Don Cupitt, champion of non-realist theology, dies, aged 90

Revd Don Cupitt, the Anglican priest and philosopher whose BBC TV series Sea of ​​Faith brought him out in 1984, is dead, aged 90.

A Life Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, he taught at the university for 30 years and was a leading non-realist thinker. His philosophy, as summarized on his website, was that “talking about God in transcendent and metaphysical terms belongs to an intellectual era long gone. Realist doctrines about God have little or no credibility for a society shaped by contemporary scientific thought and the linguistic turn in philosophy.”

Writing about his legacy last year, the Norris-Hulse Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, Dr. Catherine Pickstock that Mr. Cupitt “broke with the moldy hypocrisy of most Anglican liberal theologies by pushing it to the extreme, thus revealing an elite agnosticism which was to keep its half-belief to itself and not admit the masses into the secret, as if from an apparently persistent fear of , that they could then misbehave” (Features, 28 June 2024).

After studying science, theology and philosophy of religion at Cambridge, Cupitt was ordained in 1959. After a curacy at St. Philip’s, Salford, he became vice-chancellor of Westcott House, Cambridge, before beginning his long career teaching the philosophy of religion at the university. He was appointed dean of Emmanuel in 1965.

A number of books were published in quick succession, of which To say goodbye to God (SCM Press) raised the question to Church age reviewer, David L. Edwards (Books, 3 October 1980), how far Cupitt, though in Holy Orders, was an atheist (a charge that had been made against Bishop John Robinson after Honest to God). Cupitt accepted the description “Christian Buddhist” in that book.

The BBC found in him an engaging broadcaster and he came to wider attention through programmes, the most famous of which were Sea of ​​Faith. In this series he explored the decline of religion and asked “in what form, if any, Christian faith is possible for us today”. It was “hard to believe that a more visually exciting film about religion has ever been made”, Douglas Brown concluded in a review for The church age (September 14, 1984).

The series “concisely presented the standard account of modernity and the decline of religion familiar to academics, but not at the time to the general public or to churchgoers who might have been confused by the decline of Christian practice”, Professor Pickford recalled.

Letters poured in, some expressing gratitude and others hurt. “All my assumptions about Christianity were shattered,” wrote one correspondent (Features, March 15, 2019). Among those who challenged the argument was the future Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams. Later, others attributed their conversion to Christianity to Professor Cupitt’s work (Features, 28 June 2024).

The series led to the creation of the Sea of ​​Faith Network, which is still active. The Sea of ​​Faith Archive is held at Gladstone’s Library, Hawarden. Mr. Cupitt’s website says that in the early 1990s he stopped officiating at public worship and in 2008 “finally ceased to be a communicative member of the Church”. He continued to be listed among the priests in Crockford’s Clerical Directoryhowever.

On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of Sea of ​​Faith last year the theologian Professor Elaine Graham wrote that Mr. Cupitt’s legacy “should encourage those who continue to look for opportunities today to engage in open, critical and honest discussion about the existence of God, the nature of faith and the future of the Church” (Features, 28 June 2024).

Obituary to follow