This conclusion follows from the themes already stated.
Life ‘after’ death is excluded by the outsideless nature of life: ‘We cannot meaningfully claim that a new post-mortem life will begin after we die, because we have no timescale to which that ‘after’ relates’ (p. 59). And since there is no fullyobjective Truth of things, it is up to us what is true about God, about life, about death: ‘We can go into death kicking and screaming, or we can experience death as blissout. It is rational to prefer blissout’ (p. 103).
The New Creed (N)
When N, which deliberately avoids any of the distinctively Christian vocabulary, is alongside the old Apostles’ Creed (O), then, says Cupitt, ‘they invite the immediate plain-man’s snort of incredulity. How on earth did we get from O to N?’ (p. 5). The book is a sustained answer to that question.
What makes the volume a page-turner is the unresolved tension between the author’s desire for free-floating ‘solar’ living and the obstinate fact of his still being rooted in the Church of England. One minute he assures us that he no longer needs (as in the 1980s) to have his radical views legitimised by the Church, because he no longer holds or desires a bishop’s permission to officiate. Indeed, he has deliberately stopped calling himself a Christian, in order to be free from the requirement ‘to prove my own entitlement to carry a particular brand’. That seems pretty cut and dried.
Yet in the next breath he is saying, ‘I now say only that I ‘practise Christianity’, a phrase that seems to be unobjectionable’ (p. 12). What on earth does that mean?
Unobjectionable to whom? I can hear Richard Dawkins objecting a great deal! Anyway, is not the fine distinction between ‘being a Christian’ and ‘practising Christianity’ a piece of nonsensical philosophical hair-splitting? Maybe the former relates to the old philosophy of substances and things, whereas Don prefers the more fluid language of processes and verbs. Or perhaps the root is theological. Don’s formative years were spent at the more Catholic end of the Church of England, and for Catholics to ‘be a Christian’ means to be baptised; living a ‘Christian’ life is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for the label. Whatever the origin of Don’s distinction, I don’t see its convincing most of his readers. What I do see in it is evidence of his unwillingness to disown either his Christian past or his Christian allegiance.
Just as he is ambivalent about his relation to Christianity, so he is when it comes to the New Age and religion-as-spirituality movements. Towards the end of the book Cupitt asks himself whether he has unwittingly been constructing a philosophical rationale for eclectic, pick-andmix, fringe religion: ‘You will understand my sudden dismay at the thought’ (p. 112, emphasis added). Yes indeed! But will all readers of Sofia share this dismay?
The Sea of Faith Network is a broad spectrum of ‘godless vicars’ at one end and ‘tree-huggers’ at the other; Don has provided inspiration for both groups and for everyone in between, but he does not willingly identify himself with any of us. In his own words (p. 115): ‘I am pursuing something much more radical, namely the coming of a time when the sacred world and the ordinary human life-world simply coincide and we say a wholehearted religious Yes to this mortal life.’ Vintage Cupitt – and much to be welcomed.
Anthony Freeman is a priest in the Church of England and a long-standing member of the Sea of Faith Network.He has been editor of the Journal of Consciousness Studies since 1994.His books include God In Us (2nd ed.Imprint Academic 2001) and Consciousness:A Guide to the Debates (ABC-CLIO 2003).
Anthony Freeman reviews The Old Creed and the New bby Don Cupitt SCM Press (London). 2006. 150 pages. £18.99. ISBN 0334040531. reviews The New Creed (N) N1 True religion is your own voice, if you can but find it.
Review of The Old Creed and the New by Don Cupitt, SCM Press (London). 2006. 150 pages. £18.99. ISBN 0334040531.