Don Cupitt was born in 1934 in Lancashire, England, and educated at Charterhouse, Trinity Hall Cambridge, and Westcott House Cambridge. He studied, successively, Natural Sciences, Theology and the Philosophy of Religion. In 1959 he was ordained deacon in the Church of England, becoming a priest in 1960. In the early 1990s he stopped officiating at public worship, but he remains technically a priest in good standing.
After short periods as a curate in the North of England, and as Vice-Principal of Westcott House, Cupitt was elected to a fellowship and appointed Dean at Emmanuel College late in 1965. Since then he has remained at the College. In 1968 he was appointed to a University teaching post in the Philosophy of Religion, a job in which he continued until his retirement for health reasons in 1996. At that time he proceeded to a Life Fellowship at Emmanuel College, which remains his base today. He is married, with three children who all now live and work in London, and four grandchildren.
Don Cupitt's books began to appear in the 1970s, without attracting much public attention. He first provoked hostile notice by his participation in the symposium The Myth of God Incarnate (1977), and then became nationally known for his media work — especially the three BBC Television projects Open to Question (1973), Who was Jesus? (1977), and The Sea of Faith (1984).
Cupitt's notoriety peaked in the these years of the early 1980s, his most important book of that period being Taking Leave of God (1980), which shut down his career and made him in the eyes of the Press an atheist and perhaps ‘the most radical theologian in the world’. He survived, partly because the then Archbishop of Canterbury and the then Master of Emmanuel defended his right to put forward his ideas. Since that time he has devoted all his energies to developing his ideas in a long line of books. He travels regularly, visiting the Sea of Faith Networks in Britain, Australia and New Zealand, the Westar Institute of Santa Rosa, CA in the USA, and the Snowstar Institute of Southern Ontario, Canada.
In his writing, and in the various societies he has tried to foster, Don Cupitt attempts to develop new thinking for a new epoch: a new philosophy, a new ethics, and a new religious thought. His thinking develops continuously and is not easy to summarize, but the best introduction to it has been given by the Australian Nigel Leaves in his recent two-volume study. The Sea of Faith TV series can be obtained on DVD from the Sea of Faith UK, and the book is still in print. It is reasonably accessible to beginners in philosophy and theology. Readers with more time and energy should simply read Cupitt’s recent books in the order in which they were written — perhaps beginning with After All (1994).
The fullest bibliography in print is that in Gavin Hyman's Festschrift volume of 2004, New Directions in Philosophical Theology, published by Ashgate. From 1980 to 2000 the SCM Press of London was Cupitt’s main publisher, and they still have titles available. Today, the Polebridge Press of Santa Rosa, CA is Cupitt’s main publisher. The books are most conveniently and quickly got by ordering them by credit card over the internet, if they are currently in print, from amazon.com or amazon.co.uk (try both), and if they are out of print, from abebooks. Bona fide scholars and research students who are unable to get the texts they need should write to Don Cupitt at Emmanuel College, CAMBRIDGE CB2 3AP, UK. If he has enough spare copies, he will simply mail them free to enquirers. It goes without saying that he is at all times ready to give what assistance he can to scholars and research students who wish to consult him.
Much of Cupitt’s thinking clearly belongs to the philosophical tradition rather than to theology, and the best clues to his ideas can often be given by quoting the philosophers who have been important to him at different times. In his youth, he was most impressed by Hume and Kant. Then he became absorbed in Kierkegaard, in the movement from ‘organized religion’ to ‘spirituality’, and in the classics of Christian mysticism.
This early period culminated in Taking Leave of God (1980), Cupitt’s last book in his Kant and Kierkegaard manner. In 1981 he became immersed in Nietzsche, and then in Richard Rorty and Mark C. Taylor. By the late Eighties he had assimilated the early Derrida and French postmodernism. During the Nineties the most obvious new development was a brief turn, around 1996/98 to Heidegger. At the same time Cupitt also turned to ordinary language, and to this life. He rejects all ideas of gaining salvation by escaping from this world of ours. "All this is all there is", he says and he now sees true religion in terms of joy in life and an active attempt to add value to the human lifeworld. ‘Life’ is all that there is and all we have, and must be accepted with its limits as a package deal. We must avoid all attempts to deny or escape the limits of life — traditionally ‘time,’ chance and death.
Outside the Western tradition, Cupitt has looked mainly to Buddhism. Of his recent books, Emptiness and Brightness (2001) is the most Buddhist. He is a friend of Stephen Batchelor, who is sometimes described as his counterpart within Buddhism.
Emmanuel College is at emma.cam.ac.uk
Sea of Faith Network, UK is sofn.org.uk. It includes what is said to be one of the best theological chatrooms on the Net.
Sea of Faith Network in Australia (SoFiA) is sof-in-Australia.org
Sea of Faith (NZ) is sof.wellington.net.nz
The Westar Institute (= ‘The Jesus Seminar’, = The Polebridge Press) of Santa Rosa, CA is westarinstitute.org
Don Cupitt is best contacted by letter. For many years he has specialized in creative work in religious and philosophical thought. This kind of work demands one’s whole attention, and while one is engaged in it one cannot easily break off and settle down to discussing other ideas that one first put forward perhaps twenty years ago. So Don Cupitt regrets that he cannot be available for daily general chat. However, he answers letters promptly, and can easily be met at the various conferences and public engagements he attends. They often include the Westar Institute Spring Meeting, in early March; the Sea of Faith UK National Conference at Liverpool in late July; and Sea of Faith in Australia and in New Zealand, in late September. For details, consult the relevant websites.
He has recently completed a book called The Meaning of the West, and is currently seeing some other books through the press and into publication. Several of his recent books have been translated into Chinese, and he has enjoyed visiting two Chinese Universities.
The reason for this move to the East is that, whereas in the West Cupitt is read mainly in Theology faculties and is therefore regarded as impossibly heretical, in China he is read as Philosophy and gets a much fairer hearing.
Thus for Cupitt there is, paradoxically, more religious freedom in China than in the West. He is seen as writing somewhere between Christianity, Buddhism and French-style postmodernism and his present religion of commitment to ordinary life makes sense to many people in China, which has never been much attracted to other-worldy, dogmatic religion.
