The Old Creed and the New by Don Cupitt, SCM Press, 2006
Don Cupitt assumes that traditional religion is ‘rapidly breaking down and melting away’ and discounts the significance of the rise of fundamentalism because it ‘entirely lacks intellectual content’. He dismisses liberal theology as a fruitless and negative compromise with traditional religion, and states that the only way for traditional religion to survive is obstinately to re-affirm its own distinctive, arrogant, intellectually offensive claims, and not water them down at all. Having parted company with all of the above, he asks, ‘Where am I going to find the vocabulary in which to describe the religion of the future?’ He then proceeds to relate the circumstances which led him to formulate a New Creed for to-day that would show ‘just where religious thought now is’, and to juxtapose it with the very old Apostle’s Creed.
Both creeds are concerned with the achievement of a good life, but have different answers on how to get there. The way of the Apostle’s Creed is to do it with the assistance of supernatural beings and powers mediated in a religious community. The way of Cupitt’s ‘New Creed’ is to go it alone. Both are also concerned with coming to terms with our experience of life’s two great opposites: the good and the bad. But once again they have vastly different ways of coping with the problem. One is to reach the good by mystical participation in the mythical drama of Christ’s death and resurrection in which a new and guaranteed way to salvation is presented to us. Faced with the realities of mortality and nothingness, the other way is to say ‘yes’ to life in the here and now (life which is temporary; life with all its emptiness; life that is free and owes us nothing), and to engage in an all-out affirmation of life, and a generous launching of ourselves out on to an ‘ocean’ of uncertainty and chance.
Cupitt’s book is the theme for the third term discussions of the Centre for Progressive Religious Thought (CPRT) Sydney. Contact Eric on 0405 758 116.
For more information on CPRT, see the Useful Web Links and Noticeboard pages on the Eremos website.