SoF Magazine No. 25, April 1996 LL y first contact with a church was at the age of 7 when I joined the Sunday School of our local Methodist Church. This was for the unashamedly selfish reason that I would then be eligible to join their Wolf Cub pack (now Cub Scouts). In my teens, like so many others, I drifted away from Sunday School and found any number of Scouting activities to fill whatever gap had occurred. My spiritual roots were shallow but, although I was not aware of receiving any sustenance from them, they did not entirely wither away.
I gained a place at university to read science and there I joined MethSoc, the local society of several hundred unruly undergraduates with varying degrees of attachment to the Methodist Church. There I floundered enjoyably and experimentally with others in the shallows of the sea of faith that we felt was carrying us effortlessly up towards the high-tide mark.
However, during my year as leader of our small study group within MethSoc, I often found myself struggling in a vain attempt to force together the irregularly shaped pieces of the jigsaw puzzle to present a tolerably seamless picture first to myself and then to the group. Before my graduation I was accepted as a member of the Methodist Church. :
My wife and I married 9 months later, and we both became involved with the setting up and running of a new Methodist church in Chelmsford. We found that we had to spend so much time and effort on the organisational side that growth in our spiritual lives suffered.
On moving to Fareham, with its well-established Methodist Church and traditional membership, we did not feel welcomed and, particularly after our intense activity at Chelmsford, enjoyed a break from active church life. We resumed attending regularly only several years later when we wished our youngest child to be baptised. At this time, with a change of minister, we found the church MY FAITH TODAY—how | arrived there by Mike H.A. Smith —_—-— —————— —— =——— — much more vibrant and welcoming to younger families.
The leader of the Young People's Fellowship within the Sunday School, now called Junior Church, had to step down and I filled the gap there for a couple of years. As is well known, there is nothing like having to teach to show up your own lack of understanding. In retrospect it might have been the opportunity for me to explore the basics that led me to offer my untried skills in this area.
Several years later, after another change of minister, I remember frequently listening to sermons full of symbolism and religious language that I found difficult to reconcile with my scientific training and attitude. I began seriously questioning everything, and in 1981 offered myself for training as a local preacher. My horizons were widened considerably through the two-year correspondence course covering the five . set textbooks.
In 1984 I found sympathetic resonances in Don Cupitt's TV. series The Sea of Faith and enjoyed the challenges in the later series by Karen Armstrong, Paul — The First Christian. They set me reading widely to gain a deeper spiritual ‘insight. Other threads that added texture to the emerging cloth included the mysticism of Meister Eckhart and of The Cloud of Unknowing, elements of Zen Buddhism, and books by living Jewish authors, such as those of Geza Vermes and The Passover Plot by Hugh Schonfield.
Probably the first casualty in my faith was the divinity of Jesus Christ as traditionally understood in a supernatural dimension, though I still feel strongly that he is an inspired example par excellence to respond to.
In 1988 I set down my creed, largely to clarify my own jumble of thoughts. I already had three earlier drafts, from 1986 and 1987, in each of which I had clearly been amassing much information from many sources and had been trying to fit it all into a coherent whole.
I read the works of Don Cupitt and others as they appeared, receiving inspiration and revelation as I did so. In spite of my doubts I did not feel hypocritical leading others in services of worship, but in retrospect feel that, without realising it, I might sometimes have been disguising my woolly thinking in my use of religious language and jargon.
At that time, although I felt that God was not the objective God that I had unquestioningly accepted from my earlier days, I could not see how God fitted into my current view of things. I became increasingly ill at ease trying to squeeze my God into a passive, non-personal mould. The Sea of Faith network then came to my notice and it was a relief to realize that there were many others with similar doubts to mine.
Within our Local Preachers’ group there arose the need for a local tutor to undertake the training of aspiring preachers within the framework of a newly established Methodist course. I offered my services with some trepidation, again with the strong feeling that I could leam much through having to teach. We have now finished the first two 2-year courses, completed by 10 students in all, only 4 of whom intended to become preachers, and we are just starting the third course.
Discussing problems and ideas with others in a sensitive manner has proved extremely valuable for me and, I am glad to say, also seems to have been beneficial for my students.
SoF Magazine No. 25, April 1996 Reading Hans Kting’s Credo inspired me to set down my own thoughts in a similar structure. I filled it with quotations from many authors, not because I felt unable to stand on my own feet, but with the feeling that I did not want to distort their individual messages.
Then about 18 months ago I learned of someone who appeared to be undergoing a spiritual struggle and who felt alienated from his own church. In response to my letter he replied that he was now much better than I had assumed, and indicated the half-dozen books to which he attributed much of his improvement. I read these eagerly and was immensely grateful for the floodlight that then lit up my remaining dark comers. My God was still non-real but was now personal, and I was able to accept more fully the place of story, symbolism and myth, each of which plays an important role in any religion.
I decided to rewrite my creed in a much shorter version and in my own words, having taken to heart the quip of Emerson: ‘I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.’ When I came across my 1988 creed again for the first time since I had written it, I could not help laughing at the uncanny similarity. I had spiralled round and had returned to much the same place but now higher and, I believe, with a clearer perspective. (Shades of T.S. Eliot?) Above all I became convinced that we need to retain our sense of humour to cope with the many incongruities of life, both physical and spiritual.
My current Credo is as follows:
Religion is personal Religion is the story that each of us lives by, that makes sense of our lives, and that shapes our outlook on life. Everyone’s religion is individual or personal since, while it often relies on tradition, custom and_ the influences of others (particularly within institutionalised religions), it is bound to be coloured by our own experiences and aspirations. It is therefore also likely to change during our lifetime — hence the title, At) Faith Today. Other people have had | My Faith Today different experiences, and __ their personalities are in different stages of development. Therefore, although they may find it natural to share the same broad umbrella description of their religion with others, their religion will be individual and therefore different in detail.
A mental picture or model We often find it a help in thinking about something complex if we have a mental picture (or model) of it. This powerful approach is limited only by our own mental dexterity and by our present understanding of the subject.
Like any scientific theory, a model is of value only while it depicts the subject adequately for our purpose.
Once it has ceased to do that, we should relentlessly discard it. Out-ofdate or inaccurate models can be confusing and counter-productive.
Most people have not been encouraged to update their model of God in line with the changes in our culture and the broadening of their own SoF Magazine No. 25, April 1996 experiences. Consequently their religion is nothing like as helpful in their lives as it could be and may even hinder their further development.
Generally, the simpler the model the more robust it is likely to be. Sometimes, however, the situation seems less straightforward as we find that one model cannot adequately represent a particularly complex idea.
Instead, we find that we need to develop two seemingly quite different models: one to be applied in certain circumstances and the second at other times. In such a way, when scientists explore light they find that they need both their wave theory of light and their particle theory of light to explain adequately the various phenomena.
Similarly we may frequently find it helpful to consider many of our experiences in terms of both a religious model and (say) a psychoanalytical one.
My God I use the word God as a symbol of the very essence of humanity, coupled with what humans feel to be the essence of the physical world. In a phrase, my God is both continuous creation and goodness (or love), with all the complexities, ambiguities, contradictions and even uncertainties that this implies. In this sense some aspects of my God may be considered a creation of the human mind.
It seems to me possible that creation and love are different perspectives of the same idea. We perceive it as creation when we look at the detail, but as love when it occurs in sufficiently complex and interactive situations. Water provides an interesting analogy here: it is created and is distinctive in its individual molecules, but it displays its wetness only when billions of these molecules interact with each other.
I do not find it helpful to regard God anthropomorphically as a white-haired old gentleman out there somewhere looking down on us. Yet I realize that a rejection of all aspects of this idea is undesirable. Much of the essence of God is expressible most clearly and usefully for us in the qualities and development of humans, and in the interaction between them. In that sense my God is personal.
But my God is not the traditional authoritarian, almighty, victorious, kingly figure, before whom we all prostrate ourselves to learn his will for us as unworthy second-class beings too often alienated from our true selves. Instead, my God inspires me to value my body and my talents, while recognising my faults and accepting my present limitations, and to realize that I need to develop and integrate my conscious and subconscious feelings into a harmonious whole. While doing that, I can also be of service to others who struggle in the course of their own integration — in this way I am loving my neighbour as myself.
My God is immanent, being within every part of my body as it is continually renewed and recreated, as well as being the energy within every atom of the world, which we can think of as God’s body. My God is also transcendent, as any worthwhile goal or aspiration must lie beyond my present reach. I do not strive to understand God but, rather like the Buddhist, to accept God as Being and to live each moment fully — an attitude that often sits uneasily alongside my questing scientific outlook. My heaven and hell are both here on earth.
A two-model idea of God is helpful to me, although it has taken me a long time to come to such a view. By considering God in both religious and (say) psychoanalytical terms I can draw upon much valuable religious writing from the past and present. I can also ground such ideas more usefully in the modem culture in which I live and interact with others.
For example, in a certain situation I may pray (that is, I may indulge in quiet contemplation and self-analysis) to lear of God’s will for me (to reveal what I can best do or how I can best develop my existing or potential talents), to respond to Jesus' example (to identify to the best of my abilities and understanding a relevant goal, or to identify with a relevant attitude), and to seek the grace to achieve God’s will (to call upon the strength and determination already present and potentially available within my subconscious). Interestingly, some aspects of the Trinity appear naturally in the above, as they did in Celtic prayers and practices rooted firmly in everyday life.
My ‘sin’ is my habitual way of perceiving myself falsely which, if persisted in, can lead to the stunting of my integration. My ‘salvation through giving my life to God as revealed perfectly in Jesus Christ’, is my integration, my wholeness of being, when my conscious ego will see itself as just one aspect of my total self in both its conscious and subconscious parts.
Any description may gain from translation into another closely parallel language, unless of course we insist that only one of the two languages is admissible. We may often gain a deeper or clearer understanding by accepting the close equivalence of the two, benefiting from the slightly different thoughtforms of each, and switching between them, as a composer may switch between two keys to impart a more rounded effect to her piece of music.
Jesus Stories are important to us as humans when they depict to us people or circumstances that we can identify with and from which we can derive guidance or support. When we read the story of Jesus we realize that in many ways we are also reading our own story.
I do not think of Jesus as divine in the supernatural sense. Indeed he never considered himself in that way. The trouble with too much divinity is that it cuts us off from God. Nevertheless, although I do not believe that Jesus acted as God's double, he certainly revealed the word and the will of the one God. If not ‘wholly human and wholly divine’, Jesus was certainly ‘wholly human and wholly inspired’.
His message and ministry are subversive because they are the key to genuine and definitive liberation. He has emptied himself of desires, dogmas and rules, and wants to show us that the love that we long for in our innermost heart is already present, beyond longing. Eternal life is a synonym for the kingdom of God: a life lived in such a way that the personality becomes transparent and the light of God shines brilliantly through; it is a life lived fully in the present, beyond time.
While Jesus’ basic teaching is on the whole straightforward, even if revolutionary and hard to follow, much of his story is shrouded in myth and symbolism that have great value in expressing the deeper truths towards which we strive as humans.
The virgin birth, the transfiguration, the resurrection and the ascension to sit at God’s right hand all contain hidden meanings, or mysteries, which go far beyond any apparent inconsistency of the bald facts with physical reality as our culture has come to understand it. If we interpret such symbols and myths literally, they are likely to lead to an unnecessarily confused and narrow outlook for the believer and often scornful disbelief from others.
There is a strong case for using religious language to describe these ideas and perhaps to re-mythologise them within today's cultural scene, rather than possibly stripping them of most of their meaning by simply demythologising them.
Is the religion of others true?
We cannot usefully apply the concept of truth to religious ideas.
Consequently, the religious beliefs of others are not ‘wrong’ and we must respect them, especially if that belief is beneficial to their physical, mental and spiritual health. We respect the views of others when we try to understand clearly how their views fall short of helping them live their lives before we can with any Justification even think of changing those views. Some people’s views, however simple they may seem to an outsider, may be adequate for their own lives and may form the reasonable culmination of their development. Such people may be neither willing nor able to try to ‘progress’ further. In trying to put forward new ideas in such circumstances we should perhaps limit ourselves to expressing in a fairly neutral manner a_ possible spectrum of views — on the one hand some hold to this, while on the other hand some even believe that — making it clear that any position within the spectrum may be tenable.
In such a way we would be exposing them to other viewpoints, but in an unthreatening manner.
However, where there is an ongoing one-to-one relationship with someone holding different views there is scope for a sensitive exchange of ideas, leading possibly to either party adopting a more liberating viewpoint.
Where now?
In my tasks in the Methodist Church of local preacher and tutor I find SoF Magazine No. 25, April 1996 myself in one-to-many and one-to-one relationships respectively, and adopt the appropriate approach.
I am fortunate in belonging to a church that tolerates a wide diversity of views and in which I believe that I can act as above, provided that I do so prayerfully, that is, with sympathy, sincerity and creativity. What I would wish to avoid is overtly to confront the doctrines of an_ institutionalised church that, in its traditionalism or its perceived vulnerability, is likely to react in an unexpectedly harsh manner and so curtail my current activities.
Concluding, in something of a bilingual dialect, I am thankful to God as creator for the gift of my life and for the hope of its ideals; to God in Jesus for providing the supreme example for me to respond to in aspiring to those ideals; and to God as Spirit for the boldness and determination that will enable me to live my life to achieve those ideals, while revealing God in part to others through my spontaneous actions. I am also thankful for the continual renewal of my sense of humour that allows me to face up to the many incongtuities of life.