Listen! A Discussion of the Sea of Faith

Martin Spence reviews the  conference at Gladstone’s Library

The conference at Gladstone’s Library in late September – entitled Listen! A Discussion of the Sea of Faith – was the last of three events marking the fortieth anniversary of the Sea of Faith television series. It featured a strong emphasis on that historical moment: on the particular version of non-realism which Don Cupitt was advocating in the 1980s; and on the public response to the series, at a time when social media was unknown and those who wanted to express appreciation, or disgust, had to sit down and put pen to paper.

Jeremy Carette’s lecture on the ‘Social construction of Don Cupitt’ was a tour de force, setting up Don’s argument in the TV series as a phenomenon ripe for analysis. Jeremy identified many influences, from William Temple to the ‘Honest to God’ debate in Britain and the ‘Death of God’ debate in the USA, all of them contributing to Don’s 1980s combination of theological radicalism and Anglican commitment. Jeremy also drew attention to the absences, the gaps, in the TV series’ narrative, a regrettable but inevitable consequence of trying to cram a complex argument into a medium which privileges image and atmosphere over complexity. For instance, room was found for Darwin and Nietzsche, but not for Kant and Hegel – yet how can any study of western thought which omits Kant and Hegel claim to be complete?

The discussion which followed also acknowledged that some aspects of the TV series’ presentation were far from radical. Its narrative was based on a very traditional account in which scientific and technological development was assumed to represent ‘progress’, although this assumption was already being questioned in the 1980s. The discussion which followed also acknowledged that some aspects of the TV series’ presentation were far from radical. Its narrative was based on a very traditional account in which scientific and technological development was assumed to represent ‘progress’, although this assumption was already being questioned in the 1980s.

And then there was Don’s individualism, exemplified by his summary statement at the very end of the TV series: “The individual stands absolutely alone – he must decide”. For those of us who come from socialism or feminism, from traditions which emphasise shared experience and joint endeavour, this existential individualism feels deeply conservative.

We also considered the form of the TV series: an extensive historical and intellectual narrative, presented by a single authoritative white male presenter, constructed around visits to iconic locations, in the tradition of previous ‘landmark’ series such as Kenneth Clark’s Civilization. Documentary programmes on TV are as popular today as they were in the 1980s, but nowadays they look very different, partly perhaps because they have less money, or because the technology has moved on, but also because we now prefer a more diverse, more intimate, less didactic style of presentation. And I think we are right to do so. Gladstone’s Library was the venue for the conference not just because it’s a lovely place to stay – although it really is! – but also because it is the home of both the Don Cupitt Archive, and the Sea of Faith Archive. Elaine Graham and Graeme Smith have put an enormous amount of work into fundraising, and into physically transporting and collating Don’s papers and memorabilia, but now it’s just about done and his Archive will be a resource for decades to come. Among other things it includes many of the personal letters which viewers wrote to him as a result of the TV series, some aggressively hostile and others deeply grateful, and we were privileged to be able to see some of these on display. They recall the correspondence which had been triggered by John Robinson’s book Honest to God twenty years earlier (and, appropriately, Gladstone’s Library also holds Robinson’s Archive). Honest to God in the ‘60s and Sea of Faith in the ‘80s had much in common: both were responses to the slow crisis of Anglicanism; both insisted on Christianity’s urgent relevance in the modern world; both criticised a Church clinging stubbornly to outdated metaphysical baggage. They parted company, however, in their theology; in their different characterisations of that baggage.

Which brings us to non-realism. On the conference’s second day we were treated to a discussion involving Andrea Russell, Warden of the Library; Alison Webster of ‘Modern Church’; and Jessica Eastwood, who has conducted a major study of the theological non-realism which made Don such a controversial figure. Jessica paid tribute to his personal kindness and support for her work but confessed that, having spent so much time reading and thinking about Don’s 1980s non-realist stance, she herself does not share it. Her view is that the old debate between realism and non-realism was too binary and simplistic, and that we should think instead in terms of a spectrum of views on the nature of divinity, and the nature of reality.

I think this has much to offer. In its early years the Sea of Faith Network was defined by Don’s theological non-realism, but this is no longer the case. Today, in fact, we hardly discuss theology. We talk about many important things – history, politics, art, literature, justice – but rarely the ology. Perhaps, however, the notion of a ‘spectrum’ offers a way of gently re-engaging with it, of exploring what we think we mean by divinity; and what we think we mean by reality; and how they might relate to humanity; and the forms of agency which humans might have in responding to or participating in them. Allowing space for such questions can only enrich our discussions on history, politics and the rest.

Let me give an example. A good friend has repeatedly drawn my attention to Psalm 82, which is brief and unsettling. It describes the Biblical God presiding at an assembly of the gods (a polytheistic vision which is rather shocking, given the stern monotheism which dominates the Old Testament). At this assembly, God accuses the other gods of failing in their duty to uphold justice, to protect the weak and oppressed. And because they have failed in this duty, God relegates them from divinity to mortality, declaring: “Like mortals you will die”. In other words, justice is posited here not as an option which gods may respect or ignore, but as the condition of divinity itself. It suggests that gods are only real insofar as they do justice to humanity. If they fail in this, they cease to be.

This notion of divinity as dependent upon or entangled with worldly justice is full of possibility. We are familiar with a ‘realist’ version in which divinity is primary and transcendent, the fount of justice, with humanity as its beneficiary, because this is the traditional Christian view. But we might also imagine a ‘non-realist’ version in which the human struggle for justice gives rise to divinity as an immanent presence in the world, living in ritual and story. And we might imagine a version in which justice and divinity are dialectically entangled, practical action and transcendent meaning positing each other and sharing in each other’s mode of reality. Any of these possibilities might, I think, find a place in the spectrum which Jessica asks us to consider. And any might enrich the conversations which characterise today’s Sea of Faith.