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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Sea of Faith - thoughts and experiences
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recklessrat
Shipmate
# 17243
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Posted
Hi all,
I'm finding myself increasingly drawn to the Sea of Faith movement (although I'm struggling with this deeply). I am currently a liberal Anglican. Has anyone been to their meetings? What happens there? Any experiences or comments welcome, whether positive or negative. I'm very hesitant about pursuing this further in RL.
Many thanks,
RR
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stay simple, remain whole
Posts: 80 | From: The Shires | Registered: Jul 2012
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Baptist Trainfan
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# 15128
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Posted
My wife and I attended a local group for a time. What we discovered were three things.
One was that it was a refuge for those who had been "hurt" by churches in the past - not so much by abuse but by narrow-minded attitudes. This tended to turn it into a talking-shop for "how bad churches are". Nothing wrong in that, but it led to a tendency to generalise negatively about churches when in fact individuals' experiences had been quite limited.
Second, there was a cherishing of outdated (1960/70s) "liberal Christian" literature and a refusal to believe that anything good could ever come out of conservative Christianity or to engage with it. Spong was often cited with approval but I believe he is doing the same thing (and I have read/heard him). The "Jesus Seminar" was also mentioned occasionally and that is rather different.
Third, we found that the group was nothing like as "open-minded" as we thought. Like most groups, it had developed its consensus and its culture and most of the members didn't want to depart from that or have it challenged.
Of course this is one set of experiences in one group - YMMV. The folk themselves were mostly lovely.
(P.S. The review of Cupitt's book above says that "He completely ignored me – and that gives the flavour of this man who talks to his fans and ignores everyone else, writing them off as beneath his attention". That was precisely the experience I had with Spong when I heard him).
[ 30. April 2016, 15:24: Message edited by: Baptist Trainfan ]
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Galloping Granny
Shipmate
# 13814
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Posted
It is very hard to reject orthodoxy without falling into becoming another sect.
I think the New Zealand Sea of Faith must be very different from that of the UK. I would say we’ve heard Cupitt and aren’t by any means his disciples. We love our own Lloyd Geering and treasure his scholarship, but not all have gone as far down the road as he has in deconstructing God.(I can’t imagine him ignoring anyone who wanted to talk to him and he would certainly respect their viewpoint, however different from his own.) A show of hands at one national conference showed that about 70% of those present were loyal church members, which rather surprised some of the other 30%.
There are several Ephesus groups which ‘explore new ways of understanding Christian faith in the increasingly secular world of New Zealand in the new millennium’. Among other things we use quite moving liturgies developed by members.
I find members of both organisations are deeply spiritual people who value finding a place where they can share an endless range of doubts, insights and understanding in a totally accepting environment.
Members of the Jesus Seminar are well known to most of us, and later writers. The Progressive Spirituality conference next weekend has Robin Meyers speaking on 'From Galilean Sage to Supernatural Saviour or how I became a heretic with help from Jesus'. Should be interesting – but will I swallow it whole? His 'Saving Jesus from the Church – ˙How to stop worshiping Christ and Start Following Jesus', resonated with me when I read it.
Maybe among UK Sea of Faith groups there are some which have been more successful than others in retaining that openness that I think ours have achieved.
GG
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The Kingdom of Heaven is spread upon the earth, and men do not see it. Gospel of Thomas, 113
Posts: 2629 | From: Matarangi | Registered: Jun 2008
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Huia
Shipmate
# 3473
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Posted
I haven't made it to a Sea of Faith meeting yet ( the timing is difficult), though they are regularly announced during our usual Sunday worship and meet in one of rooms church rooms.
The church I attend is Presbyterian - though at the liberal end of the spectrum so apart from disagreeing with some of the National Assembly's stance on some Dead Horse issues I haven't really felt the need to look further afield. Having said that I am going to the Conference GG mentioned.
Huia
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Charity gives food from the table, Justice gives a place at the table.
Posts: 10382 | From: Te Wai Pounamu | Registered: Oct 2002
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Galloping Granny
Shipmate
# 13814
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Huia:
I haven't made it to a Sea of Faith meeting yet ( the timing is difficult), though they are regularly announced during our usual Sunday worship and meet in one of rooms church rooms.
The church I attend is Presbyterian - though at the liberal end of the spectrum so apart from disagreeing with some of the National Assembly's stance on some Dead Horse issues I haven't really felt the need to look further afield. Having said that I am going to the Conference GG mentioned.
Huia
Yeah, well,,, I regard Assembly as pretty well irrelevant, as long as I'm in a congregation where we get on with living the Gospel.
GG
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The Kingdom of Heaven is spread upon the earth, and men do not see it. Gospel of Thomas, 113
Posts: 2629 | From: Matarangi | Registered: Jun 2008
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Lincoln Imp
Apprentice
# 17123
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Posted
"SOF" = Ship of Fools = Sea of Faith ![[Devil]](graemlins/devil.gif)
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There lives more faith in honest doubt, believe me, than in half the creeds. (Tennyson)
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ThunderBunk
Stone cold idiot
# 15579
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by recklessrat:
Hi all,
I'm finding myself increasingly drawn to the Sea of Faith movement (although I'm struggling with this deeply). I am currently a liberal Anglican. Has anyone been to their meetings? What happens there? Any experiences or comments welcome, whether positive or negative. I'm very hesitant about pursuing this further in RL.
Many thanks,
RR
I learned my adult faith in an institution of which Don Cupitt was dean. Alongside him sat a chapel which was catholic in its leanings, focussed on the sacraments but with an enquiring spirit in its approach to humanity and living.
My approach to God ended up, to this day I think, owing a lot to both sides. In particular, I was impressed by the extent to which both Cupitt's approach and the sacramentalism I learned in the college chapel took experience seriously as a way into the sacred, rather than as a distraction to be set aside.
If I were to give any advice, therefore, it would be to completely ignore people who dismiss Sea of Faith as a dead end simply because it happens to be unfashionable. I haven't experienced it as giving me "cooties" over the last 20 years or so. I would say go and experience it, and listen to your own response to it. Is it leading you towards or away from God? If towards, don't sacrifice it in order to keep a fellow-feeling with those you currently worship with. No two people's experience of God is the same, and those who try and tell one how to experience God seem to me to be those who must be most completely ignored. If it tries to lead you into a dry intellectualism which gets so caught up in the distant side of metaphor that its root in lived experience is lost, abandon it.
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Currently mostly furious, and occasionally foolish. Normal service may resume eventually. Or it may not. And remember children, "feiern ist wichtig".
Foolish, potentially deranged witterings
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
Tangent alert - well sort of
quote:
Originally posted by ThunderBunk:
I learned my adult faith in an institution of which Don Cupitt was dean. Alongside him sat a chapel which was catholic in its leanings, focussed on the sacraments but with an enquiring spirit in its approach to humanity and living.
My approach to God ended up, to this day I think, owing a lot to both sides. In particular, I was impressed by the extent to which both Cupitt's approach and the sacramentalism I learned in the college chapel took experience seriously as a way into the sacred, rather than as a distraction to be set aside. ...
Followers of this thread are welcome to dismiss this enquiry. I'm not fertile territory for Sea of Faith and haven't followed its meanderings. But it's something that has puzzled me for years.
How does a person link an agnosticism about the core beliefs of the faith with a catholic approach to the sacraments? The two packages seem about as incompatible as one can get?
To put it at its simplest, how does a person celebrate sacraments that re-present someone they've more or less abandoned belief in?
I can sort of see how one might have a non-theistic Quaker meeting, or even how Gretta Vosper might reconstruct a free form service with a bit of First Nations chanting, for unbelievers from a free church tradition. I can't see how a non-theistic sung Eucharist makes sense - nor for that matter why anyone would want to go to one.
Can anyone explain?
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
I have been aware of Sea of Faith since being invited to their meetings when I attended the lunchtime chaplaincy Eucharist at university (when I could get there, which wasn't often, I was on another campus). Someone who also attended the Eucharist was a member of the local Sea of Faith group.
Sea of Faith at that time was more like the description of Galloping Granny, a discussion about faith and what it really is, rather than a non-theistic group. Looking at their website now it's moved on significantly, but so has Don Cupitt. When I was looking Don Cupitt was still a regular communicant, he stopped attending in 2008 according to his website.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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ThunderBunk
Stone cold idiot
# 15579
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
Tangent alert - well sort of
quote:
Originally posted by ThunderBunk:
I learned my adult faith in an institution of which Don Cupitt was dean. Alongside him sat a chapel which was catholic in its leanings, focussed on the sacraments but with an enquiring spirit in its approach to humanity and living.
My approach to God ended up, to this day I think, owing a lot to both sides. In particular, I was impressed by the extent to which both Cupitt's approach and the sacramentalism I learned in the college chapel took experience seriously as a way into the sacred, rather than as a distraction to be set aside. ...
Followers of this thread are welcome to dismiss this enquiry. I'm not fertile territory for Sea of Faith and haven't followed its meanderings. But it's something that has puzzled me for years.
How does a person link an agnosticism about the core beliefs of the faith with a catholic approach to the sacraments? The two packages seem about as incompatible as one can get?
To put it at its simplest, how does a person celebrate sacraments that re-present someone they've more or less abandoned belief in?
I can sort of see how one might have a non-theistic Quaker meeting, or even how Gretta Vosper might reconstruct a free form service with a bit of First Nations chanting, for unbelievers from a free church tradition. I can't see how a non-theistic sung Eucharist makes sense - nor for that matter why anyone would want to go to one.
Can anyone explain?
I shall do my best, albeit from my particular experience. It is very difficult because it's a part of my experience that went very deep, and is hard to bring to consciousness.
On the one hand, the sacraments, particularly the eucharist, is/are obviously symbolic. We are on the table, we are broken open and offered to feed each other, and we are in turn sustained in this mutual self-offering by the indwelling reality of God's self-giving love. Christ in us goes through those same processes each time the eucharist is celebrated. I don't think I would have been as alive to that process of universal, ineluctable metaphor without Cupitt's input.
On the other hand, I wouldn't have been open to its rooted reality in my being without the catholic side. The catholic side also left me absolutely persistently rooted in the connection to God, to the divine as a living reality and not purely as a metaphor.
Of course, as with anyone, it also matters when it was, and therefore where Cupitt was at the time. It was in the early 1990s, before he stopped celebrating the eucharist, and during a final flowering of something like orthodox faith. He was writing the Last Philosophy at the time.
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Currently mostly furious, and occasionally foolish. Normal service may resume eventually. Or it may not. And remember children, "feiern ist wichtig".
Foolish, potentially deranged witterings
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shamwari
Shipmate
# 15556
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Posted
I once did a 3 month Sabbatical at Cambridge and was free to attend some of Dom Cupitt's lectures. Much more influential was his book and I read it with great profit. His analysis of 20 Cent decline is, to my mind, spot on. His remedy is not so persuasive.
Posts: 1914 | From: from the abyss of misunderstanding | Registered: Mar 2010
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ThunderBunk:
I shall do my best, albeit from my particular experience. It is very difficult because it's a part of my experience that went very deep, and is hard to bring to consciousness.
On the one hand, the sacraments, particularly the eucharist, is/are obviously symbolic. We are on the table, we are broken open and offered to feed each other, and we are in turn sustained in this mutual self-offering by the indwelling reality of God's self-giving love. Christ in us goes through those same processes each time the eucharist is celebrated. I don't think I would have been as alive to that process of universal, ineluctable metaphor without Cupitt's input.
On the other hand, I wouldn't have been open to its rooted reality in my being without the catholic side. The catholic side also left me absolutely persistently rooted in the connection to God, to the divine as a living reality and not purely as a metaphor.
Of course, as with anyone, it also matters when it was, and therefore where Cupitt was at the time. It was in the early 1990s, before he stopped celebrating the eucharist, and during a final flowering of something like orthodox faith. He was writing the Last Philosophy at the time.
Thank you for that. It's a take on the Eucharist that so different from the way I'd normally describe it that it's both challenging and helpful.
Would I be correct in interpreting this something on the lines that at the time Don Cupitt still felt and expressed this as reaching for a mystery, something greater, even though he was unsure whether the religious language fitted what he wasn't sure he could see through a glass darkly, whether there was something beyond or the glass was just dark?
The sacraments were symbolic of that. So a more catholic way of celebrating them enabled them still to symbolise an open question. A simpler, more conventionally CofE way of celebrating, would have imposed a much starker choice as to whether they re-presented what they are more generally understood to represent, or whether they no longer represented anything at all.
So in your case, this metaphor, as you describe it, has over time grown into ontological reality, but in his case, sadly, the reality has come to be that for him, there is nothing more.
Or am I completely off beam?
[ 01. May 2016, 17:53: Message edited by: Enoch ]
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
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ThunderBunk
Stone cold idiot
# 15579
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
So in your case, this metaphor, as you describe it, has over time grown into ontological reality, but in his case, sadly, the reality has come to be that for him, there is nothing more.
Or am I completely off beam?
Certainly your description is perfectly accurate as far as I'm concerned. There is evidence for what you have said about Cupitt, but your guess is fundamentally as good as mine.
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Currently mostly furious, and occasionally foolish. Normal service may resume eventually. Or it may not. And remember children, "feiern ist wichtig".
Foolish, potentially deranged witterings
Posts: 2208 | From: Norwich | Registered: Apr 2010
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recklessrat
Shipmate
# 17243
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Posted
Thanks all for your replies. I think I'd better just go along and see what the local meeting is like...
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stay simple, remain whole
Posts: 80 | From: The Shires | Registered: Jul 2012
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
I came across the Sea of Faith 23 years ago in the university town to which I was appointed. Two were chaplains at said university, one was a parish priest with a congregation of 6! and the other was a village vicar somewhere nearby. Oh, and another was a Congregational minister.
I found that they were all joyless, sneering, and downright deceitful.
They caused a hell of a lot of trouble in the town.
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
That mirrors my experience of Sea of Faith: our parish has one couple who've been involved in it for years and they do nothing but foment trouble. Everything about the church is wrong: the time of the services, their format, the music, subjects covered at Sunday School, etc, etc, etc.
Latest nasty is to hassle the Archdeacon and Bishop saying the parish is anti-ecumenism! This based on the fact we "don't interact with other Christians" - a load of sh**e since the regular congregation includes people nominally RC, URC, and a few Quakers. Interacting with other denominations is hard to do when the nearest outpost of one is in a Big Town over 10 miles away and 2 out of 4 of those are on the brink of closing up.
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
I came across the Sea of Faith 23 years ago in the university town to which I was appointed. Two were chaplains at said university, one was a parish priest with a congregation of 6! and the other was a village vicar somewhere nearby. Oh, and another was a Congregational minister.
I found that they were all joyless, sneering, and downright deceitful.
They caused a hell of a lot of trouble in the town.
That's a shame. I hoped they'd been a change from the more mainstream church.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Galloping Granny
Shipmate
# 13814
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
I came across the Sea of Faith 23 years ago in the university town to which I was appointed. Two were chaplains at said university, one was a parish priest with a congregation of 6! and the other was a village vicar somewhere nearby. Oh, and another was a Congregational minister.
I found that they were all joyless, sneering, and downright deceitful.
They caused a hell of a lot of trouble in the town.
That's a shame. I hoped they'd been a change from the more mainstream church.
A shame indeed.
I haven't encountered any who were 'joyless, sneering, and downright deceitful', but quite the opposite.
There are certainly people like Cupitt who have given up God, but many others who have thrown out doctrines like PSA but continue, in Robin Myers' words, to 'follow Jesus rather than worshiping Christ', in a non-dogmatic environment, and where each can relate to the God of their understanding..
GG
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The Kingdom of Heaven is spread upon the earth, and men do not see it. Gospel of Thomas, 113
Posts: 2629 | From: Matarangi | Registered: Jun 2008
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
Hmm. I suppose it could work for some people. TBF I don't consciously know any Sea of Faith people, but would you count someone like (+) Richard Holloway? Read his memoir Leaving Alexandria with high hopes, as it had been so widely praised, but the further I read into it, the more irritating I found it. Took me a bit of thinking to realise why: it all seemed to be me-me-me; almost a disillusionment with God because he had not managed to be precisely the God that the author would have liked him to be. Rather sad really.
[ 27. May 2016, 20:59: Message edited by: Albertus ]
Posts: 6498 | From: Y Sowth | Registered: Jan 2008
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Galloping Granny:
many others who have thrown out doctrines like PSA
Which isn't in the creeds and wasn't formulated before Calvin.
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by venbede:
quote:
Originally posted by Galloping Granny:
many others who have thrown out doctrines like PSA
Which isn't in the creeds and wasn't formulated before Calvin.
It was formulated before Calvin, sorry. I have posted earlier Christian statements of it here.
Jengie
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"To violate a persons ability to distinguish fact from fantasy is the epistemological equivalent of rape." Noretta Koertge
Back to my blog
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Bibaculus
Shipmate
# 18528
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
quote:
Originally posted by ThunderBunk:
I shall do my best, albeit from my particular experience. It is very difficult because it's a part of my experience that went very deep, and is hard to bring to consciousness.
On the one hand, the sacraments, particularly the eucharist, is/are obviously symbolic. We are on the table, we are broken open and offered to feed each other, and we are in turn sustained in this mutual self-offering by the indwelling reality of God's self-giving love. Christ in us goes through those same processes each time the eucharist is celebrated. I don't think I would have been as alive to that process of universal, ineluctable metaphor without Cupitt's input.
On the other hand, I wouldn't have been open to its rooted reality in my being without the catholic side. The catholic side also left me absolutely persistently rooted in the connection to God, to the divine as a living reality and not purely as a metaphor.
Of course, as with anyone, it also matters when it was, and therefore where Cupitt was at the time. It was in the early 1990s, before he stopped celebrating the eucharist, and during a final flowering of something like orthodox faith. He was writing the Last Philosophy at the time.
Thank you for that. It's a take on the Eucharist that so different from the way I'd normally describe it that it's both challenging and helpful.
Would I be correct in interpreting this something on the lines that at the time Don Cupitt still felt and expressed this as reaching for a mystery, something greater, even though he was unsure whether the religious language fitted what he wasn't sure he could see through a glass darkly, whether there was something beyond or the glass was just dark?
The sacraments were symbolic of that. So a more catholic way of celebrating them enabled them still to symbolise an open question. A simpler, more conventionally CofE way of celebrating, would have imposed a much starker choice as to whether they re-presented what they are more generally understood to represent, or whether they no longer represented anything at all.
So in your case, this metaphor, as you describe it, has over time grown into ontological reality, but in his case, sadly, the reality has come to be that for him, there is nothing more.
Or am I completely off beam?
May I pick up on the tangent?
In the 80s I knew an Anglican Priest who called himself a 'Feuerbachian Christian'. He had a non-supernatural idea of God, but maintained an Anglo-Catholic praxis. His views seemed to be that ritual was useful, I suppose because it conveyed useful myths (myths are not untruths, of course), even if the myths had no objective reality.
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A jumped up pantry boy who never knew his place
Posts: 257 | From: In bed. Mostly. When I can get away with it. | Registered: Dec 2015
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
...and, the uncharitable might suspect, this enabled him to claim his stipend and in due course pension, which were not only helpful but had a very definitely objective reality.
Posts: 6498 | From: Y Sowth | Registered: Jan 2008
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie jon:
quote:
Originally posted by venbede:
quote:
Originally posted by Galloping Granny:
many others who have thrown out doctrines like PSA
Which isn't in the creeds and wasn't formulated before Calvin.
It was formulated before Calvin, sorry. I have posted earlier Christian statements of it here.
Jengie
I'm sure you would know more of it than I. My point was that PSA is not universal Christian doctrine by any means.
Posts: 3201 | From: An historic market town nestling in the folds of Surrey's rolling North Downs, | Registered: Sep 2011
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
I think PSA is a Dead Horse tangent on this thread. Rather than pick on controversial doctrines (PSA, transubstantiation, Biblical inerrancy) let's just stick to the creeds as the benchmark of orthodoxy - in particular the Incarnation and Trinity.
And the Atonement, in so far as the forgiveness of sins is an item in the creeds, without any theory as to how it works.
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
Posts: 3201 | From: An historic market town nestling in the folds of Surrey's rolling North Downs, | Registered: Sep 2011
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Forthview
Shipmate
# 12376
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Posted
PSA to me means prostate specific antigen I assume it has another meaning also ?
Posts: 3444 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2007
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Nick Tamen
Ship's Wayfaring Fool
# 15164
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Forthview:
PSA to me means prostate specific antigen I assume it has another meaning also ?
Penal substitutionary atonement.
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The first thing God says to Moses is, "Take off your shoes." We are on holy ground. Hard to believe, but the truest thing I know. — Anne Lamott
Posts: 2833 | From: On heaven-crammed earth | Registered: Sep 2009
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Galloping Granny:
There are certainly people like Cupitt who have given up God, but many others who have thrown out doctrines like PSA but continue, in Robin Myers' words, to 'follow Jesus rather than worshiping Christ', in a non-dogmatic environment, and where each can relate to the God of their understanding..
I’m sure there are lovely people like that, but I’m worried that there is a presumption that “following Jesus” is different from (and superior to) accepting the doctrines of Christian experience. The Jesus of the synoptic gospels is just as much a theological presentation of the nature of God revealed by Jesus as Jesus in John’s gospel and Paul’s letters.
If you are “following Jesus” presumably you “go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” which is a bit tricky without dogma.
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
Posts: 3201 | From: An historic market town nestling in the folds of Surrey's rolling North Downs, | Registered: Sep 2011
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Angloid
Shipmate
# 159
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
quote:
Originally posted by Forthview:
PSA to me means prostate specific antigen I assume it has another meaning also ?
Penal substitutionary atonement.
They sound to this non-medic as if they could be the same thing.
Posts: 12927 | From: The Pool of Life | Registered: May 2001
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by venbede:
quote:
Originally posted by Galloping Granny:
There are certainly people like Cupitt who have given up God, but many others who have thrown out doctrines like PSA but continue, in Robin Myers' words, to 'follow Jesus rather than worshiping Christ', in a non-dogmatic environment, and where each can relate to the God of their understanding..
I’m sure there are lovely people like that, but I’m worried that there is a presumption that “following Jesus” is different from (and superior to) accepting the doctrines of Christian experience. The Jesus of the synoptic gospels is just as much a theological presentation of the nature of God revealed by Jesus as Jesus in John’s gospel and Paul’s letters.
If you are “following Jesus” presumably you “go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” which is a bit tricky without dogma.
Can you lot get your story straight? If I talk about doubts about the doctrines, I'm told that in Biblical language "believe" isn't about assent to propositions, but is about trust in a person, and now you're telling me that trust in the person of Christ isn't much good and I have to assent to the propositions.
Look, just make your bloody minds up and come back to me when you've got a consistent story.
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Angloid
Shipmate
# 159
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Posted
My take on that is that 'following' Jesus is not only what it's about. Being a Christian is about belonging to a community, which theological thinkers have identified with Christ's Body. If we follow Jesus we will be led to identify with his community, his Church, his Body. You can do that without explicitly understanding the Creeds or any worked-out doctrines. But it's more than just being a Jesus-admirer or a member of his fan club.
Posts: 12927 | From: The Pool of Life | Registered: May 2001
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
I agree with Angloid.
I never said Christianity was trust in a person, but if it is it is trust in God as revealed in Jesus.
And this contrast between following Jesus and worshiping Christ is odd.
Following Jesus as told in the gospels involves serving God, praying and accepting God's acceptance of us.
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
Posts: 3201 | From: An historic market town nestling in the folds of Surrey's rolling North Downs, | Registered: Sep 2011
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Can you lot get your story straight? If I talk about doubts about the doctrines, I'm told that in Biblical language "believe" isn't about assent to propositions, but is about trust in a person, and now you're telling me that trust in the person of Christ isn't much good and I have to assent to the propositions.
Look, just make your bloody minds up and come back to me when you've got a consistent story.
For once, I don't think that's a fair accusation. Who is 'you lot' here? It may be a fair comment to say that some people on these boards are saying one thing and some another, but who said all shipmates were unanimous about everything? They aren't about anything else. It's an unreasonable expectation to expect them to be on this.
It's only a fair accusation if you can point to an individual shipmate and say he or she is inconsistent, and 'inconsistent' is not even the same thing as 'nuanced'.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
So who's Christianity is the real one? The ones who say it's about following a person, or the ones who say it's about assenting to particular propositions? Try explaining it as if to someone who doesn't really get nuance, because lots of people don't, and I also thought it was for everyone.
I just feel like someone's got me at whichever way I turn.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
Is this any help?
1. Assume the real quest is to find out who God is rather than what other people say about him.
2. Start with Col 1:15, "He (i.e. Jesus) is the image of the invisible God ...".
3. Read the gospels and get an impression of who you are meeting there, what he is like etc.
4. Ignore for this purpose any faffle about textuality, Q etc etc etc. For this purpose, that's a distraction (yes, I can hear the squeals of the clever, but don't listen to them).
5. Only after that, read Acts, the epistles etc to find out how the first generation or so interpreted everything.
6. Belong to a community of others on the journey, whether the RCC, the CofE, a Fresh Expression etc.
7. Despite that reach and live from your own faith. Don't worry too much if it seems everyone says something different. They're not usually as different as they sound, but it isn't them we're called to put our trust in anyway. Use what helps and ignore what hinders.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
I haven’t knowingly had any first hand experience of Sea of Faithers. However yonks ago I did a course on Modern Theology with a nice feminist Quaker and we spent a week or two studying Cupitt.
What I remember vividly was his assertion, as I remember it, “Modern man (sic) demands autonomy”.
At the time I thought that whatever they demand, what men and women really want is to be loved and wanted.
The penny has just dropped that this was the era of Thatcherism and it fits in very neatly. Individual autonomy is the main criterion for action. The slogan of “choice” is a fig leaf for dismantling equably available social provision.
I demand my autonomy to buy my council flat and stuff those in housing need for whom the pool of social housing is irreversibly diminished.
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
Posts: 3201 | From: An historic market town nestling in the folds of Surrey's rolling North Downs, | Registered: Sep 2011
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by venbede:
... What I remember vividly was his assertion, as I remember it, “Modern man (sic) demands autonomy”. ...
Isn't that also what Milton's Satan demanded?
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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Angloid
Shipmate
# 159
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Posted
That's often the problem with liberal theologians (not all of them by any means). They might explain away traditional doctrine to almost nothing, but often cling to extremely conservative political views (and sometimes liturgical ones too). That's why I wish there was some alternative label for those of us who are often described as 'liberal catholic'.
Posts: 12927 | From: The Pool of Life | Registered: May 2001
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
Not sure if this is the right place for this, but Bishop John Shelby Spong will be at Carrs Lane Church in Birmingham in late October, and at Maidenhead Methodist Church the following day. Some Shippies might be interested in attending these events, and a bit of feedback afterwards would be good.
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
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Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
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Posted
If he is attending, doing the preaching, or leading a service, I'd enjoy reading a mystery worship report. Hint hint. ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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"Dear God, whose name I do not know - thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG... thank you. Thank you for my life." ~from Joe Vs the Volcano
Posts: 21377 | From: CA | Registered: May 2003
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Pigwidgeon
Ship's Owl
# 10192
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
Not sure if this is the right place for this, but Bishop John Shelby Spong will be at Carrs Lane Church in Birmingham in late October, and at Maidenhead Methodist Church the following day. Some Shippies might be interested in attending these events, and a bit of feedback afterwards would be good.
There seems to be an extra "http" in your link. Perhaps a kindly host might fix it.
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"...that is generally a matter for Pigwidgeon, several other consenting adults, a bottle of cheap Gin and the odd giraffe."
~Tortuf
Posts: 9835 | From: Hogwarts | Registered: Aug 2005
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
It seems the bishop is going to be giving lectures to promote his new book rather than leading worship as such.
Yes, the above link is causing me problems. If that's also true for you, you can just go to the Progressive Christianity Network and click on 'Events'. The bishop's appearances are given on page 2. You'll see that there's a new venue on his itinerary now - St Mattias' Church in Malvern.
[ 19. July 2016, 00:43: Message edited by: SvitlanaV2 ]
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
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Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
It seems the bishop is going to be giving lectures to promote his new book rather than leading worship as such.
Really? I am surprised!
Posts: 9750 | From: The other side of the Severn | Registered: Sep 2009
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Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
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Posted
Well, I heard him speak some years ago in Colchester. To be fair, it was a book-promoting tour, but I felt that he was very good at promulgating himself and his ideas, while resistant to meaningful questions and debate. He also began by posing questions which he said he would answer, but didn't.
You will realise that I didn't warm to the man.
Posts: 9750 | From: The other side of the Severn | Registered: Sep 2009
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shamwari
Shipmate
# 15556
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Posted
If you want a very good analysis of why the Church has declined then Sea of Faith provides it.
I am not so sure of Cupitt's remedy. But if you get the wrong diagnosis the chances of finding a cure are few
Posts: 1914 | From: from the abyss of misunderstanding | Registered: Mar 2010
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