Sea of Faith Christchurch Group

At our next meeting, we will continue looking at Don Cupitt’s Sea of Faith programmes. This time, the focus is on sacred scriptures. First, Luther drove a wedge between scripture and tradition, and then modern biblical scholarship treated sacred scripture as literature to be investigated using methods that can be applied to any literature.

In particular, Don Cupitt looks at the life of Albert Schweitzer, most known as a missionary doctor in Africa, but also a biblical scholar who wrote a devastating critique of other scholars’ attempts to write a life of Jesus, and an expert on J S Bach.

Following on from last meeting, in which we saw and heard Don Cupitt explain the medieval view of the universe, how it collapsed and was replaced by a mechanical view, and how Descartes and Pascal had quite different responses to that new view, we will look at the revolution that Darwin, Freud, and Jung have brought about in our understanding of what it is to be a human being

Our first meeting for 2009 will be Friday 13 February. We will be able to see an extract from Don Cupitt’s 1984 very popular BBC TV Series “The Sea of Faith,” which resulted in people forming the Sea of Faith Network, so that they could talk about the ideas that he presented. This is happening as a result of Hugh’s suggestion and it will be a reminder of where we have come from and why the Sea of Faith was created. I’ve also found it very interesting seeing the programmes again, and comparing what I see now with what I remember of them.

At our next meeting, on Friday 10 October, Ian Crumpton will report to us on Dr Carolyn King’s talk to the annual conference. He comments as follows:

Dr Carolyn King was one of the three keynote speakers at the 2008 Sea of Faith (NZ) National Conference held in Blenheim in September. All three spoke to the conference’s theme: Is Gaia Tomorrow’s God? Dr King’s answer, in a word, was no!

Dr King is Senior Lecturer in the Dept of Biological Sciences and a research associate in the Dept of Philosophy at the University of Waikato. She is an active member of the Anglican Church. The strength of her presentation was a detailed explanation of the way living organisms moderate and stabilise conditions  on earth, providing a suitable habitat for all. This, in a nutshell, is the Gaia Theory. Since life began on earth over three billion years ago, the sun’s energy output has increased by about 20%, but evolving life has enabled the maintenance of a relatively steady temperature, as well as producing the volatile gas oxygen, enabling the evolution of more complex organisms.  Thus complex dynamic balances shape the earth’s lithosphere and ecosystems.  But Gaia is no benign goddess. She dispenses both life and death. The price we pay for our complexity and dependence on such a volatile gas as oxygen is mortality. We get sick. We die.

The Gaia Theory has three forms.
(1) The weak form: Earth is a complex entity.  Generally agreed .
(2) Strong form: Earth is a living entity – contested by many scientists.
(3) Extreme form: Life regulates the global environment to maintain
optimum conditions (this form imputes purpose). Rejected by most
scientists.

Dr King’s presentation made clear the dire consequences of the human induced global warming that is now gathering pace. She explained how temperature sets limits to life in the sea, and the importance of the Arctic and Antarctic seas which enable nutrient transfer. She explained the feedback mechanisms which could accelerate the warming process once triggered. And the learnings we are accumulating from study of the mass extinctions of the past.

In short, Gaia regulates all life, not just human life. This insight is more downgrading of humanity than evolution theory was. We are a tiny element in the biological/physical whole. And you can’t separate the biological from the physical. Dr King used the analogy of the termite nest to make this point.

Gaia is beginning to function as a myth in out time. A myth, in Loyal Rue’s definition, is “A story which tells how things are, and which things matter.”

Science: Knowlege without certainty.
Relgion: Certainty without knowlege.
The fallacy of misplaced correctness leads us to impute certainty to science and knowlege to religion.
A better way, in Dr King’s view, is to encourage the best of both good mythology and good science.”

The annual conference of the Sea of Faith in New Zealand was, as usual, inspiring and stimulating. It amazed me the way that the speakers approached the theme from different angles that wonderfully complemented each other.

Lloyd Geering portrayed the changes that have occurred in our picture of the world – the emergence of the ‘It-world,’ and the transition from polytheism to monotheism – and argued that we now have much in common with the ancients who called earth Gaia. What we need is a mystical re-union with the earth.

Carolyn King, a biologist and philosopher from the University of Waikato, analysed Gaia theory and put the current climate change into the wider context of geological time. She helped us understand why Lovelock is so pessimistic about the planet’s future.

Juliet Batten helped us to commune with Gaia, even taking us through a reflection or meditation in the course of her talk.

Craig Potton brought a prophetic challenge to political action, but integrated it with an amazing variety of quotations and references from religious traditions. In particular, he pointed out how good vegetarianism is for the planet.

Derek McCullough, minister of the Christchurch Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, also talked with us and explored how he and his community attempt to integrate ecological imperatives into their spiritual and religious understanding and practice.