The Rev Don Cupitt, radical ‘Sea of Faith’ churchman who blazed a trail for ‘Christian atheism’

Cupitt: he was a brilliant communicator, as his large television audiences testified
Cupitt: he was a brilliant communicator, as his large television audiences testified - ITV

The Reverend Don Cupitt, who has died aged 90, taught theology at Cambridge for more than 30 years and was Britain’s most radical theologian.

Between 1971 and his death he wrote more than 50 books and contributed to a great number of symposiums, while in 1984 he presented a widely acclaimed television series, The Sea of Faith, a landmark in religious broadcasting. The title was taken from Matthew Arnold’s poem ‘Dover Beach’ and its lines “The Sea of Faith/ Was once, too, at the full.../ But now I only hear/ Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar.”

Although Cupitt was a devout man and remained a priest of the Church of England, he moved from a position of firm, though by no means uncritical, orthodoxy to one of what he called Christian atheism.

During the 1980s he came to the conclusion that the word God had no objective reality and was best regarded as “a necessary myth”. In his book After God: The Future of Religion (1997) he foresaw the end of all traditional religion, with imagination substituted for faith, and religion regarded as a kind of experimental art form.

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Even by the standards of the late 20th century this was unusual thinking by a professional theologian and Cupitt believed that he had taken Western philosophical theology to the very limits of its integrity. Some of his colleagues thought he had gone well beyond these limits and should have resigned from the priesthood, but Cupitt would not accept this.

Cupitt was a brilliant communicator, as his large television audiences testified
Cupitt was a brilliant communicator, as his large television audiences testified

He declared that his purpose was essentially religious, for he aimed to “rescue Jesus from dogmatic captivity and God from metaphysical captivity”, both of which had been imposed by the church. In The New Christian Ethics (1988), he wrote: “We can today be Christians only at the price of saying that there wasn’t any Christianity to speak of before the later 18th century.”

This dogmatic, provocative assertion was a typical example of his style. He was a brilliant communicator, as his large television audiences testified, and he combined intellectual gifts with moral passion in a manner that compelled attention. His appearance, too, suggested an unusual combination of strength and sensitivity – a long face, huge ears, a vertical cleft on his forehead and a wry smile radiating from his lips.

Cupitt pulled no punches when discussing the Church. In Taking Leave of God (1980) he accused it of exercising “psychological terrorism”, and went on to describe the monastic ideal as “a hospice for those who are terminally sick of life and a standing denial of the Christian Gospel”.

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An evening meeting during the General Synod of 1984, designed to enable its members to discuss The Sea of Faith with Cupitt, was cancelled at the request of “higher authority” and in 1993 a young priest who declared himself to be a follower of Cupitt was dismissed from his clergy teaching post in Chichester diocese.

The Sea of Faith: the BBC invested in Cupitt making a television series (a book followed) surveying the main world religions, the title taken from the line in Matthew Arnold's poem 'Dover Beach'
The Sea of Faith: the BBC invested in Cupitt making a television series (a book followed) surveying the main world religions, the title taken from the line in Matthew Arnold’s poem ‘Dover Beach’

Academics tended to treat him less seriously, regarding him as no more than an eccentric who had strayed into their field. His books, which achieved regular sales of 5-6,000 copies – many more than most volumes of serious theology – were more polemical tracts than measured works of scholarship and it was not unknown for him to misrepresent his opponents’ positions.

He was in fact conducting a crusade and seeking to win converts to his point of view because he believed that the future of Christianity depended on the recovery of vital and dynamic elements which had been lost under “the debris of dogma”.

Cupitt was therefore accorded little academic recognition. Bristol University awarded him an honorary DLitt in 1985, but Cambridge was unwilling for him to rise above the rank of lecturer.

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Those who appreciated him most were disaffected Christian intellectuals, among them the novelist and philosopher Iris Murdoch, who found a great deal of traditional Christianity incredible yet recognised in Jesus valid religious insights.

Whatever the final verdict on his answers, many theologians recognised that Cupitt was asking the right questions about the credibility of Christianity in the modern world, and it is not impossible that he may one day be regarded as a major figure in 20th-century religious thought.

Don Cupitt was born on May 22 1934. He went from Charterhouse to Trinity Hall, Cambridge, and, having taken a second in natural sciences, switched to theology, in which he secured a first. By now he was destined for Holy Orders and trained at Westcott House, Cambridge.

In Taking Leave of God he accused the Church of exercising 'psychological terrorism'
In Taking Leave of God he accused the Church of exercising ‘psychological terrorism’

Temperamentally he was very religious, though he never believed in miracles, answers to prayer or the supernatural. Three years as a curate in Salford (1959-62) showed him how far removed the traditional presentations of the Christian faith were from the lives of people living in the back streets of an industrial city.

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Yet at this time he shared the belief of Bishop John Robinson and other 1960s theologians that the generally accepted tenets of Christianity were capable of re-interpretation.

In 1962 Cupitt returned to Cambridge as vice-principal of Westcott House and three years later became a Fellow of Emmanuel College, serving as Dean of the College from 1966 to 1991 and as a lecturer in the university Divinity School until 1996.

He then resigned because he did not believe his colleagues were treating him with sufficient seriousness. He was none the less a popular member of the college and revered by his students; they found themselves in the company of a revolutionary thinker who was also a sensitive pastor and a radical churchman who insisted on the importance of the traditional worship offered in the chapel.

His first book, Christ and the Hiddenness of God (1971), was well-received and caused no raised eyebrows, but The Crisis of Moral Authority (1971) registered objections to the doctrine of original sin and the idea of atonement. The Leap of Reason (1976), which was one of his best books, argued powerfully for the reality of God, but pleaded for the separation of religious experience from dogma.

Influenced by Jacques Derrida and other French deconstructionists, by The Long-Legged Fly in 1987 Cupitt had moved far into the realm of non-realistic theology
Influenced by Jacques Derrida and other French deconstructionists, by The Long-Legged Fly in 1987 Cupitt had moved far into the realm of non-realistic theology

The Worlds of Science and Religion (1976) drew from the overlapping worlds of philosophy, psychology, science and religion, and signalled what was to become its author’s future great interest.

A documentary, Who Was Jesus?, broadcast in 1977, revealed Cupitt to be a television “natural” and encouraged the BBC to invest a great deal of money later in The Sea of Faith (1984), a critical survey of all the main world religions.

By this time Cupitt was coming under the influence of Jacques Derrida and other French deconstructionist philosophers, and The Long-Legged Fly (1987) indicated just how far he had moved into the realm of non-realistic theology.

His books, which continued to appear at more or less yearly intervals, provided up-to-date accounts of his own religious pilgrimage, and the pace of movement was so swift that his critics found it almost impossible to pin him down.

A summing-up of his personal faith was provided in After All: Religion Without Alienation (1994): “We should live as the Sun does. The process by which it lives and the process by which it dies are one and the same. It hasn’t a care. It simply expends itself gloriously, and in so doing gives life to us all.”

His last book, Ethics in the Last Days of Humanity, was published in 2016.

In 1963 Don Cupitt married Susan Day, with whom he had two daughters and a son.

The Rev Don Cupitt, born May 22 1934, died January 18 2025