Sea of Faith
Encyclopedia
History
The SoF movement started in 1984 as a response to Don CupittDon Cupitt
Don Cupitt is an English philosopher of religion and scholar of Christian theology. He is an Anglican priest, heretic and an emeritus professor of the University of Cambridge, though is better known as a popular writer, broadcaster and commentator...
's book and television series
Sea of Faith (TV series)
Sea of Faith was a six-part documentary television series, presented on BBC television in 1984 by Don Cupitt. The programme dealt with the history of Christianity in the modern world, focussing especially on how Christianity has responded to challenges such as scientific advances, political atheism...
, both titled Sea of Faith. Cupitt was educated in both science and theology at the University of Cambridge in the 1950s, and is a philosopher, theologian, Anglican priest, and former Dean of Emmanuel College, Cambridge
Emmanuel College, Cambridge
Emmanuel College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge.The college was founded in 1584 by Sir Walter Mildmay on the site of a Dominican friary...
. In the book and TV series, he surveyed western thinking about religion and charted a transition from traditional realist religion to the view that religion is simply a human creation.
The name Sea of Faith is taken from Matthew Arnold
Matthew Arnold
Matthew Arnold was a British poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools. He was the son of Thomas Arnold, the famed headmaster of Rugby School, and brother to both Tom Arnold, literary professor, and William Delafield Arnold, novelist and colonial administrator...
's nostalgic mid 19th century poem Dover Beach
Dover Beach
"Dover Beach" is a short lyric poem by the English poet Matthew Arnold. It was first published in 1867 in the collection New Poems, but surviving notes indicate its composition may have begun as early as 1849...
, in which the poet expresses regret that belief in a supernatural world is slowly slipping away; the "sea of faith" is withdrawing like the ebbing tide.
Following the television series, a small group of radical Christian clergy and laity began meeting to explore how they might promote this new understanding of religious faith. Starting with a mailing list of 143 sympathisers, they organised the first UK conference in 1988. A second conference was held in the following year shortly after which the SoF Network was officially launched. Annual national conferences have been a key event of the network ever since.
Organization
The Sea Of Faith Network holds national and regional conferences and promotional events each year. There is an active network of local groups who meet regularly for discussion and exploration.The group's magazine Sofia is published bi-monthly in the United Kingdom. It has a circulation beyond the SoF membership. The group also maintains a web site http://www.sofn.org.uk and an on-line discussion group.
Currently there are national networks in the UK, New Zealand and Australia with scattered membership in the USA, Northern Ireland, South Africa, France and The Netherlands. The world-wide membership, as of 2004, stood at about 2,000. Each national network is run by a steering committee elected from its members.
Beliefs
SoF has no official creed or statement of belief to which members are required to assent, seeing itself as a loose network rather than a formal religious movement or organisation. Its stated aim is to "explore and promote religious faith as a human creation". In this it spans a broad spectrum of faith positions from uncompromising non-realism at one end to critical realism at the other. Some members describe themselves as on the Liberal or Radical wing of conventional belief (see Liberal ChristianityLiberal Christianity
Liberal Christianity, sometimes called liberal theology, is an umbrella term covering diverse, philosophically and biblically informed religious movements and ideas within Christianity from the late 18th century and onward...
) while others choose to call themselves Religious or Christian Humanists (see Humanism
Humanism
Humanism is an approach in study, philosophy, world view or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. In philosophy and social science, humanism is a perspective which affirms some notion of human nature, and is contrasted with anti-humanism....
). Some even refer to themselves as agnostic, atheist or nontheist.
SoF possesses no religious writings or ceremonies of its own; many members remain active in their own religion (mainly but not exclusively Christian) while others have no religious affiliation at all.
Philosophy
SoF is most closely associated with the non-realist approach to religion. This refers to the belief that God has no "real", objective, or empirical existence, independent of human language and culture; God is "real" in the sense that He is a potent symbol, metaphor or projection, but He has no objective existence outside and beyond the practice of religion. Non-realism therefore entails a rejection of all supernaturalism, including concepts such as miracles, the afterlife, and the agency of spirits.Cupitt wrote, "God is the sum of our values, representing to us their ideal unity, their claims upon us and their creative power". Cupitt calls this "a voluntarist interpretation of faith: a fully demythologized version of Christianity". It entails the claim that even after we have given up the idea that religious beliefs can be grounded in anything beyond the human realm, religion can still be believed and practised in new ways.
Founder's influence
Since he began writing in 1971, Cupitt has produced 36 books. During this time his views have continued to evolve and change. In his early books such as Taking Leave of God and The Sea of Faith Cupitt talks of God alone as non-real, but by the end of the 1980s he moved into postmodernismPostmodernism
Postmodernism is a philosophical movement evolved in reaction to modernism, the tendency in contemporary culture to accept only objective truth and to be inherently suspicious towards a global cultural narrative or meta-narrative. Postmodernist thought is an intentional departure from the...
, describing his position as empty radical humanism: that is, there is nothing but our language, our world, and the meanings, truths and interpretations that we have generated. Everything is non-real, including God.
While Cupitt was the founding influence of SoF and is much respected for his work for the network, it would not be true to say that he is regarded as a guru or leader of SoF. Members are free to dissent from his views and Cupitt himself has argued strongly that SoF should never be a fan club. Both Cupitt and the network emphasise the importance of autonomous critical thought and reject authoritarianism in all forms.
See also
General- Dover BeachDover Beach"Dover Beach" is a short lyric poem by the English poet Matthew Arnold. It was first published in 1867 in the collection New Poems, but surviving notes indicate its composition may have begun as early as 1849...
- Sea of Faith (TV series)Sea of Faith (TV series)Sea of Faith was a six-part documentary television series, presented on BBC television in 1984 by Don Cupitt. The programme dealt with the history of Christianity in the modern world, focussing especially on how Christianity has responded to challenges such as scientific advances, political atheism...
- The Way of Cross and DragonThe Way of Cross and Dragon"The Way of Cross and Dragon" is a science fiction short story by George R. R. Martin. It involves a far-future priest of the One True Interstellar Catholic Church of Earth and the Thousand Worlds investigating a sect that reveres Judas Iscariot...
Religion
- Christian humanismChristian humanismChristian humanism is the position that universal human dignity and individual freedom are essential and principal components of, or are at least compatible with, Christian doctrine and practice. It is a philosophical union of Christian and humanist principles.- Origins :Christian humanism may have...
- FundamentalismFundamentalismFundamentalism is strict adherence to specific theological doctrines usually understood as a reaction against Modernist theology. The term "fundamentalism" was originally coined by its supporters to describe a specific package of theological beliefs that developed into a movement within the...
- Heresy in the 20th centuryHeresy in the 20th centuryAlthough less common than in the medieval period, formal charges of heresy within Christian churches still occur. Key issues in the Protestant churches have included modern biblical criticism, the nature of God, and the acceptability of gay clergy...
- Liberal ChristianityLiberal ChristianityLiberal Christianity, sometimes called liberal theology, is an umbrella term covering diverse, philosophically and biblically informed religious movements and ideas within Christianity from the late 18th century and onward...
- Liberal religionLiberal religionLiberal religion is a religious tradition which embraces the theological diversity of a congregation rather than a single creed, authority, or writing...
- Modernism (Roman Catholicism)Modernism (Roman Catholicism)Modernism refers to theological opinions expressed during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but with influence reaching into the 21st century, which are characterized by a break with the past. Catholic modernists form an amorphous group. The term "modernist" appears in Pope Pius X's 1907...
- Progressive ChristianityProgressive ChristianityProgressive Christianity is the name given to a movement within contemporary Christianity characterized by willingness to question tradition, acceptance of human diversity with a strong emphasis on social justice or care for the poor and the oppressed and environmental stewardship of the Earth...
- ReligionReligionReligion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...
- Religious humanismReligious humanismReligious humanism is an integration of humanist ethical philosophy with religious rituals and beliefs that center on human needs, interests, and abilities.-Origins:...
- Religious Society of FriendsReligious Society of FriendsThe Religious Society of Friends, or Friends Church, is a Christian movement which stresses the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers. Members are known as Friends, or popularly as Quakers. It is made of independent organisations, which have split from one another due to doctrinal differences...
(Quaker) - Unitarian UniversalismUnitarian UniversalismUnitarian Universalism is a religion characterized by support for a "free and responsible search for truth and meaning". Unitarian Universalists do not share a creed; rather, they are unified by their shared search for spiritual growth and by the understanding that an individual's theology is a...
Humanism
- AgnosticismAgnosticismAgnosticism is the view that the truth value of certain claims—especially claims about the existence or non-existence of any deity, but also other religious and metaphysical claims—is unknown or unknowable....
- AtheismAtheismAtheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities...
- Bright (movement)
- British Humanist AssociationBritish Humanist AssociationThe British Humanist Association is an organisation of the United Kingdom which promotes Humanism and represents "people who seek to live good lives without religious or superstitious beliefs." The BHA is committed to secularism, human rights, democracy, egalitarianism and mutual respect...
- HumanismHumanismHumanism is an approach in study, philosophy, world view or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. In philosophy and social science, humanism is a perspective which affirms some notion of human nature, and is contrasted with anti-humanism....
- NontheismNontheismNontheism is a term that covers a range of both religious and nonreligious attitudes characterized by the absence of — or the rejection of — theism or any belief in a personal god or gods...
- RationalismRationalismIn epistemology and in its modern sense, rationalism is "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification" . In more technical terms, it is a method or a theory "in which the criterion of the truth is not sensory but intellectual and deductive"...
- Secular humanismSecular humanismSecular Humanism, alternatively known as Humanism , is a secular philosophy that embraces human reason, ethics, justice, and the search for human fulfillment...
- SecularismSecularismSecularism is the principle of separation between government institutions and the persons mandated to represent the State from religious institutions and religious dignitaries...
- South Place Ethical SocietySouth Place Ethical SocietyThe South Place Ethical Society, based in London at Conway Hall, is thought to be the oldest surviving freethought organisation in the world, and is the only remaining Ethical society in the United Kingdom...
Philosophy
- Anti-realismAnti-realismIn analytic philosophy, the term anti-realism is used to describe any position involving either the denial of an objective reality of entities of a certain type or the denial that verification-transcendent statements about a type of entity are either true or false...
- Critical realismCritical realismIn the philosophy of perception, critical realism is the theory that some of our sense-data can and do accurately represent external objects, properties, and events, while other of our sense-data do not accurately represent any external objects, properties, and events...
- Death of God
- Don CupittDon CupittDon Cupitt is an English philosopher of religion and scholar of Christian theology. He is an Anglican priest, heretic and an emeritus professor of the University of Cambridge, though is better known as a popular writer, broadcaster and commentator...
- HumanismHumanismHumanism is an approach in study, philosophy, world view or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. In philosophy and social science, humanism is a perspective which affirms some notion of human nature, and is contrasted with anti-humanism....
- Naturalism (philosophy)Naturalism (philosophy)Naturalism commonly refers to the philosophical viewpoint that the natural universe and its natural laws and forces operate in the universe, and that nothing exists beyond the natural universe or, if it does, it does not affect the natural universe that we know...
External links
- Sea of Faith (United Kingdom)
- Sea of Faith (New Zealand)
- Sea of Faith (Australia)
- Sofia, the bi-monthly magazine of SoF U.K.
- article "The vicars who don't believe in God" on the web site of the BBCBBCThe British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
- Interview with Don Cupitt on Philosophy Bites podcast