Contents
Articles
- God Bless America, Tim Woodcock
- Eyes on the Skies, Feet on the Ground
- Two Seas? Two Faiths?, John Maindonald
- Shock Horror Leak on Applicants for the Editor's Job
- Sounding Brass, Ian Stubbs
- Welcome, Paul!
- What the Papers Said... about Time and Tide
- News in Brief: John Hunt's New Book and a Shelley Recording
Reviews
- Head and Heart, Hand in Hand, Patti Whaley
- The Religion of Humanity, David Boulton
- Art and Incarnation, Janice Price
Regulars and Occasionals
- Get Surfing, Patti Whaley
- Beachcomber: Cover Story, Alison Webster
- Postscripts: The Koran Con — and Thanks for the Memory, Seafarer, David Boulton
Editorial
Iam a fretter. I have this on no less an authority than that of Dr Leslie Griffiths, author, broadcaster and former Methodist president. The world, he told our conference on faith and politics (reported on page 6), is divided between fretters and strutters. I am a fretter; he is a strutter. His words, not mine.
It was said in the course of a panel discussion following Leslie’s own brilliant address to the conference, and those of Tony Benn and Christine Allen. I kicked off the discussion with a couple of questions arising from what had been said by the three speakers.
First, I asked whether the panel thought that a faith perspective had any distinctive contribution to make to the business of hard choices which day-today politics is all about. Did those who came at political, social and economic issues from a specifically Christian or religious position find they were bringing anything distinctive to the table which “If there were easy answers, there would be nothing to fret about.” find it hard to see what that difference is. When a Government Chief Whip who is both a practising Methodist and a member of the Christian Socialist Movement tells a dissenting MP that she doesn’t accept that war is a matter of conscience, she demonstrates to me that she hasn’t found any linkage between her faith and her politics. We have a government led by Christian Socialists. Has this made any difference? I mean any positive difference?
There is plenty of evidence all around us that secular politics is shaped and sharpened by religious faith. I cite the Taliban, Jerusalem, Belfast, the White House, and our own Prime Minister’s messianic faith in western Christian “civilisation”. What I don’t see is much compelling evidence that religious faith produces better politics, or better politicians. And if it doesn’t, what's its point? But maybe I fret too much...
On the second question, I’m less of a “don’t know”. In fact, I’m probably a bit of a closet strutter, on the quiet. I can’t for the life of me imagine how those who claim to place at the centre of their faith the values of compassion, banging on about it from their pulpits and newspaper columns and SSS their secular or “faith-less” colleagues were missing?
If so, what?
My second question was more specific. All three speakers, in different ways, had stressed the virtue of compassion as one of the bedrocks of a faith-led politics: compassion for the poor, the hungry, the dispossesed and wretched. What position, I asked, did this commitment to compassion lead them to take on the primary issue of the day, the bombing by the richest and most powerful countries in the world of the poorest and most powerless, with the inevitable loss of innocent life and the deepening of the humanitarian catastrophe in Afghanistan?
Leslie responded that I seemed not to be asking the panel but addressing the questions to myself. I fretted too much about these things. “The world is divided into fretters and strutters. You, David, are a fretter. I am a strutter.” I responded that I fretted because these seemed critical questions which I thought needed thinking through, and to which I had no clear answer. “I fret because I don’t know.
Presumably you strut because you do! In which case, please enlighten us!” We were each of us, of course, making debating points - and debating points can enliven as well as sharpen an otherwise placid conference. Leslie went on to address the second question with what I took to be a “don’t know” - which seemed to me to put him squarely in the fretters’ camp!
I’m content to be considered a fretter when it comes to these issues. On the first question, it’s I who am a confused “don’t know”. If a religious faith perspective in politics makes a difference, I confess I broadcasting studios, can possibly support, sanction or even keep discreetly quiet about a response to the terrorism of September 11 which is so grotesquely disproportionate that it involves carpetbombing an already ravaged country, scattering clusterbombs where UN teams have been clearing mines, cooperating in plain, murderous disregard of the Geneva — conventions, and weeping crocodile tears over the hundreds of innocent men, women and children killed or maimed by inevitable “collateral damage”, rendering destitute at least a million men, women and children, and risking turning perhaps millions of Muslim young men into fanatical terrorists. A compassion which doesn’t address all this with a clear, prophetic voice seems to me a pretty phoney compassion.
I asked the question because I wanted to test my own response against those of our speakers. They didn’t disappoint. Leslie himself spoke movingly of how compassion had at first made him critical of western intervention in the Balkans conflict but had subsequently led him to support the forcible overthrow of a regime guilty of acts of genocide. Tony Benn and Christine Allen were both intensely critical of what is being done in our name in Afghanistan.
But no-one offered easy answers. If there were easy answers, there would be nothing to fret about.
The practical application of faith and religious values is easy only to those who believe such values are Godgiven, absolute, and communicated to us as simple do’s and dont’s in holy scripture. Those of us who believe that religious values are human values, to be interpreted and expressed only in the messiness and frailty of human existence, just have to go on fretting away at the answers. editorial Hobsons Farm, Dent, Cumbria LA10 5RF SOF 51 / January 2002 ly | a “God Bless America” magic incantation or Former SOF film reviewer TIM WOODCOCK moved to the United States this summer and found himself an eye-witness to America’s greatest trauma In all the acres of newsprint and spools of broadcasting devoted to September 11th and its aftermath, my favourite vignette is this.
Janice Price is Director of Development, Diocese of Worcester SOF 51 / January 2002 SOF 51 / January 2002 postbag e e Our responsibility In the current political situation, aggression and retaliation will surely only sow more bitterness and hatred; factions will form, tit for tat reprisals will escalate and the underlying problems will never be discussed or solved. Surely we should try to understand what grievances, real or imagined, people have against us, and look at constructive ways to solve problems in an atmosphere of co-operation, recognising our differing needs, but also our commonality.
If, at the end of the day, there are fundamental differences in our beliefs, customs which can not be reconciled, let each faction live in their own way without intervention from or towards others. Where our paths cross, let each be aware of the impact on the other and modify our behaviour where harm might result. We could find a way to live in harmony separately or together as part of our common heritage, this wonderful natural environment.
If our faith is in humanity, not in a supernatural God, then we ourselves must take full responsibility for the world we live in. We must develop ourselves in mind, body and a supra-consciousness of our part in humanity; and we must work peaceably together through mutual help for the greater good of the whole. Can we rise to the challenge?
— Avis Torrance, Teddington
AVIS TORRANCE 24 Manor Road, Teddington TW11 8AB Remembering war I find it hard to believe that I have joined an outfit that opposes a halt in the murderous bombing in Afghanistan.
I grew up in the second world war near Coventry, and remember the terrified huddle of women and children, some of whom we sheltered, that poured from the city each evening as dusk fell. I remember the sickening smell of burned bodies among the fallen masonry.
Christianity owes its name to one of the thousands of political rebels executed by the Superpower of the day.
This war is all about oil! The need to find cheap fuel for the gas-guzzling Gods of America.
— David Fraser, Rugby
A majority on the Steering Committee rejected the editor's motion calling for a halt in the bombing, but as we reported in our last issue, most of those voting against did so because they “took the view that it was inappropriate for Sea of Faith to adopt any line or make any statement on behalf of the membership”. - Editor] Too many words I can’t decide whether to renew my subscription to SOF or not. Theologically I find myself in broad agreement with most of your contributors, certainly with your view that religious faith is a human creation.
But you are all so wordy, so full of well-articulated reasons for believing one thing rather than another.
Surely justifications for religious (or post-religious) ideas come after the event, not before. Surely what is more important than words are the blinding flashes of illumination, the still small voice. And what appeals in religion (and in practically everything else) to most people are the non-rational aspects, the feeliigs it gives expression to, the sense of something beyond language.
If we look at the early history of Christianity, with its appropriation or adaptation of so many pagan practices or ideas (such as the sacred meal, the Good Shepherd, the weighing of souls, holy water), these were not initiated after a committee had argued in their favour. The committee (or conference or Council) may have argued their legitimacy in order to justify their validity against other views. But the action came first. First we feel or see or experience something, and then we argue about it afterwards. I get the impression that most SoF supporters love a good discussion; I would prefer to see a greater emphasis on personal experience.
The ideas of Thomas Kuhn might be helpful here. He argued that when a scientific theory is nearing the end of its useful life, it can no longer explain all the research findings in that area of investigation. Anomalies appear.
But eventually someone comes along with a new theory which allows both the old theory and the anomalies to fit within a new all-encompassing perspective. I think the present stage of “post-religion” is one with a lot of anomalies. We try to fit our present inability to believe in God with our earlier “knowledge” that such a belief is true.
What is crucial here is how we understand the “research” necessary to advance. What will emerge one day won't be theology, psychology, or some form of linguistic theory. We don’t know what it will be; but it is more likely to come, not by discussing, using reasoned arguments for or against what we already know, but from feeling, sensing, using our ability to “humanly create” - in spite of all the difficulties - a meaningful expression of our spiritual sensibility. And that’s what I think SOF ought to be encouraging.
As Duncan Park said (SOF, November 2001: “To hypo or not to hypo: the case for the prosecution”): “If Sea of Faith has any function (or mission) it is to show how creatively real post-realist religion can be done in the post-modern world.” Exactly!
— Michael Fears, Brighton
MICHAEL FEARS baymichael@aol.com 1 Lomond Avenue, Brighton BN1 8SN Religion under fire Religion is in the dock (SOF, November 2001 editorial), yes, and it is a wholly human-made superstructure which has gone wrong, but it has an essential foundation of innate spirituality which we need to rediscover and redevelop. I do not know how we are going to humanise or even secularise much of the wrong and exclusive religion that exists now.
— David Strachan
DavID STRACHAN http://www.davostrac.freeserve.co.uk Should auld aquaintance...
Let me add my voice to the chorus of those who will be regretting your decision to give up the editorship of SOF.
You can count me among the hundreds of thousands whose almost-atavistic affection for the church (instilled by our schooling and upbringing) is increasingly at intellectual odds with what it asks us to believe; and who find that religion, faith, belief are still subjects which many people are chary of talking about.
The arrival every other month of SOF has thus been a regular pleasure and stimulus and it is precisely your inclusive style which I’ve appreciated. Of course I accept the importance of vigorous exploration but one of the wonderful things about SoF is its understanding that there is no single answer. What I’ve enjoyed is the sense that we can each have our own version of God, each different, each personally-tailored, without having to compromise ourselves by signing up to one proscriptive Accepted Version. I hope SoF will worry less about stagnating (I’d rather call it reflecting) than about stamping around exploring for the sake of exploring.
Thanks for having encouraged us to wander through the maze. It’s been reassuring to be in good company and to be challenged without being told what I ought to think.
CHRIS KERR chris@brightfield.co.uk [Thanks to all who have written in similar vein! I hope to reply to each of you personally as soon as possible. - David Boulton] John Hunt is best known to SOF readers as the publisher of the new ‘O’ imprint of books which kicked off with our own Time & Tide anthology.
— Chris Kerr