was thrilled to find that the spirituality and theological position of this book articulated something I had been slowly moving towards over many years.
In the life-long process of growing up I was at the stage where it made sense to equate autonomy with integrity. For one who had moved from seeing integrity mainly in terms of obedience to an external authority it was liberating to discover a fellow priest who was no longer in chains to a realist God but was obedient to an ideal. The growing spiritual freedom I enjoyed was constricted, however, by the words which I had to use liturgically. I could and did interpret them privately and publicly as symbolic, but the weight of the church's literal interpretation of them for centuries bore heavily upon me. I wrote to Don Cupitt about this and had a sympathetic reply.
Unknown to me, in the summer of 1984, another priest in the Leicester area was writing to him on similar lines. Don put us in touch and we met for talks at my rectory at Thurcaston. That autumn 'The Sea of Faith' appeared as a book and TV series. The two of us delighted in it and were joined in discussion by a third sympathetic local priest. In November I responded to a critical letter in the 'Church Times' with one saying that as a very ordinary parish priest I had been enriched by the TV series. In response I received four supportive letters and one (anonymous) opposing.
One of the four was from a priest who would later join our group.
Meanwhile, the three had continued meeting for discussion and sought an occasion to talk to Don. F invited us to Emmanuel and we took the train )() Cambridge on 13 December 1984 for a lengthy discussion with him. We suggested there might be value in a conference of likeminded people. Don was willing to host such a gathering at Emmanuel but hac, not the time to do so for two years.
Back in Leicestershire, Stephen Mitchell (soon to be rector of Barrow-on-Soar) had joined us by February 1985. We continued meeting in each others' houses, including in April of that year a vicarage in Ely diocese where the vicar there increased our number to five. In October, some of us heard Don lecture on 'The Origin of Religious Thought' at a meeting of the Leicester Theological Society.
In 1986 we met at the White Hart in Uppingham, in a Fenland vicarage, in my own rectory and at (then deaconess) Jean Lamb's house in Leicester. Until that October our gatherings had no pre-arranged subjects since there was always plenty to talk about in the agendas each brought with us from our various radical positions and experiences. However, that month we met to discuss the recent Anglican bishops' statement on doctrine and in December our subject was Don's 'Life Lines'.
By 1987, David Paterson (vicar of St Peter's, Loughborough), Robert Rankin (a recently retired priest) and Martin Roberts (a polytechnic chaplain) had joined us and we had our last two pub-lunch meetings in Loughborough and Shepshed. After that, Barrow Rectory became a frequent meeting place. On 20 September that year Don came to Thurcaston Rectory to talk with seven of us (including Alan Lilley, then university student counsellor) after he had preached in Loughborough. The question of a conference for radical Christians was raised again but Don was unable to offer any help with this for a further two years.
We started thinking about organising a gathering ourselves and in October sought to arrange it as one COMMENT, OP/N/ON & PERSONAL STOP/.E: S SPRING 1990 P ;E. 1 SEA OF FAITH MAGAZINE Contents How it all began Ronald Pearse Page 1 Religion and Style Aileen La Tourette Page 3 Some Marks of A Radical Christian C.B.Spurgin Page 5 The Nature and Purpose of 'Sea of Faith' Stephen Broughton Page 6 Something's Missing From 'S.o.F.' John Mann Page 6 Radical Christianity - The Secular Way Clive Richards Page 8 Radicals and the Myth of the Incarnation Charles Plouviez Page 10 Face to Faith Thalia Gordon Clark Page 12 A Radical Parson's Progress John Hodgkinson Page 14 A Radical's Approach to the Religious David Garratt Page 16 Education of Primary School Children Postmodernism, Deconstruction and Radical John Mann Page 17 Theology Talking to a Lizard David Paterson Page 19 Poems by Norah Gutteridge, John Mann and Stephen Broughton of the courses in Loughborough University's 'Summer University' programme. The programme's organiser, Margaret Gill, was very helpful and we were accepted. This would have meant that the university handled all the advertising and administration. I was to be overall tutor, bringing in other speakers as visiting tutors. Don immediately agreed to come, promising us three days. Graham Shaw also pledged himself to come despite being about to move to a new benefice. On 11 December I went to see Don in Cambridge to discuss our plans.
When the group looked for a course title it was clear that this was ready-made - 'The Sea of Faith' - but it soon became clear that the course fees would be too high, its length too long and the number of places too small for the sort of gathering we had in mind.
Loughborough University allowed us to withdraw, offered facilities for an independent conference and generously gave information about it in their 'Summer Programme' brochure. However, now we had to do our own administration and further advertising.
At Cambridge Don had shown me a wooden box containing letters received in response to his books and TV series. He offered to compile a first mailing list from them. Soon 143 names and addresses arrived. (It happened that at the time of our first mailing the Post Office was using a controversial postmark paid for by an evangelical businessman and so it was that our envelopes were heavily over-printed with the un-interpreted slogan " Jesus lives I" I) By now our leisurely pub- or vicarage-lunch discussions were over and our informal group had hardworking evening meetings planning the conference.
On 9 February we were joined by Paul Harrison (then a Loughborough parishioner) and Jonathan StockHesketh (then an assistant priest in Loughborough) who became our first treasurer and conference press officer. We were without financial resources but received two kind offers (of £200 and £100) to underwrite conference expenses or losses which fortunately we did not in the end need. Dennis Nineham was persuaded to be a main speaker. We advertised in a range of religious newspapers.
Eventually `S.o.F.' I (as we may now call it) happened in July, 1988.
SPRING 1990 PAGE 19 CONTRIBUTORS Ronald Pearse is a retired priest now living in Loughborough and is Secretary of the "Sea of Faith" Conference Committee.