Jim Davies wonders (page 16) whether our Network is still a “broad church”. Are we sidelining church members? Are we too eagerly accepting the seductive embraces of humanism? I think both fears are based on a misunderstanding — but the misunderstanding may be, at least in part, our editor’s fault.
First, the jibe “and there are some”, referring to church members in SoF. I have it from the editor that this was intended as a dig at those outside the Network who persist in seeing us as a collection of dissidents who have broken away from the churches, synagogues and other religious institutions. It was an ironic (over-ironic?) way of correcting that misapprehension — and a misapprehension it is, as by far the greater part of our membership choose to retain their links with the churches or religious bodies which best speak to their condition.
Some dislike talk of the “death of God”, arguing that their postmodern or nonrealist conception of God is very much alive. Others, like Jim, embrace “death of God” theology as a means of emphasising the break with the realist past. This is a dialogue which is likely to continue, but unlikely to find any final resolution.
Certainly some members criticised what they perceived as Tom Altizer’s loud apocalyptic style at last year’s conference, but his death-of-God message was entirely within the SoF tradition. And those who felt uncomfortable with his impassioned delivery were surely neither “acrimonious” nor “abusive” in expressing their misgivings.
Or post-humanism?
I think Jim is also over the top in describing Mike Jenkins’ review of Stephen Mitchell’s Agenda for Faith as “an all-out attack”. Some (but not all) of Mike’s comments on this book, which SoF was proud to publish, were critical, but may we not criticise each other’s published work within the Network, even the work of our own Chairman Smitch? In any case, Mike’s article was followed by Elizabeth Wilkinson’s much more positive review. Neither is an “official”. view: rather, they represent alternative views within SoF. Evidence, surely, that we are the “broad church” Jim wants us to be, and certainly broader than we would be if only one view were permissible. The Network has never shrunk from controversy, and Agenda for Faith is controversial.
Read it and see!
Jim worries that “the strong current of humanism which seems to be running in the SoF” may be not only sidelining “church members” but also running counter to “the general allegiance of SoF to the postmodernism... of Cupitt”. But if there is a “strong current of humanism” in Sof, hasn’t it been there from the start?
What else is a belief in religious faith as a human creation than an expression of humanism? Clearly that is Cupitt’s view: he does not shy away from the term “humanism”, and in The Religion of Being he writes uncompromisingly that, for the nonrealist, “radical humanism...becomes of course the only option” (p.52).
Surely, what SoF has learnt from the postmodernists Jim cites — Foucault, Derrida, Lacan, Cupitt — is not that humanism is dead but that it too is a human creation: socially conditioned, culturally defined, contingent, flexible. We can be churchgoers (or Quakers, or Buddhists, or members of the religious community of our choice) and humanists.
Officially unofficial Part of Jim’s worry (sorry to go on about it when these “Postscripts” are supposed to provide a lighter touch!) is that our regular page 2 features attempting to answer the question “What is SoF?” may not always get the emphasis right. Too true! But try writing a description of the Network which is completely satisfactory to all its members all the time!
The feature was started in response to readers who told us “Look, the magazine is great for members who are already deep into the Network’s dialogues, but what about something for those who pick it up and want an introduction to what it’s all about?” We could have met this need by drafting an _ official statement, approved by the Steering Committe, or even the AGM, and sticking to it... but that hardly seemed the best option (even if we could get an agreed and coherent statement through our representative structures). Instead we chose to work within the fluid, flexible, undogmatic ethos of the Network, trying to describe in different ways each time just who we are and what we stand for with no statement ever claiming an official stamp of approval.
This means, in practice, that the emphases of these unofficial and unapproved statements may change from version to version. One may major on the organisational aspects of the Network — its local groups, conference, publications, activities.
Another may use the language of theological nonrealism, another may emphasise our inter-faith diversity, another our humanism, our rejection of supernaturalism, our pursuit of a reasonable faith situated in postmodernity —- and so on. Few such attempts to explain and promote our project will meet with the approval of everyone in the Network. But does that matter? Isn’t that the point of flexibility and keeping on the move?
If you’d like to try your hand at contributing a version, please do!
Only remember that you are not offering a personal credo but a temporary, contingent account of what you imagine the Network to be and to stand for, written in terms which will be (a) understood, (b) broadly acceptable to most SoFers, and (c) appealing to the newcomers for whom the feature is intended. We look foward to hearing from you!
Not the ten commandments No takers, then, for my invitation to improve on Bryan Appleyard’s own improvements on the ten commandments. Just a couple of second-hand offers: anon’s “I’m looking for a religion that has the Ten Suggestions”, and Mike Jenkins’ list of Gandhi's “Seven Blunders”: 1. Wealth without work. 2. Pleasure without conscience. 3. Knowledge without character. 4, Commerce without morality. 5. Science without humanity. 6. Worship without sacrifice. 7. Politics without principles.
Three conservative, three liberal, one radical. How’s that for balance?
Mea culpa May I relay the editor’s apologies for some silly mistakes which he failed to spot in proof-reading the last issue.
In Don Cupitt’s 10-point “Democratic Philosophy of Life” (p 4), point 8 should have read “special vocabularies” (not “social”), and point 10 “eternal happiness” (not “uflexibility and keeping on the move” external”). No wonder some readers thought Don unusually obscure!
Those who are using the ten points for discussion, please amend accordingly.
Apologies too to C.AP. Ellis for mis-titling his book A _ Rational Christian by calling it A Rational Christianity, and compounding the mistake by referring in his advertisement to “national Christian solutions” instead of “rational”. Mr Ellis points out that, in quoting from the book, this column referred to only one small part of it. Taken as a whole, he says, the book is “concerned with the accelerating increase of human knowledge that justifies the belief that we can achieve a godlike omnipotence in the not unforeseeable future — whether for good or evil”.
Alas, our proof-reading has some way to go to achieve godlike omnipotence. Final apologies to Ronald Pearse and Stephen Mitchell - and their postmen - for not getting their postcodes quite right. Hopefully we have made the necessary corrections on page 2.