47 – Time for a New Reformation

Nonrealism is a force of great revelation, the most significant response possible to the postmodern human condition. However, to lead a religious life endowed with these insights seems to pose two problems.

Firstly, is it possible to remain a member of a religious group which believes primarily in realist doctrines?

Although I can remain friendly with evangelical, literalist Christians, I find true dialogue uncomfortable because of their rigid acceptance of notions such as heaven and hell, or divine intervention in prayer. There is a strong temptation not to offend, and I suspect that most SoF members find difficulty in proselytising. Should the Sea of Faith act like a spiritual yeast, fermenting the inertness of all categories of belief, or will it be forced, by its own radical nature, into a sectarian corner?

The second problem is action in the world. Realist religious belief has often been associated with certitude and vehemence, often violently imposing its own particular form of meaning. Nevertheless, the conviction with which realist believers have asserted their values has often radically transformed the lives of individuals and societies - think of Methodism, or the Salvation Army. Is there not a danger that the Sea of Faith might become an oasis for quietism, a meditation on the cloud of unknowingness? Living and responding to others in this world of signs will require a great spiritual discipline.

— Tony Knight, Beverley, East Yorkshire

TONY KNIGHT 5 Elmsall Drive, Beverley, East Yorkshire HU17 7HL tony@knight.karoo.co.uk Merchants of death I don't recall any whisper of protest about the UK being Number 2 in the international league of arms sellers. Is this a blind spot in our consciousness? Do thousands of crippled women and children mean nothing to our intellectual musings?

— David Fraser, Rugby

DAVID FRASER Newton Cottage, Newton, Rugby CV23 0ED Letters to Auntie The BBC continues to run down its religious and ethical programme making (and like ITV etc. putting any they SOF 47 / May 2001 Send your letters to:

Patti Whaley Letters Editor SOF 145 Petherton Road London N5 2RS email 101335.3561 @compuserve.com do on at midnight). I think the SoF should make representations to the BBC in protest at this. I am sure that if we could write in as individuals but stating our SoF membership, plus writing in collectively via the Steering Committee, then the BBC at least would have to realise that many people object, not to increasing secularism, but to an ever-increasing attitude of expediency.

I am not demanding more "religious" broadcasting as such and certainly not exclusively Christian. Indeed I find it ironic that the lessening of exclusively Christian TV or radio has not meant a broadening out to cover more faiths; rather it has meant the deletion of any reference to any sort of ideal systems. When broadcasters say that people are not religious any more I feel they are misreading the situation. The religious impulse is embedded in everyone but is often expressed today through football, gardening or a sentimentalism of "the family".

SoF is well placed to remind broadcasters that a lot of us appreciate well-made, thoughtful programmes on these matters.

— Jane Baker, Fishponds, Bristol

JANE BAKER 17 Gorse Hill, Fishponds, Bristol BX16 4EG Cultural contraceptive of the West?

For those able to avoid the mental paralysis of orthodoxy, a simple question needs to be answered: what was the real reason for the replacement of the myths of paganism by those of Christianity 2000 years ago? Christian, humanist and SoF literature may be searched in vain for a plausible answer.

It is easy to understand how the two most important Christian festivals, Christmas and Easter, were transformations of existing pagan ceremonies. It is also easy to understand how the Latin cross, "the new symbol of eternal life", was derived from the male ithyphallus.

What is not so clear is what the circumstances were that prompted the replacement of the pagan by the Christian myths and symbolism. The worship of fertility and the stimulation of human sexuality characteristic of much of earlier pagan society, necessary to maintain an adequate level of population in the difficult conditions of the time, had become too successful and therefore redundant. This is consistent with the fact that Rome had great difficulty in finding sufficient food for its population at the beginning of the Christian era, it being necessary, for instance, to import grain from the North African littoral. The pagan fertility practices were no longer appropriate and had to be actively discouraged.

Support for this theory is found not only in the absence of any trace of sexuality in the new god (in contrast to earlier pagan gods) but also in the detachment of the calendar months from the lunar months. By that detachment the moon, always regarded as feminine and therefore symbolic of human fertility, was made subordinate to the sun, symbolic of the fertility of the fields. This was consistent with the proscription of any suggestion that religious practices should concern themselves, as hitherto, with the encouragement of human sexuality and fertility. This revolutionary discouragement, and indeed suppression of practices associated with the stimulation of sexual desire, has been a characteristic of Christianity down the ages and is, of course, still with us today.

— Bernard W Soole, New Malden, Surrey

BERNARD W SOOLE 19 Woodside Road, New Malden, Surrey KT3 3AW bwsoole@globalnet.co.uk cleverness is valued above all, leaving quieter, harder-toacquire qualities like humility and compassion way behind in the running. Ben Okri's Astonishing the Gods suggests invisibility as the highest form of spiritual development: perhaps balancing that with the necessity for "promotion" would be a useful exercise in reconciling opposites.

Finally I have to say that I found the cover of SOF 46 not only repellent, but also pointless, having little in common with David Bryant's thoughtful article.

— Janet Taylor, Skipton

JANET TAYLOR Barn Garth, Litton, Skipton BD23 5QJ Origin of speciesism You appeal for funds, but I cannot fully support the SOF while you continue to concentrate on the human superstructure of religion and ignore its foundation in the spirituality of nature. To me this is speciesism - close to racism.

— David Strachan, Hessle

DAVID STRACHAN 2 West Hill, Hessle HU13 OER SoF dogma I hope that Sylvia Batley's fear of a split in the SoF network ("Hostile to mysticism", SOF 46, March 2001) will be unfulfilled, but I share her, and Rosemary Arthur's, discomfort.

There is a danger that SoF creates its own dogma - in particular that there is nothing in our experience which is not humanly created. When we explore the innerness of our own selves we discover something mysterious and sacred which we cannot claim to have made, something which many would describe as "God in us".

That does not mean we subscribe to a crude supernaturalism.

— None

Why does SoF feel the need to state categorically, for instance, that there is no afterlife? Why not just say "We don't know"? , Or are we so keen on our intellectual powers that we have to provide an explanation for everything? I sometimes get the impression from the magazine that Error of judgement I'm rather worried about the cover chosen for SOF 46. I feel that it is lacking in taste and shows little consideration for the many seekers for whom the various myths, Christian or otherwise, are necessary as a part of their spiritual growth.

We outgrow our myths but, while they are meaningful to us, it may cause pain to have them rubbished. A gentle listening and understanding may be a better way of leading a person towards new pastures.

— Norman Richardson, Ashwell, Rutland

NORMAN RICHARDSON 17 Water Lane, Ashwell, Rutland LE15 7LS [We received four letters (including one cancelled subscription) expressing concern about our cover picture of Jesus as a 1960s hippy. It was intended to draw attention to David Bryant's article on Jesus’ use of humour (though David was not consulted about it). The line between images which may shock us into different ways of thinking and those which simply provoke distaste is notoriously difficult to draw to everyone's satisfaction, and to those who feel I made an error of judgement on this occasion I apologise. - David Boulton] Freeman's Christian humanism Anthony Freeman's article ("Christian Humanism: a Gospel to Proclaim", SOF 45, Jan 2001) is one of the first I have read that attempts to get to grips with the problems that arise in the SoF agenda.

The idea that "all deities reside in the human breast", that God and religion are creations of the human imagination, will seem to one camp to diminish unacceptably both God and religion, and to others obvious and therefore not so much to diminish religion as to set it in its proper place as a work of the imagination.

A Christian Humanist or SoF viewpoint could be seen as somewhere in the middle, and could hopefully sort out some of the confusion. Although both of the - above camps reach very different conclusions, they SOF 47 / May 2001 come to them for the same reasons, which seem to be embedded in our cultural make-up, in the way we value the human imagination (or not) and the way we embody and view those qualities we call the mind /body or the physical/spiritual. Freeman's use of emergence seems to be going some way towards dealing with some of these issues.

As an artist Iam frequently asked (in reference to my work) if lam "some sort of a Christian". I never really know what to say. The things we create can sometimes run before us. I suppose I am hoping that it might be possible to re-present Christian imagery and drag it away from the grip of the church.

— Christopher J Clack

CHRISTOPHER J CLACK chris@clackmeade.fsnet.co.uk Lose the adjectives Reading Robert Ashby's article ("Humanism without Adjectives", SOF 45, January 2001) rang bells of other quotes, such as: "Man come of age” and "religionless Christianity”.

Surely, this is what both Robert Ashby and Dietrich Bonhoeffer had in mind: It is the mature adult man and woman who learns to articulate a "religionless Christianity", i.e. a Christian language without an endless body of adjectives like divine, eternal, supernatural, immortal etc. attached to nouns like God, Eternity, Heaven, Immortality and so on. As long as we hold on to the nouns, we will be coining and attaching adjectives to them. So, the nouns must go too!

— Rosemary Weddell, Manchester

Your rewrite of the ten hypotheses in the March magazine was brilliant. Wholly inclusive: nothing any realist or nonrealist or polyrealist like me could object to, but at the same time very meaningful! Well done!

— Frederic Lamond

FREDERIC LAMOND lamond@net4you.co.at ---or not The review of Doctorow's City of God (SOF 46) and the revised ten hypotheses have been helpful in clarifying my mind.Your ten hypotheses seem to me to be too wordy and complex - a sort of Westminster Confession for agnostics, and about as much help. I don't see any need for us to cluster around words.

But E L Doctorow wants to reinvent God and so do I.

I don't see why we can't retain the bathwater and reinterpret the myths we've already got.

— John Macdonald Smith, Evesham

JOHN MACDONALD SMITH The Old Shop, 38 Main Road, Norton, Evesham WR11 4TL macsmith@bushinternet.com Powerful Thanks for the magazine. In particular, I found your 10 Hypotheses very powerful.

— Tony Benn, London