A column in which Network members think out loud about SOF and their own quest.
I’ve been a member of Sea of Faith from the beginning. I was thrilled to see the original Sea of Faith documentary in 1984, and even more to read Taking Leave of God (published 1980), in which Don so elegantly articulated what I had long been struggling towards. But having ‘taken leave of God’, I’ve always found it difficult to move on to even bigger and better ideas, let alone practise the morality which flows from this without the threat of an all-seeing God ‘out there’.
However, I have no choice but to try, and life makes infinitely more sense without the burden of trying to believe in any supernatural nonsense.
As Mr Dawkins says, ‘How much miracle do you want?’ I’ve experienced the sublime in the arts and nature – Romeo & Juliet at the Royal Opera House; the Grand Canal by moonlight (I always book trips to Italy over a full moon!); bluebell woods in Sussex – and seeing my last foster cat, Patch, return from tooclose an encounter with the Pearly Gates.
I’ve had the usual big personal disappointments and crises and quite a rackety career life. But it was born-again Christianity which most seriously derailed me and from which I took years to recover. I was a teenager when the Billy Graham thing hit, and at Worthing High School for Girls we were converted in droves. In an excess of religious intensity aged twenty, I decided to nurse and was so unhappy (though I won’t hear a word against Westminster Hospital, then a centre of excellence and culture such as could not exist any longer).
From 1974-79, having at last escaped nursing, I found myself working at Coventry Cathedral as the Public Relations Officer. There I encountered the kind of Christianity which is about ‘life more abundant’ and none of the repressive nonsense I’d previously lived with. Life opened out. I was starting to obsess about traditional Christianity and whether it was ‘true’. Enter Mr Cupitt. I wanted to go to a Eucharist presided over by him, but couldn’t locate a convenient one. A little later there was the furore over Anthony Freeman, when he was dismissed from his parish in Sussex for doctrinal views which were unacceptable to his bishop and I decided to go to his farewell Eucharist. I arranged to stay B&B – but the train broke down and I arrived after midnight, taxi crunching over the gravel of a neo-Gothic vicarage with Salve over the doorway.
Anthony and Jacqueline’s home had that day been staked out by reporters and he was front page news.
As they gave me tea and home-made cake and I met their alluring cat, our best fantasy headline was, ‘Atheist priest has midnight assignation with mystery woman: God stops train.’ I went to a Eucharist this last Easter Sunday though I no longer go to church regularly. I’m so not an Anglo-Catholic, which is the tenor of my local parish church, just 200m down the road. I’d probably find it all more worthwhile if I could sing. I suppose they will one day soon hold a farewell Eucharist and I hope to be there. Other religions have shared meals but none has the symbolic, ritual power of the Eucharist. I hope I never depart from Christianity and am glad that SOF has not totally slipped its Christian moorings. The present logo is fine but I was sorry when the little coracle and cross-shaped mast disappeared.
I’m glad Christianity is a live topic in the media. I think many inside and outside the church are struggling to grow up and be more honest. I often download the sermons of the Rev Lucy Winkett, St James’s Piccadilly, because she expresses Christianity unconfined by repressive doctrines and ignorance, and her sermons are extravagantly generous and open to the arts and politics. The Lenten sermons from SJP have provided me with a rich stream of ideas for reflection.
Last week I went to see Uncle Vanya at Chichester, a fine production, but the relentless themes of wasted lives and despair were not cheering. The final speech with the traditional Christian answer and the idea that one day all the struggle and misery will be over and we must ‘endure’ till then left me feeling glad to have (belatedly) woken up to the possibilities of this life.
Some of my friends say they don’t go to church because they can’t honestly say the Creed. I don’t care about this. I feel it’s all true in some way, myth rather than ‘fact’ – and we know that myths aren’t true or false but rather alive or dead. The Christian narrative and symbols are very alive for me, a kind of magic realism having an important place in our shared cultural imagination. Last July my family organised a stunning celebration for an Important Birthday and, as we were having breakfast, a dove flew into the hotel courtyard. I now have an ornamental dove on my windowsill – the Holy Spirit, Wisdom, Sofia.
I’m the secretary of Sussex SOF. I feel we, SOF, are here, not to proselytise but just so that people like me can meet each other and realise that we are not going mad/about to hit Eternal Damnation/needn’t give up on Christianity if we discard traditional beliefs.