144 – That’s the Spirit!

Editorial: That's the Spirit!

The title of the 2021 Non-Theists Friends' annual conference was That's the Spirit! There were three keynote speakers and, after the conference, recordings of their talks went up on the website nontheist-quakers.org.uk. Now they have kindly given permission for Sofia to transcribe and publish written versions of two of these talks. The first talk was given by Andrew Copson, the chief executive of Humanists UK. He discusses 'humanist spirituality', an idea that some humanists would reject as a deplorable oxymoron.

This Sofia is published at Pentecost (5^th June this year) and our front cover shows the Holy Spirit descending in tongues of fire upon the small group of Jesus's followers huddling in the upper room. It transforms them into a body of people filled with one spirit: They become allegro con spirito. In fact people think they are drunk!

The Non-Theist Friends' conference last year took place at the same time as the Euro football championship and this Sofia's back cover shows the England team taking the knee in solidarity with black players and other black people who suffer abuse. That's the spirit!

Next we have Dominic Kirkham's article exploring how the icon of St George has been hijacked as an imperialist nationalist symbol by Putin in his unholy war, supported by Kirill, Patriarch of Moscow. Carol Palfrey revisits William James's Varieties of Religious Experience – spiritual experiences. Frank Walker disagrees with 'no-funeral funerals'.

The second in our series of 'New Testament Poems and Proclamations' is Mary's Magnificat in Luke's gospel, the song which she sings, 'filled with the spirit', on her visit to her cousin Elizabeth when they are both pregnant. The feast of the Visitation is usually celebrated on 31^st May, in time for this Sofia. The Magnificat is a subversive song and has been banned in several countries in Latin America and even in British India.

You will see below an announcement of the forthcoming SOF Annual Conference, which will be on Zoom again. We hope as many people as possible will be able to join.

Dinah Livingstone

Letters to the Editor

Not Jesusian but Christian

I enjoyed Mark Dyer's stimulating article in Sofia 143. Two things worry me. While it's interesting to know what a particular Jew who lived 2000 years ago might have taught, that gives us no reason to follow him. We don't follow anyone's teaching unless we think it has something going for it. Does it matter who told the story of the Good Samaritan and whether the details are correct? And as far as I can tell, Jesus didn't teach that much. Rather he stimulated thought and action through parables.

Secondly, church members don't call themselves Jesusians but Christians. That's because we don't start with an assessment of a man who lived 2000 years ago. We start with the church, its worship, its communal attempt to be 'the body of Christ'. We start with the 'spirit of God', the fountain of life, in which we are baptised and in which we live and move and have our being.

Now I'll be the first to admit the dreadful and wicked short-comings of the church, past and present. But I don't think its future lies in resurrecting teachings of a 2000 year old man, but in breathing new life into such images as the body of Christ and spirit of God. At its best, that's what SOF does. And in that, I think lies its future.

Stephen Mitchell, Great Waldingfield

News from Don Cupitt

May I again beg a little space in your columns? On May 22 I pass my 88th birthday, and I have aged badly. I'm frail, but still thinking.

As I now see it, we live towards the end of one of the greatest cultural transformations in human history – the gradual changeover from a civilisation based on religion to one based on science and critical thinking. The TV documentary series was a series of studies of facets of the changeover. The new kind of society is so powerful that today we look our own self-destruction in the face. Our thinking turns towards a new idea: the primacy of ethics, especially in our understanding of Christianity.

Enough: I'm very old now!
Love,
Don

Thank you, Life!

Your Editorial caused me to well up with emotion; because I am so very grateful to have had the gift of life, to spend more time with the friends, and man, I love.

Mercedes Sosa is one of my favourite singers: have you heard her version of the Misa Criolla, by Ramirez? I also enjoy the singing of Maria Farantouri, from Greece. She also sings Gracias a la Vida. What caused my tears was your translation of Gracias a la Vida, with its mature recognition that human life contains suffering and pleasure. Grief is the price we pay for love. Your Editorial was wonderful: full of hope and awe at creation, and our ability to experience it.

Thank you, Dinah.
Mark Dyer, Wiveliscombe, Somerset

Human Nature

In a letter prompted by my article 'Now that it has Happened' in Sofia 142, Michael Hell (Sofia 143) implies that one should not judge oneself too harshly against impossible standards but, when I think about it, that judgement itself illustrates the point I was trying to make. Unfortunately, human beings, neither selfish nor unselfish (ref. David Rhodes's musings on human nature in Sofia 143) but a muddle of the two, are concerned with their daily lives in familiar circumstances and the long known and widely recognised catastrophe facing us may be discussed academically but action is always postponed.

Of course, our institutions are unfitted for cooperation. Some people, by the way, have congratulated me on my piece, but they say it is nicely expressed or an intriguing story. Meanwhile, we carry on like the introduced species in Australia, out of harmony, with no restraint.

Digby Hartridge, Yate, Bristol