Contents
Articles
- After the Church, Don Cupitt
- Down to Business, Stephen Warnes
- Buddhism: A Godless Faith, Kulananda
- Workshops and Talkshops
- To Build a Movement?, Adam Thomson
- God and the Gothick Novel, Charles Plouviez
- Last Words on Leicester, Adrian Worsfold, Lesley Jane
- The Freeman Saga: What the Papers Say About the Network
Editorial
LIFE AFTER LEICESTER 'Too many notes!' the Emperor complained to Mozart after hearing his Seraglio, and 'Too many words!' may be the complaint of readers on opening this expanded edition of the magazine (Four extra pages! 20% extra FREE!). No pictures. No cartoons. Just a lot of text.
The reason, of course, is that we have taken over the function of providing within one set of covers as complete a report as possible of the Network's annual Conference. This used to be provided separately in the form of transcripts of talks and short reports on workshops and discussion groups, but everyone concerned - not least those who heroically did the transcribing and collating - thought it made sense to use the magazine for this purpose. Thanks to our reporters and to Simon Ratcliffe for organising them - though the editor must take responsibility for the necessarily edited versions which appear here.
No-one, I believe, could glance, let alone read through our Conference coverage without having a sense of a movement which feasts on variety, experiment, breadth of vision, depth of scholarship - and a hell of a lot of fun into the bargain. We may not always know where we are going, but we know sure enough what we have left behind: a superstitious, supernatural world-view fashioned in antiquity, moulded to the needs of Dark Age societies, embellished in medieval times, and now dead but refusing to lie down. It's good to be free of all that, good to shake it off, and good to join with others in constructing a framework of meaning which meets our postmodern condition, drawing on the rich and potent symbols and metaphors of religious language when it helps, and creating new ones when it doesn't.
All of which sounds OK at Leicester in the company of a couple of hundred fellow Seafarers, but may not ring quite so true back in the mundane world. But there is life after Leicester! If SoF was ever just a spark which flared briefly into life once a year, it is more than that now. We have to thank, first, Mr John Selwyn Gummer for his outraged attack on us last year, which promptly doubled our membership. The Bishops of Chichester and Oxford have performed much the same service for us this year, giving Sea of Faith views the widest publicity. When the Sun finds space for us and the Church of England Newspaper splutters about 'Sea of Faith terrorism' we know we are making headway.
That is why, after Conference coverage and comment, most of our remaining space is given over to a summary of the Anthony Freeman affair, as reported in the media. Anthony's brave action, first in writing so simply, clearly and honestly, about his 'conversion experience', and then in refusing to change or withdraw it at his bishop's behest, has taken the God/religion/what's-it-all-about debate into pubs, clubs, even churches.
The saga is far from over. Next May the Bishop of Chichester will decide whether Anthony is fired from his one remaining church job as priest in charge at Staplefield. The decision will determine whether the Church of England is broad enough to open a twentieth century window in its first century tumble-down temple. Those of us who don't belong to the C of E and don't share even Anthony's concept of priesthood and the role of the church will nonetheless give all the backing we can to our Anglican members who will lead the fight against the witch-hunters.
Meanwhile we have our own house to tidy up. The one article we have found space for which is not concerned either with Leicester or Staplefield is Adam Thomson's on our development as an organisation. It's an on-going debate. The Steering Committee is necessarily devoting much time to it, and a working party is grappling with the problem of formulating a Constitution which brings what Quakers call 'proper ordering' to our affairs without damaging the variety, flexibility and informality which have so far characterised our development.
This Conference-report issue of the magazine will be going free to all who attended Conference, regardless of whether or not they are subscribing members of the Network. Please note that future issues will be sent only to subscribing members (£13, or £17 joint membership, £7 students or other low income, £18 overseas - contact Ronald Pearse, address page 2). If you haven't taken the plunge yet, do join us, not only for what you may get out of it but for what you can contribute.
And in the immortal words (or near enough) of a fallen cabinet minister, Don't let the bishops grind you down!
You say: 'the term [atheist] is properly applied to those who reject any concept of God and all forms of religion, and that doesn't include me, or, I imagine, anyone in SoF'. Well, I'm confused as to what you mean by 'rejecting any concept of God' because you go on to say 'We tend to see God as a metaphor,' and later on, 'If the old metaphors seem stilted, or have lost their poetry, then make new ones'. Even as a metaphor, the concept of God does seem stilted to me, and in that sense I do reject it.
Rather than make new metaphors, I prefer to take up your challenge of 'using plain language (if you can find it)'.
You say: 'Some schools of Humanism try to cut out the metaphors of the past, try to start afresh... But all that does is impoverish our language and therefore our lives'.
— Jeremy Du Croz, Witney, Oxfordshire
Sea of Faith is a very clever title and its inventor merits continuing homage. It is evocative and it seems to promise an ever-extending flow of ideas, rich in encouraging inspiration for the human race.
One suspects that the statement of aims was intended to be deliberately controversial - 'to explore and promote religious faith as a human creation' - but there is a certain liberation to it. Of course religions are created by people for people. Tenets of a faith are verbalised by people and passed on person to person. Ultimately they are written down, books are printed and read - all by people.
The term 'religious' is perhaps used in a rather unusual way. Usually one relates it to a belief in a superhuman power often worshipped as a 'Being' - a 'God' in fact.
But never mind, other alternative definitions are available.
In any case, the Plain Martian's Guide (July) removes all ambiguities. 'God' is a metaphor, a symbol. Many, of course, have been encouraged to think anthropomorphically of 'Him' as the old man with the beard. But when we give our minds to the matter, no anthropomorphic figure will actually fill our requirements. We push the metaphors to the limit. The 'Creator', perhaps? The 'Ultimate Cause'? Science lets us go within a split second of the beginning of the universe. And at the other side of that split second? Do we have a 'First Cause'?
Science isn't sure. And if the answer turns out to be No, does 'God' disappear? Ah, but 'He/It' was only a metaphor; just poetical expression representing - what?
The Martian's Guide tells us: ''God' is a symbol of everything we believe to be good, true, honest, lovely, whole, perfect'. Fine. Can we pray to 'It'? Effectively?
That depends on what we mean by 'pray'. So - can half a dozen people get down and pray for their friend who is near to death? Or for enlightenment on a stubborn problem?
We are off into the realm of metaphysics. Can human thought affect the physical outcome of events? What does a healer do that we cannot do? And sometimes at a distance! What do we mean by 'Faith'? What, for that matter, is 'Reality'? Is 'Love' real? Is Hate real?
Come now, these are just symbols. Oh! And 'God'? Is 'He/It' real? Does 'Love' make any difference to the world? That sum total of man's thinking and feeling and sensing and doing packed into a symbol which achieves almost universal meaning - is it 'Real'? Is 'Faith' real?
Is it true that even a small amount of it will achieve miracles? Why does the absence of it leave the human race helpless and without inspiration?
Now we are at the crunch point. Isn't the Sea of Faith as exemplified by its magazine a rather dead sea? Where is all the material which will make our liberated spirits soar?
If its clever title means anything, it surely promises not just an old-fashioned Faith of the past but a vast ocean of Faith gleaned from a whole world of assorted Faiths and from all the triumphs of men's minds and spirits and emotions. A Sea of Faith to set us eagerly greeting each day - shouldering our responsibilities with a new zest; meeting our problems with a great inpouring of wisdom and encouragement and exuberance; bearing our burdens with a new inspired fortitude. That would be good measure to put alongside the loss of a few myths.
In comparison, SoF at present could be operating slightly below its potential, don't you think? The magazine front gives us the posterior of a urinating infant. Five pages are devoted to Art and Sacrilege with headlines featuring that elevating phrase Piss Christ [the title of a work by Serrano discussed by Don Cupitt]. That constitutes thirty per cent of the entire magazine.
The rest of the publication is interesting enough in a plodding kind of way, but where is the inspiration to set the pulse beating a little faster? Where is the material to send us out greeting our neighbours in a more caring way? Where are the words to save us from buckling under the world's news? Where (apart from a quarter of page 19) is there anything to even bring a smile to our faces?
Might it not be thought that the magazine takes away the old myths without supplying any of the 'new wine' to take its place? If Sea of Faith is anything other than a clever title, let us taste the fruits. - A.L. Rogers, 18 Brookhouse Road, Walsall WS5 3AD Spiritual ambition Your No. 14 is excellent and interesting, and completely irrelevant to my needs. It's not a 'torrent of ideas', blueprints, or planning for a situation 'a hundred years from now' that I need but mutual help in the exceedingly complex struggle to regain and retain spiritual ambition.
— A.L. Rogers, Walsall
I'm in the middle of that struggle now. I stick mantras on my wall. Surely other members do the same? Theirs might help me. I pass on mine for this summer: 'A sacred Yes is needed in the play of creating: the spirit now wills its own will; the spirit freed from the world now wins its own world' (Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra). - Rex Gibson, Bankside, Snowshill, Broadway, Worcs WR12 7JU Blake's Gospel The illustration on your cover reminds me of Blake's 'Mock on, mock on, Voltaire, Rousseau... You only piss against the wind, and the wind blows it back again'.
— Rex Gibson, Broadway, Worcs
What did Blake mean, I wonder, by 'There is no Natural Religion', which is printed on the cover of the catalogue of some of his prints and drawings at the Tate Gallery and forms the title page of one of his books or tractates, All Religions Are One? Published about 1788, it was apparently an attack on Deism, proposing that 'He who sees the Infinite in all things sees God'. - Michael Paterson, 24 Adamsrill Close, Enfield EN1 2BP Non-realist Buddhism This may not be a diplomatic moment to say this, after a Buddhist has presented to the SoF Conference and taken it by storm, but I, as a Buddhist myself, would like to warn against a love affair with a religion that can be and frequently is as realist as Christianity can be. As I said in the magazine back in 1990, those of us who would like to interpret Buddhism in a non-real sense need to struggle with the words 'meditation', 'enlightenment' and even 'mystical experience'. I would welcome a debate with other non-realist Buddhists on this. - Mark Rivett, 6 Severn Grove, Canton, Cardiff CF1 9EN LAST WORDS ON LEICESTER Two members give their (edited) overviews of Conference. Adrian Worsfold is a veteran of all six conferences, Lesley Jane an enquiring first-timer.
— Michael Paterson, Enfield
Adrian Worsfold writes: Our sixth conference suffered from some drift. There was no theme. Karen Armstrong was very clear and the discussion was good, but I would have liked her to debate the present period from her own perspective, whether she is anti-realist or waiting in silence for Nothing. Kulananda gave us a missionary speech on Buddhism but, as he said later, would have altered it had he known more about the concerns of Sea of Faith. He could have shown us points of overlap and also criticised post-Christianity where it collapses to a view he holds as better.
— Mark Rivett, Cardiff
LETTER: My thanks to the generous people who contributed to the Bursary Scheme, thereby making it possible for people like me to attend Conference. - A Grateful but Anonymous SoF Member.
— A Grateful but Anonymous SoF Member