Your reflections on SoF V SEA OF FAITH magazine Invited participants at the fifth annual conference In Leicester to jot down their impressions on paper. Fortunately for the editor, not all the 200-odd attenders responded, but here are some selections from their recollections, to be read alongside the more formal record of proceedings which will be made available separately.
John Challenor of Cardiff was impressed by the internationalist flavour - speakers from New Zealand and Natal, participants from half a dozen countries. "So this is a strong world-wide catholic network, not just some little local bubble... I'm pleased to have gone up for the feast and to have expressed solidarity with Don and others like him who are risking reputation, livelihood and health in the pursuit of their vision of the truth, and in communicating it to the wider world." For Janet Barnard of Gloucester, Don Cupitt's lecture was "the climax of the two days... There was a passionate, prophetic ring to it: the subversive Jesus eluding the Grand Inquisitor. It reminded me of an essay I read in 1987 by Alan Webster, the former Dean of St Paul's - Two mystics for the modern man:
Except you become as a banana skin, You shall in no wise slip into the kingdom of heaven CONFERENCE: FROM PAGE 10 Angela Barkshire of Rickmansworth attended the first conference in 1989, found too many church-goers there and decided to "settle for being a lone humanist". But she found she couldn't resist the "fatal attraction" of SoF and has been coming back each year. She was encouraged to fmd fewer traditional church-goers this year, but "I think the need for a Humanist Christian Church (where what you say is what you mean) might be growing".
Murial Lawton of Scarborough also compared SoF V with its predecessors. "SoF II members were asked to indicate by a show of hands their response to the statement 'God is dead:
Yes, No or Maybe'...At SoF III Ray Billington reminded us that when he had declared that the word God was semantically superfluous in 1971 he was convicted of heresy at a Methodist trial...SoF IV more or less left God alone", but at SoF V "David Patterson invited those in his workshop to 'invent God', but after a most enjoyable session I still wondered whether it was necessary or desirable to use the word 'God' for the experiences we have of the mystery of the universe, the values to which we are committed, etc." Celia Barclay of London: "We basked in the friendship of a congenial crowd. We ate too much. We discussed sex, psychology, myths and make-believe, and the BBC. We didn't have enough exercise and grew sleepy...We experimented with ritual. We worshipped after the manner of Friends. We sat at the bar. And we heard much that reinforced our beliefs, our faith in our own creeativity, that gave us courage to go out and do likewise... "As always, we heard more from the old hands than the new acolytes, which was a pity because it is often among them that are found the sorrowing searcher or the new perception that instructs or makes us reconsider." Rosemarie Wedell of Manchester thought she detected "a sense of anti-rationalism during the plenary sessions. It is one of the frequent criticisms levelled against Don Cupitt and his writings that he is too rationalistic. I would have thought his ideas and message present a fine blend of imaginative and rational thinking with a remarkable amount of erudition supporting it...
Perhaps there are people who believe there is no such thing as imaginative thinking, that the imagination is unreflective, unthinking, just spontaneous. Real spontaneity is the result of much deep and constant reflection and meditation. That is why there are so few really spontaneous people around." Keith Bamford of Knottingly, after taking a swipe (with many others) at the business meeting - "one thing it certainly wasn't was businesslike" - complained that for Ronald Nicholson's lecture on non-realism versus realism in South Africa "a theological dictionary or explanation of technical terms was a necessary adjunct for an audience not composed of theology students". This concern was extended to the whole conference by H W Heslop of Wendover: "The first piece of peculiar jargon I came across was when someone in discussion said "since we believe in a non-realist God..." I wonder whether those within the circles using such terminology realise how peculiar such an expression sounds to those outside. I was startled by it. My initial understanding was that I was hearing speculation on God's opinion about the relationship between language and thought. Those in the know will have realised that the expression actually means "we do not believe in God". Does SoF's exploration really need to develop its own hermetic inspeak, intelligible only to initiates? "It became apparent that the term 'non-realist' was not widely understood by those using it... When 'realism' is used as a pejorative term by those calling themselves non-realists I can only suppose they do not know that they are fighting with shadows. We have no realists nowadays. Ordinary people talking about abstractions such as 'justice' do not suppose the existence of some celestial lumber room where the justice measuring stick is kept... Is it true that you do not understand me when I say that I believe in justice, in world peace, in freedom from hunger? If you understand me when 1 say such things, do you not also understand me when I say that I believe in God? "SoF should offer great possibilities. Taking up entrenched positions and cloaking them in language unintelligible to the mass of people is no way forward." Finally, ,Martin Wood of Melton Mowbray: "While many people seemed to want to move forward from 'what isn't' to 'what is', I found too few people willing to cast their nets, and themselves, into deep and unfamiliar (if not actually treacherous) waters... At some stage, however, the old temple will have to be overthrown - and that will require men and women of courage and conviction. What will replace it?
Maybe a network of people who share and promote a common but forward-looking and adaptable set of values based on the experience of life in the 21st rather than the first century." Apologies to the many others who wrote but can't be fitted in here. All comments will be passed on to the conference committee.
Roll on SoF VI!