9 – Sofia 9

LETTERS THE SMALL CHANGE OF SILENCE from Don Cupitt (Cambridge) Many congratulations on SOFMAG #8, a splendid issue, and surely the best yet. Its arrival reminds me that many Network members will have heard that I have been having health problems. Perhaps you will allow me to use the magazine to let people know what the position is.

Last summer's voice problems worsened in the autumn, and finally I went on sick leave in October.

Two different ENT surgeons eventually diagnosed 'dysphonia' and recommended speech therapy. There is, however, a certain persisting conflict of interpretations : the voice people I have consulted put it all down to mechanical faults (poor posture, breathing, voice production and so forth), correctable by practice and exercises. The psychology people say ... well, it's only too obvious what they say.

During the autumn I became very isolated and frustrated and it became clear that I must make an effort to get back to work. I resigned from the College Deanship in order to be free to concentrate on at least minimal performance of the duties of my university lectureship. I started in January, with research students helping at the lectures. We have managed to scrape by but it has been a slow business.

I have now completed a term back at work and the outlook seems brighter. Recovery proceeds, but it is irregular and frustratingly slow. Since people have asked, I should say that I hope and expect to attend SOF V in July with a new piece. By the way, the Talk Outlines printed in recent issues of SOFMAG were used for some of the lectures in New Zealand.

Transcribed and edited, they will be published in Wellington as Rethinking_ Religion, in the same format as Lloyd Geering's recent work.

With What is_a_Story_2_ and The Time. Being, that makes three things in a year, not to mention a good deal else besides. No wonder I blew a gasket, and no wonder I've had so many I-told-you-so letters from kind friends. I shall clearly have to change down a gear or two from now on and, as it has turned out, a fallow year will surely be no bad thing. Everyone has been telling me that the whole experience is teaching me some important lessons that I should have learnt long ago ; and everyone is of course absolutely right.

— Don Cupitt, Cambridge

PARISH MAGAZINES from Janet Jones (Saltford) Keith Whyte (SOFMAG #8) asks that those of us who are still active in our local churches should share our experiences of how to include non-realist theology in public worship. I cannot reply to that directly but I have used the parish magazine as a way of presenting a different point of view from that which is preached in the pulpit. 850 copies of the magazine are printed each month for sale in three villages so there must be a readership of over a thousand people.

My last two pieces are given below, and one from 1987, to show what the lay editors have accepted. [FEBRUARY 1992] The Royal Institution Christmas lectures for children were given this year by Dr Richard Dawkins. This was one of the most fascinating set in this annual series that I have seen on BBC2.

I was reminded that some of us from Saltford went to hear Bishop David Jenkins give a lecture entitled "From Selfish Gene to Divine Community - Reflections on the Future of God".

Bishop Jenkins had been reading Richard Dawkins' books The_Selfiah Gene and The Blind Watchmaker and Stephen Hawking's book A Brief History of_Iime. The authors are very eminent scientists but the books were written for the general reader and have become best-sellers. Bishop Jenkins gave a passionate and thought-provoking lecture about his understanding of the concept of God in the light of the present scientific description of the nature of the universe and of life on this planet.

I wish that more people in our churches would have the courage to explore modern ideas because youngsters today are growing up in a world where the developments in scientific, historical and cultural studies are taken for granted. In the past, Christianity has had to face the challenges of new thought and it has done so not by ignoring that thought but by examining it and often incorporating it into its structures. Christianity has changed over the centuries and unless it goes on changing it will become a dead faith belonging only to the past.

The younger generation are looking for a living faith which will take them on into the future. Such a faith 6 SOF Magazine 9, Spring 1992 will need to be free from dogma and it should help people to live together in peace, to overcome injustice in the world and to find meaning and purpose for their lives. [NOVEMBER 1991] There are only two readings from the Book of Daniel in the ASB Lectionary for the Sunday Service of Holy Communion. The one for Pentecost 20 is the extraordinary story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego in the burning, fiery furnace.

What a marvellous story this is but it ought to be preceded by a health warning when read in Church.

By this I mean that it should have a few words of introduction to explain that the Book of Daniel was written some time between 167 and 164 BC during the persecution of the Jews by Antiochus Epiphanes and before the Maccabean revolt. The message of the book is a call to Jews to endure and to maintain their faith and hope in God and to look forward to a time when God's kingdom will be established.

The extract from Daniel is a good example of religious truth being carried by a very colourful story.

If we forget what wonderful story-tellers the Jews were we deny ourselves access to the profound religious truth which lies beneath the details of many of the biblical stories. Many people, inside and outside the Churches, will dismiss the story of the fiery furnace as ludicrous if it is presented as literally true but such people might respond if they were helped to explore beneath the surface details. [MARCH 1987] Every Monday in the Guardian newspaper there is an article under the heading `Face to Faith'. For almost a year different writers have been exploring their understanding of the nature of religion and of what it means to be a Christian today. These articles and the letters in response are clear evidence that a growing number of people who have come to realise that what distinguishes a Christian from his neighbours is the way he chooses to live his life. (For "he", also read "she".) The nature of belief is now so variable that it is no longer a distinguishing feature. Within the Anglican Church there is a great diversity of belief, but the practice of Christianity is fairly uniform. Many evangelical members of the Church have asked the Bishops for clear teaching, but what the evangelicals regard as clear teaching will be a stumbling block for many others.

Don Cupitt's latest book, Life Lines, gives a masterly review of the different types of religious personality and of religious experience. The aspect of Christianity which a person holds to be of greatest value will depend on that person's experience of life and will change as the person's experience changes. No two people have identical life experiences and therefore it is to be expected that each person will have his own unique response to Jesus Christ. If only this diversity could be more widely recognised and tolerated.

Christians would spend less time defending their own positions and criticising those who take a different stance. They might even set about establishing the Kingdom of God on earth.

— Janet Jones, Saltford

NO MORE SERMONS from John Coombes (Burnham on Sea) I was rather surprised by the spirited response to my article in SOFMAG #7 (The_Question), surprised but rather gratified. It would seem, from this and other correspondence that I have received, that a number of readers saw in my dilemma a reflection of their own. Much of the comment and advice was helpful, and indeed constructive, and has provided me with much food for thought. However, I shall accept what I can of the advice offered and reserve judgement on the remainder.

I shall not, I believe, return to the pulpit, for more than one reason. In the first place, the sermon is, in my view, an appendage to any of the great offices of the church and therefore expendable. Secondly, I do not consider the sermon to be an adequate vehicle for the examination of religious issues, radical or otherwise. Its unilateral and traditionally hortatory format goes against the grain so far as I am concerned. I prefer, and shall seek to establish in time, a more dialectical approach to the matters which concern us here.

My first step in this direction has been through letters to my own diocesan newspaper and, in a less challenging manner, letters to my own parish magazine. These have aroused a good deal of comment, mostly favourable, from people I have met and in the replies printed. All have appreciated that my aim has been to promote a more thoughtful, i.e. critical, attitude to what the church teaches ; an attitude which seeks reinforcement of positive elements of belief, for example - showing how symbolism can still have value, rather than mere wholesale demolition of the belief system.

My second step has been to found a philosophical society, meeting on a monthly basis, in which various issues in both pure and popular philosophy are aired.

Our speakers come from all walks of life and have widely differing views on such topics as politics and religion. What has become apparent already is the strong interest in religion among thinking people who have no formal church affiliation. I have felt that many of them are very near to positions which we in SOF hold and try to foster. Indeed, it led me to think that perhaps this field, beyond the bounds of church congregations, is the one we should be exploring and developing in the future. It is surely destined to be more productive in the short run, and probably the long run as well.

— John Coombes, Burnham on Sea