154 – In My Exchanges Every Land Shall Walk

Editorial

Dinah Livingstone

This Sofia 154 is entitled In My Exchanges Every Land Shall Walk, a quotation from William Blake’s poem Jerusalem, in which he has a vision of London transformed into the beautiful, fair and kind city, the New Jerusalem. That vision was partly realised in the recent anti-Nazi march in London, a picture of which appears on this Sofia’s front cover. The back cover shows a picture of Exmoor, made over to the National Trust by the Acland family (who had owned most of the moor for centuries) so that everyone is now free to roam on it.

The first article, ‘Kingdom Come’, is by Tony Windross and discusses what did Jesus expect? Did he and his first followers expect that he would return ‘in the lifetime of some of those standing here present’, to establish his kingdom, a kind and just society on Earth?

It seems that he and they did expect that. Two thousand years later it still has not happened. But it is a vision still worth hoping for and working towards. It is already partly realised in London and that recent demonstration was defending it (although they may not have thought the idea came from Jesus).

The next article, by Francis McDonagh, gives some history of the Acland family, long established in Devon. It focuses on the fifteenth baronet Sir Richard Acland, a Christian Socialist who founded the Common Wealth Parliamentary Party in 1942 and made most of his land, including Exmoor, over to the National Trust.

This is followed by Frank Walker on Christmas, the Winter Festival. Then we have a sermon from Anthony Freeman on the rather puzzling phrase ‘God’s Right Hand.’ We have our regular columns, ‘Going Green’ by John Pearson and ‘A Penn’orth’ by Penny Mawdsley, plus Reviews and Letters.

This Sofia 154 is the last I shall be editing. I began with issue 68 and after twenty years it is now time for me to retire. So this, my farewell issue, ends by showing the front covers of all the SOF Network magazines from number 1 to date.

Issues 1-9 were entitled Sea of Faith Magazine and edited by Clive Richards. David Boulton edited issues 10 to 51 (with guest editor Anthony Freeman doing 22-25); and the magazine title became Sea of Faith, SoF, or both together. Paul Overend edited issues 52-67.

I took over as editor with issue 68 and, with number 75, I changed the magazine’s name to Sofia, a feminine noun meaning ‘wisdom’ in Greek. (I was the first woman editor the magazine had had.)

I’d like to thank my fellow SOF trustees who have supported the magazine. And of course, I want to thank all Sofia’s contributors and readers who have enabled it to keep going for 154 issues so far. We have had a good variety of contributors (the editor does not necessarily agree with all the views expressed in magazine; it is a forum). I’d also like to thank our printers Imprint Academic imprint.co.uk in Exeter, who have done an excellent job and always delivered the printed magazine on time.

Sofia has been exploring religion as a human creation – for better or worse. Nearly all cultures have had some form of religion, which has sometimes placated capricious gods in fear (even by engaging in human sacrifice to them) or sometimes fostered human life and fulfilment. Religion has sometimes been focused on a good life (for some or all) on Earth, and sometimes directed towards life after death in another world, with this life on Earth being seen as a ‘vale of tears’.

Religion consists not only of ethics but stories, which may be seen as either given by divine revelation or as ‘poetic tales’. Sofia regards religion – both ethics and stories – as human creations and valuable as such. Art and poetry are necessary to humanity.

The central message of the Christmas story is ‘He came down to Earth from Heaven’: the Divine Word is embodied – human – and ‘laid in a manger because there was no room for him at the inn’. ‘And his shelter was a stable/and his cradle was a stall.’ So even if we regard this story as a ‘poetic tale’, it can still inspire us to look forward to ‘Thy Kingdom come on Earth, as it is in Heaven’, while realising that this must be a wholly human project. Farewell.