Sea of Faith

The Sea of Faith Network (SoF) is an organization with the stated aim to explore and promote religious faith as a human creation.

The SoF movement started in 1984 as a response to Don Cupitt's book and television series, 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. 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's nostalgic mid 19th century poem Dover Beach, 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.

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 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.

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 Christianity) while others choose to call themselves religious or Christian humanists (see humanism). Some even refer to themselves as agnostic, atheist, or simply nontheist (see Christian atheism).

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