This was the book which first garnered international celebrity and notoriety for its author and which fire-started a debate about the supernatural claims of Christianity. Rejecting Christian doctrines and metaphysics in favour of the religious consciousness which characterises human identity, Cupitt 'takes leave' of God by abandoning objective theism. Because he remained an ordained priest of the Church of England, the author attracted considerable attention and criticism for his position. Indeed, Keith Ward, now Oxford's Regius Professor of Divinity, wrote an entire book - Holding Fast to God - which attempted to counter Cupitt's views. Whatever one thinks of the author's beliefs, Taking Leave of God contributed to one of the most important theological discussions of its time.

Taking Leave of God

Don Cupitt

Religion & Spirituality

SCM-Canterbury Press Ltd

Jesus and Philosophy

Hymns Ancient & Modern Ltd

On Dover beach in the 1860s the English poet Matthew Arnold saw in the receding tide at dusk an image of the "melancholy, long, withdrawing roar" of the Sea of Faith. Twenty years later Nietzsche was proclaiming the death of God as an event that had taken place long before, but was still unrealized. The modern crisis of belief has deep roots. Don Cupitt shows how the rise in our science-based, democractic industrial society, of historical criticism and of knowledge of other religions has over the centuries slowly eroded the traditional framework of doctrinal belief--leaving us, as it seems to many, free, alone, and disoriented. But there is another story, for Cupitt also shows a line of creative thinkers, from Pascal to Wittgenstein, responding to each new challenge as it has arisen. A new understanding of religion is emerging which Cupitt calls non-realist, for it is without dogma. Instead, Christianity is seen as a way, a spiritual path, and an ethic. Religion becomes more like an art, for it is a function of our primal capacity to generate stories, symbols, and meanings to live by.

The Sea of Faith: Christianity in Change

BBC Books

Crisis of moral authority: The dethronement of Christianity

Lutterworth Press

In everyday speech we often hear people jokingly mention what they call the 'ultimate questions', the 'big questions', or 'the great questions' of life. In Don Cupitt's judgment, however, these questions are no joking matter. He believes that there is no higher truth than the truth that is built into our everyday speech and that, therefore, these questions should be taken seriously. In The Great Questions of Life, he collects and classifies all the great questions, in the wordings that are most familiar to us, and interprets and answers them. He shows how the decline of the old religion has led to the return of the great questions and explains why they have become important to us in modern times.

The Great Questions Of Life

Politics & Social Sciences

Philosophy

Polebridge Press

According to Don Cupitt, radical theology is a personal struggle for a new and better kind of religion following the loss of the older sort of popular, traditional, ecclesiastical faith. It is, he says, inevitably, highly autobiographical. This set of eighteen unpublished or little known published essays which document his gradual radicalization over the last thirty years open a window onto the progression of his thought and demonstrate his long held desire to come up with a message that can reach and influence ordinary people. Because, in Cupitt s judgment, the real radical theology is your own voice, if you can but find it.

Radical Theology

History

What is the future of the Christian tradition as it confronts the challenges and opportunities of the global age? That question, addressed by authors from around the globe, leads in turn to more questions. What elements of a traditional Christian faith can be carried forward in an authentic contemporary faith: The Bible as Sacred Scripture? Life after death? Sin and guilt? Reward and punishment? How do we make an earth-centered vision the heart of a faith for the second axial age? And many more. Contributors include: John Shelby Spong, Episcopal Bishop Emeritus of Newark, New Jersey; Robert W. Funk, Founder of the Jesus Seminar; Eugenie Scott, Director of the Center for Science Education; Richard Holloway, Bishop of Edinburgh &amp; Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church, Retired; Lloyd Geering, Emeritus Professor of Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand; Don Cupitt, former Dean of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, England; Anne Primavesi, Fellow of the Centre for the Interdisciplinary Study of Religion, Birkbeck College, University of London; and Fellows of the Jesus Seminar.

The Future of the Christian Tradition

robert-w-funk

John Shelby Spong

World

Polebridge Pr Westar Inst

Back when belief in predestination was powerful, there was only one way life could go. Today we have a stronger sense of contingency and find ourselves clinging to lost loves, missed opportunities, and other lives we might have lived. Don Cupitt meditates on the religious significance of all our many lost and impossible loves. The impossible, he says, has replaced the supernatural in our thinking.

Impossible Loves

Ethics in the Last Days of Humanity is not about the science of global warming so much as the absence of a serious ethical and religious response to it. When all existing 'reality' breaks down, ethics can no longer be based on nature or religious law. Cupitt advocates for an alternative inspired by the historical Jesus.

Ethics in the Last Days of Humanity

Christian Books & Bibles

XPRESS Reprints

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Don Cupitt. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Don Cupitt

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Don Cupitt. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Taking Leave of God

Jesus and Philosophy

The Sea of Faith: Christianity in Change

Crisis of moral authority: The dethronement of Christianity

The Great Questions Of Life

Radical Theology

The Future of the Christian Tradition

Impossible Loves

Ethics in the Last Days of Humanity

Taking Leave of God