Saturday 22 May 2010

A Freebie for Me

Depending on how moneyless you are, receiving post through the door is not something I welcome. But today came Don Cupitt's latest, directly from him, a book called Theology's Strange Return (SCM Press). I think he has sent it because some of what I have written and sent to him prompted some additional thoughts. He did write to me and say that some of my criticism of his recent material is tackled in this book. I look forward to spotting any such material. I rather agree with his take on Karl Barth as I rapidly scan the book (I might disagree as I read more carefully); I wonder if this came from one of my prompts. My view on Barth was that his view of transcendence was so high and dry, so out of reach unless you receive the finger, that such a God has vanished for all of culture and humanity, and Cupitt turns this round, regarding the Christ figure in Barth's scheme as the icon of humanism (my words). Barth does lead directly to some secular theology. Another view is that had Barth gone on to focus on the Spirit (as says Andrew Linzey, whose PhD was about Karl Barth), then theology would have been fluid and changeable, and much could have been made of that in terms of a thorough demythologising. So I will, of course, read the book and will review it, and either link it or post it here and send it to Don plus I will send a note of thanks and some other thoughts.

2 comments:

Hugh said...

I'll be interested in reading you're review of his book Adrian .


Regards .

.

Pluralist (Adrian Worsfold) said...

At the moment I have hand written a letter to Don, and made some general points before reading much, but as regards his first few chapters I'm not convinced and my letter content does actually relate to the main thrusts of his argument early on, and a new issue is emerging about the function and purpose of his "archaeology" prior to autological talk - isn't it another version of heterological talk?