What happens is religious and secular intercourse, making for a 21st century gospel: religious humanism.
On Saturday September 16th 130 members of Sea of Faith and Humanist organisations joined together in Friends House, London, for a conference on religious humanism, organised by SOF and supported by the network's steering committee.
This SPECIAL SOF REPORT contains the text or notes of all five principal addresses. Valuable contributions were also - made by representatives of South Place Ethical Society, Rationalist Press Association, Quaker Universalist Group, Unitarians, and individual participants.
SOF editor David Boulton chaired the conference and opened it by asking "What on earth is religious humanism?" Not a half-way-house between old-style religious belief and contemporary unbelief, he suggested, but a fully-fledged humanism which values religious culture as itself an expression of the wholly human spirit (page 6) Don Cupitt said the radical religious humanist is one who seeks to exchange "church" for "kingdom" ways of thinking and living (page 10) In his paper for the conference (which he was unable to deliver because of family illness) Anthony Freeman explained why as a Christian he finds a humanist approach to religion makes more sense than a supernatural one (page 11) Patti Whaley, speaking in her personal capacity, used her experience at Amnesty International to draw together the threads of humanism, humanitarianism and the secular religion of human rights (page 14) And Robert Ashby, director of the British Humanist Association, pleaded for a "non-adjectival humanism", neither religious nor anti-religious, working together for a more humane ‘.. world (page 18) = So what do you think? Our Letters editor is waiting to hear from you!