Religion, History and G. R Balleine – Part 2

Religion, History and G. R Balleine – Part 2

(The Reformation in Jersey)
By Jason St John Nicolle
From "The Pilot", 1991

IF SOMEONE mentions the word "Revolution”, certain images tend to project themselves onto the screens of our minds. We might see heavily-laden carts creaking through the streets of Paris. Perhaps we see bearded intellectuals, meeting in secret behind closed doors, arguing passionately for a sub-committee on the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Or we might think of furnaces and factories in smoke-filled towns, of coal mines and cotton mills. These are the sort of images which come most readily to mind when we think of Revolution. Few, if any, would picture a 34-year-old lecturer, hammering a discussion on a church door in the university town of Wittenberg. Even fewer would think of earnest, black-gowned clergymen, journeying to Geneva to hear an exiled French lawyer preach on the unrelenting justice of the God of Love.

By using the term "Reformation" rather than "Revolution" we have forgotten that the movements precipitated and led by Luther and Calvin in the middle years of the sixteenth century generated one of the most Iwo engravings which appeared in "The Reformation and the Deformation," published by Mr Mowbray of Oxford in 1868. The inscription above (which may be indistinct) shows that private subscription was a welcome source of funding. It reads: "This church was beautified and this singing loft erected at the sole expense of Dame Margery Deanwell of this parish." Peter Porty was the Rector, assisted by David-Drawl, Curate. The whole is balanced by the names of the Churchwardens: Sam Sawyer and David Daut.

The Reformation was one of the most dramatic and significant periods of change which Europe has ever known. And these changes affected Jersey as much as they affected England, France or Germany.

Historians have been arguing over the interpretation of the Reformation for well over four hundred years —and there is every sign that the debate will continue for many years to come. They have tended to pitch their tents in one of two camps. 

There are those, usually from a Protestant background, who see the new doctrines spreading quickly and widely among congregations distressed at the low state of contemporary Catholicism; they see the Reformation as a popular revolution, imposed "from below." 

But there are others who talk of a revolution imposed "from above." They argue that there was no widespread discontent amongst Catholics on the eve of the Reformation; the Protestant faith was imposed by the authorities, and it took several decades before it was widely accepted. The arguments have been over which of these two views is the more accurate: a Reformation "from below," or "from above"?

The answer is neither. As generalisations, both are equally false; as terms to describe particular situations, both can equally be true. There was never a single Reformation. The course and extent of religious change varied from city to city, and from region to region. There were cities such as London where the new doctrines had received widespread support by the early 1540's, well before the government began to impose Protestantism on its subjects, which started with the accession of Edward VI in 1547. But there were more isolated areas of the country, such as Lancashire, where Catholicism remained popular into the seventeenth century. If we examine the growth and establishment of Protestantism in sixteenth century London, we find that this was very much a reformation from below; but if we travel through the Midlands into the fells and forests of Lancashire, the picture becomes completely different.

But what if, instead of heading north along Watling Street, we were to travel south through Surrey and Hampshire, and take a boat from Southampton to Jersey? Would we find that early and vigorous commitment to the new faith which characterised and citizens of London? Or were the Jerseymen of the middle years of the sixteenth century too attached to the faith of their fathers to be anything more than lukewarm in their response to the Protestantism which the Crown wished to impose?

To the reader of Balleine's History of the Island of Jersey, the question seems strange: in the eyes of its Evangelical author, the evidence seemed simply too overwhelming for there to be any doubt on the matter. 

It had been the custom of pious Catholics to provide endowments to pay for a mass to be said on the anniversary of their own death, or that of a friend or relative; these were sometimes administered through religious clubs, known as Confraternities. The provision of such masses resulted from one of the fundamental features of late mediaeval Catholicism: the comforting belief that the living could pray for the souls of the dead. By the early 1550's, these endowments, on which the posthumous fates of so many souls were believed to depend, had been swept away by a Royal Commission, along with the statues and "objects of superstition" with which generations of Islanders had decorated their churches.

If the Jerseymen of the sixteenth century had felt any allegiance towards Catholicism, it is surely reasonable to expect to find evidence of some opposition to the imposition of the new faith. In England the government's policies provoked a large-scale rebellion in the south west in 1549, and played .a substantial part in the grievances which led to the Revolt of the Northern Earls twenty years later. But there were no revolts in Jersey. Balleine tells us that "one or two voices" were raised in opposition in the early 1550's; but they were "crying in the wilderness, for the victory of Protestantism was complete."

And here he rests his case, confident that he has established, beyond reasonable doubt, that the Reformation on Jersey was imposed rapidly and with widespread support. It seems that the jury must surely find in favour of a Reformation "from below." But before they can retire to consider their verdict, they must hear the arguments of the other side. And in order to hear these, the court must adjourn until the next issue of The PILOT.

An Equinox of Days Long Past

After seeing how the equinox light at sunrise moves along the passage way at Hougue Bie, I wanted to capture something of the mystery of ages past, when our ancestors were using the Dolmen at this time of year. Hence this sonnet which uses a trochaic tetrameter.

The autumn equinox represents the exact tipping point where the nights become longer than the days. The "dying god" often represents a solar deity or a god of light whose power is fading.  By speaking of these deities through "bardic songs," the ancestors remind themselves that winter is not permanent. The god must descend into the underworld (winter) so that the earth can be regenerated and reborn in the spring. It transforms death from an act of destruction into an act of necessary creation.

An Equinox of Days Long Past

Light along the pagan path
Seasons come, seasons go
Coming of the stormy wrath
The Equinox in sunrise glow

Ancestors will bless our land
Shaman enters passage way
Praying now for healing hand
Hope arising this new day

Autumn lands are growing old
Dying gods are told in tale
Of heroes and a quest so bold
Bardic songs as sun grows pale

Harvest tide brings bounty still
Winter waits beyond the hill

Surville Manor: 1967 Report – Part 2

Surville Manor: 1967 Report – Part 2

SURVILLE MANOR
GARDES LA FOY
By PHYLLIDA CAMPBELL
Jersey Life, 1967

Down the Centuries

Eventually the fief of Surville came to the Messervys whose family own it today, and the manor was sold to the father of Mr. George Romeril who lives at Wyvill, Georgetown. The present owners bought the property in 1946 with 50 or 60 vergees of land, which to begin with Commander Chamberlayne farmed himself. His four children, Susan, Gillian, Nicola and Michael all went to school in the island. The derelict old manor behind their home held a fascination for the Chamberlaynes and they decided to restore it to a liveable dwelling.

This was a long job and they tackled it with great enthusiasm. The charming little tourelle at the back is one of its most interesting features. It is not tall and stately like La Tourelle at Faldouet or le Catillon at St. Martin's, but it fits snugly into the rear of the homestead, and the 23 steps of its circular granite staircase are perfectly preserved.

The most exciting aspect of the manor as it is today is the enormously heavy capstone, weighing something like 30 tons, forming the ceiling of a small room at the foot of the escalier. Commander Chamberlayne has a theory about this. He thinks it may very probably have been a tumulus (artificial hillock raised over a Neolithic grave) and the earth round it removed elsewhere. There is certainly a triangular man-made platform before the newer house, now turned into a lawn and sloping gently down towards where the land descends into Bellozanne Valley.

`If I am right and they built the house around the grave' he says, 'it could easily be the oldest house on the Island'.

The old chamfered door with its heavy straight lintel still stands, so do the three well-built chimney stacks with their `witches' seats'. Mr. and Mrs. Coutanche, who now rent the house and farmland, are a real Jersey family and love the ancient architecture of their home, while appreciating its modern conveniences.

The Cod House

  

Despite its brief 126 years of life, the Victorian cod-house also has its charm, not the least of which is the big drawing room which the Chamberlaynes built on, with its so beautiful and tranquil view over the valley. 

On one cotil to the south, Commander Chamberlayne is busy planting an arboretum. Survilles, Le Gallais, Pawletts, Romerils, Messervys and other families unknown perhaps—and now it is the home of an English family who regard it as a heritage to be loved and preserved in character.

Guernsey in 1974 – Part 1

Guernsey in 1974 – Part 1

This is an extract from Peter Haining’s guide book of 1974, which is as much interest today for the historian as to the tourist, as many of the places and industries described in his book have long vanished. Please do not take it as a current guide. I have taken time to annotate some of the changes in italics.

Introduction

Guernsey is sometimes referred to as the “Island of Greenhouses” —and certainly should you be flying to it the view from above is of acre upon acre of glass. The impression is not altogether correct, however, for only about one fifteenth of the island is devoted to greenhouses, and in the remainder are houses for the population of 50,000, some delightful wooded and rural areas, plus enough beaches, bays and attractions to keep the average visitor happy for weeks.

The description of Guernsey as an "Island of Greenhouses" is largely outdated due to the collapse of the island's commercial horticultural industry, leaving many structures derelict rather than actively cultivated. Additionally, Guernsey's population has increased from the historical estimate of 50,000 to approximately 64,600 residents today.

The island is the second largest of the Channel Island group and covers 24 square miles. It is seven miles long by three miles wide and has over 25 miles of coastline. The ancient name for Guernsey was Greneze, “Green Isle” and as the visitor makes use of the 300 miles of roadway he will soon see how true this is. 

The Claim: That the ancient name was Greneze, meaning "Green Isle." This is a persistent folk-etymology myth. The name "Guernsey" is actually of Old Norse (Viking) origin. The suffix -ey is the Viking word for "island" (seen also in Jersey and Alderney). While older medieval records used spellings like Gernesey or Gernezeye, the root Guern- is believed to stem from a Viking personal name like Grani, or the Old Norse word grǫn (meaning spruce or pine)—not "green". To the Romans, the island was known as Lisia or Sarnia.

The Bailiwick of Guernsey, which includes Alderney, Sark, Herm and Jethou, is a self-governing community and the people have a fierce spirit of independence. They make their own laws (some of which have a distinctly feudal severity about them), impose their own taxes and even mint their own currency. The island has its own Norman-French patios which, although not used a great deal today, can still be heard spoken in the outlying communities.

When this guide was written, this was a direct nod to Sark, which was famous for being the last feudal state in Europe. Sark was ruled by a Seigneur and a parliament (Chief Pleas) made up of hereditary landowners. However, in 2008, Sark officially abolished its 450-year-old feudal system and held its first fully democratic elections to comply with modern human rights laws. While ancient customary laws still influence the islands, the "feudal severity" is a thing of the past.

The guide is referring to Guernesiais (Guernsey French). In the 1970s, it could still be heard naturally among older generations in rural parishes like Torteval or St. Saviour's. Today, it is no longer spoken as a primary community language and is classified as critically endangered, though intensive language revitalization efforts are being made in local schools.

The spirit of independence has persisted throughout much of the island’s history and smuggling between the Continent and Britain was one of the islanders’ chief methods of earning a living during the 17th and 18th centuries. Throughout the island the visitor can find caves and cellars where the ‘‘free traders” hid their booty. The climate on Guernsey is particularly suited to maturing wines and spirits and consequently huge quantities of raw liquor found its way onto the island—and helped to put considerable fortunes into the pockets of local cask makers and smugglers.

The historical narrative regarding Guernsey's 17th- and 18th-century smuggling economy is largely accurate, serving as a primary economic driver due to the island's strategic tax-exempt status rather than its climate. While romanticized caves are tied to smuggler lore, contraband was primarily stored in merchant cellars.

Today there is no need for smuggling spirits either in or out of the island, because prices here are as low as anywhere in the world. The main bone of contention, however, is over licensing hours. During the summer period the permitted hours for hotels and inns are 10.00 a.m. to 11 p.m. from Monday to Saturday. But on Sunday all bars are closed and you can only get a drink in the hotel where you are staying or with a meal. This is a point to remember if you are out on that day. (Just as it is to remember that petrol is not sold in Guernsey on Sundays.)

Guernsey's historical restrictions regarding Sunday alcohol sales and petrol availability are heavily outdated and have been completely dismantled. Standard venues can now legally serve alcohol on Sundays from noon until late, and fuel stations operate regular Sunday hours. 

An interesting item to look out for when you are in a bar is the “Black List’ pinned up behind the counter. This is a selection of photographs and descriptions of islanders who have been barred from the local taverns. Guernsey takes a very strong view over drunkenness and to go on this list (which is circulated to every inn keeper and hotel proprietor on the island) is considered the severest and most effective form of punishment. Some offenders have even been known to plead in court that they are put on the list in order to halt their excessive drinking!

The account of Guernsey’s historical "Black List"—a court-mandated registry of individuals barred from local taverns under the Intoxicating Liquor (Prohibition Orders) (Guernsey) Law, 1960—is historically accurate. Chronic offenders occasionally requested inclusion on the list as a legal deterrent to curb excessive drinking, though the practice was eventually phased out in favour of modern privacy frameworks and health initiatives.

Guernsey is divided up into ten parishes and although they have not been dealt with separately in this book, all the interesting sights and attractions they contain are mentioned in the various sections. The bays and beaches have also been treated individually—with their facilities and accessibility—so as to simplify selecting a spot. The coastline is probably Guernsey’s outstanding feature, particularly along the southern edge which has few accessible beaches but provides breath-taking views. Along many other stretches there are ancient remains to be seen and some incredible caves with histories of smuggling and piracy. 

Of all the caves on the island the one which should not be missed is the Creux Mahie at Havre du Bon Repos which can be reached from the road named Chemin le Roi going to Torteval. The cave, which is the largest on the island, is entered by a small hole which suddenly breaks out into a passage some 200 feet long and varying in height from 20 to 60 ft. A torch is needed to explore the cavern, but don’t waste time wondering about the mysterious black marks on the walls—they were caused by the Fire torches carried by fishermen using the place in the past. In the bay below this there is a beautiful rock pool called the ‘““Venus Bath” where bathing is possible.

The guidebook implies you can simply walk in with a torch. This is no longer true. Le Creux Mahié sits entirely on private land and is closed to the general public due to safety, land ownership, and steep, dangerous cliff descents. The only way to access it today is via specially permitted eco-tours, such as those occasionally organized by Outdoor Guernsey.

The author has mixed up two different islands. The famous, deep-water tidal rock pool known as the Venus Pool (or Venus Bath) is actually located on the neighbouring island of Sark (specifically on the rugged headland of Little Sark). It is not at the foot of Creux Mahié

The visitor will obviously spend time in the capital town, St. Peter Port with its tiers of ancient buildings (many of which were built with the spoils from smuggling and piracy), and a separate section is devoted to it. 

No visit would be complete, either, without a trip to the huge reservoir at St. Saviour’s. This is one of the finest pieces of construction work on the Channel Islands and no less impressive because it has been created by such a comparatively small community. The reservoir holds 240 million gallons of water and covers over 38 acres. Beneath its tranquil surface lie three valleys in which there were seven farmhouses and approximately 600 trees. The total cost of the project was £400,000 which is quite a sum for a small island to raise! Guernsey also has its own £257,000 sea water distillation plant which was opened in 1960 and now produces 500,000 gallons of fresh water each day if required.

While the sea water distillation plant opened in 1960 at a cost of £257,000 to produce up to 500,000 gallons daily, it proved uneconomical and was permanently decommissioned in 1970.

But despite progress such as this, the island still clings tenaciously to many old customs and superstitions. For instance the author was told that many islanders believe that a criminal can be exposed by using a Bible and a key. This is effected by placing the key upright on a certain text in the Bible and then getting two people to hold the key upright with their marriage fingers. The name of the suspected criminal is now spoken and if the Bible moves under the key, the person is guilty. More customs are mentioned later in the book, including details of witchcraft, which has long been practised on the island and is still believed to exist in the more remote areas.

Known formally as coscinomancy or bibliomancy, this was a widespread European folk custom. While the guidebook treats it as a uniquely local superstition, 19th-century accounts compiled in Sir Edgar MacCulloch's seminal book Guernsey Folk-Lore confirm that old islanders heavily relied on the "Bible and key" to resolve neighbourhood thefts without involving the courts. It is no longer practiced or believed by modern islanders, existing purely as an entry in historical folklore archives.

Guernsey has one of the darkest histories of witch trials in the British Isles. Between 1560 and 1640, the Royal Court of Guernsey tried over 100 people for sorcery, resulting in 44 people being tortured, hanged, and burned at the stake. By 1974, these supernatural beliefs had effectively vanished from daily life, making the guidebook's claim that witchcraft "is still believed to exist" a massive exaggeration designed to sell books to tourists.

The author's claim that people were still actively using the "Bible and key" or hiding from witches in 1974 is a romanticized embellishment. The last actual legal trial involving witchcraft in Guernsey occurred in January 1914 (the case of Aimée Lake, who was prosecuted for fraud and fortune-telling after selling charms to ward off evil spirits). By the 1970s, the island was fully modernized, highly educated, and transitioning rapidly into a global financial centre. No one in 1974 was seriously consulting a Bible and a key to solve a local crime.

The tourist trade now probably accounts for a large percentage of Guernsey’s income, but the tomato growing industry is not far behind. The industry has grown up over a comparatively short time and there is a story told on the island that when the first tomatoes were introduced from Spain in 1865 and grown locally, many housewives refused to have anything to do with them, believing they were poisonous! Today Guernsey tomatoes are popular all over Great Britain and the Continent and bring in an annual revenue of about £9,500,000 from the millions of trays which are exported. The particularly mild climate of Guernsey (snow and frost are very rare and it is often possible to bathe on Christmas Day) mean that the plants can go in the ground in December and be ripe for sale before any other competitors. There are plenty of opportunities to visit tomato greenhouses, and an inquiry to a grower will almost certainly result in an invitation to a conducted tour.

The author’s story about 1865 housewives refusing to touch tomatoes because they believed they were poisonous is 100% historically true. Because tomatoes belong to the Solanaceae (nightshade) family, they were widely feared across Europe for centuries. Wealthy Europeans also mistakenly blamed the tomato for lead poisoning—not realizing that the fruit's high acidity was actually leaching toxic lead out of their fancy pewter dinner plates!Guernsey did not embrace them commercially until the 1870s and 1880s once these fears were debunked.

The collapse of Guernsey's commercial tomato industry is one of the most dramatic economic turnarounds in the island's modern history. At its peak, the "Guernsey Tom" was a massive economic engine, utilizing over 2,000 vineries and employing 30% of the island's male workforce.

To beat UK and European competitors to market, Guernsey growers planted seeds in December. This required keeping millions of square feet of glasshouses intensely heated through the cold winter months using heavy oil boilers. When the global oil crises of the 1970s struck, the price of fuel skyrocketed, making the cost of heating the glasshouses mathematically unsustainable.

1979: The Second Oil Crisis and the Breaking Point. Fuel costs surge to a level where it officially costs more to grow and heat a Guernsey tomato than it is worth on the open market. Total acreage dedicated to tomatoes drops immediately by more than half, falling from 567 acres down to 240 acres over the next few years.

While Guernsey struggled with soaring oil costs, the Netherlands discovered vast reserves of cheap North Sea natural gas. The Dutch government heavily subsidized heating costs for their own greenhouse growers. Combined with advanced massive-scale automation, Holland completely undercut Guernsey's prices on the UK market.

Historically, Guernsey tomatoes were rushed from the harbour at St. Peter Port to English ports, then distributed nationwide via efficient British Rail fruit-train networks. Changes and cuts to the UK railway system disrupted these classic distribution lines, driving up transport freight costs.

July 1992: The official tourist-facing Guernsey Tomato Centre, which had opened in 1977 to champion the history and heritage of the crop, permanently winds up operations and shuts its doors

Disappearing Christian Thinkers: Maurice Wiles

Maurice Wiles (1923–2005) rounds out this vanishing act as the consummate academic insider whose radical revision of Christian doctrine was so polite, precise, and decorous that it failed to spark an enduring movement.

While his contemporary Dennis Nineham dismantled the historical reliability of the Bible, Wiles dismantled classical Christian dogma from the inside. As the Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford University and the chairman of the Church of England’s Doctrine Commission, Wiles held the keys to the theological establishment. Yet, his legacy has faded because his elegant, rationalist critique of the supernatural ultimately left academic theology with nowhere to go.

His eclipse is a result of several defining characteristics of his work and career:

1. The Quiet Demolition of the Incarnation

Wiles is best remembered as the driving intellectual force behind the explosive 1977 book The Myth of God Incarnate, a collection of essays that caused a massive public outcry in the UK.

• The Argument: Wiles argued that orthodox Christian claims—specifically that Jesus of Nazareth was literally God incarnate—were not factual descriptions of reality. Instead, he argued that "incarnation" was a poetic, mythological way for the early Church to express Jesus’s profound awareness of God.
• The Erasure: Unlike Don Cupitt, who used this idea to launch a media career as a radical iconoclast, Wiles presented it with the dry, understated caution of an Oxford don. Because his presentation was so academic, once the initial media storm of 1977 passed, his ideas were folded into standard university debates rather than serving as the rallying cry for a vibrant, living movement.

2. A World Without Miracles (Deistic Tendencies)

In his 1986 Bampton Lectures, published as God’s Action in the World, Wiles took his critique to its logical conclusion by arguing against the idea of divine intervention.

• He asserted that God does not perform localized miracles, answer specific intercessory prayers, or alter the laws of nature. To Wiles, God's sole action is the single, ongoing act of creating and sustaining the universe.
• The Problem: By reducing God's activity to a hands-off, cosmic backdrop, Wiles's theology began to look indistinguishable from 18th-century Enlightenment Deism. For subsequent generations of theologians, a faith without a prayer-hearing, intervening God felt spiritually sterile. It offered very little nourishment for preaching, liturgy, or Christian practice, causing the Church to quietly move past it.

3. The Rebound of Orthodoxy

Wiles’s career peaked in the late 1970s and 1980s, during what seemed like the final triumph of secular, liberal enlightenment over traditional religion. However, he did not foresee the massive theological counter-revolution that followed.

• In the 1990s and 2000s, academic theology experienced a dramatic resurgence of orthodox, conservative, and post-liberal thought (such as Radical Orthodoxy).
• Thinkers like John Milbank and N.T. Wright argued that Wiles's rationalism was a dated product of Victorian skepticism. They reasserted a robust, supernatural, and historically grounded orthodox faith. Wiles’s polite skepticism suddenly looked like yesterday's news, trapped in a mid-century modernist paradigm.

4. The Scholar of the Past Who Undermined the Past

Wiles was initially a world-class patristic scholar—an expert on the early Church Fathers who hammered out the creeds in the 4th and 5th centuries. His books like The Making of Christian Doctrine are still praised for their historical clarity.

• The irony of his career is that he used his immense knowledge of the Church Fathers to argue that their conclusions (like the Nicene Creed) were historical accidents that modern people should abandon.
• Because he used patristics to dismantle patristic authority, he ended up in a no-man's-land: traditional patristic scholars found his conclusions unacceptable, while modern radical theologians found his focus on ancient texts boring and old-fashioned.

The Fourfold Collapse of British Liberal Theology

Looking at all four of these thinkers together, we can trace the precise trajectory of how mid-to-late 20th-century British theology vanished:

• John Macquarrie built a traditional cathedral but used modern existential scaffolding that eventually rotted away.
• Don Cupitt sawed off the branches of the Christian tree, declared the tree dead, and walked into secular mysticism.
• Dennis Nineham proved that the soil the tree was planted in (historical scripture) was highly unstable, but stayed in the shade of the tree anyway.
• Maurice Wiles used impeccable manners and Oxford prestige to neatly prune away every supernatural branch of the tree until there was nothing left but a bare trunk.

Disappearing Christian Thinkers: Dennis Nineham

Dennis Nineham (1921–2016) represents yet a third type of vanishing act: the radical biblical critic whose shocking ideas became so completely normalized that his own name was absorbed into the background noise of modern scholarship. [1]

Unlike Macquarrie (who was too moderate and systematic) or Cupitt (who became a post-Christian iconoclast), Nineham was an establishment academic. He held prestigious chairs at London, Cambridge, and Bristol, and served as Warden of Keble College, Oxford. Yet, his legacy has faded due to the unique way his specific breakthroughs were swallowed by time. [1, 2, 3]

His disappearance from the forefront of public memory is due to several intersecting factors:

1. The Death of the "Pelican Paperbacks" Shock Factor

Nineham’s most famous and lasting work was his 1963 commentary, The Gospel of Saint Mark, published by Pelican/Penguin. [1, 4]

• The Shock: In 1963, publishing a highly sceptical, German-style "Form Critical" analysis of Jesus in a cheap paperback for the general public was incendiary. Nineham argued that Mark’s Gospel was not an eyewitness biography of Jesus, but a collection of heavily edited preaching material designed to win converts. He cast deep doubt on whether we could know the literal, historical details of Jesus' life. [1, 4, 5]
• The Erasure: Today, many of Nineham's conclusions are often standard, foundational curriculum in almost every mainstream university and seminary globally. Because his radicalism became the textbook status quo, students read the concepts without needing to read the specific 1963 commentary that first shocked the British public. [6, 7]

2. Cultural Relativism Built a Dead End

Nineham took his historical skepticism a step further in his 1976 book, The Use and Abuse of the Bible. He argued that human cultures change so radically over time that it is effectively impossible for a 20th-century person to truly think like, or understand the mindset of, a 1st-century first-century Christian. [3, 8, 9]

• He famously used the example that if a man collapses frothing at the mouth, the New Testament authors see a demon; the Middle Ages see a chemical imbalance of "humours"; and the modern world sees an epileptic or psychiatric event. [9]
• Because he argued that the Bible is entirely locked in its own ancient, unbridgeable cultural past, his theology struggled to say anything constructive to the modern church. Once you argue that the text cannot easily speak across the centuries, you render yourself obsolete to theologians looking for active guidance.

3. High on Controversy, Low on Output

Despite holding the highest academic offices in the UK, Nineham was famously a "controversialist" rather than a prolific writer. [2]

• He was appointed to major chairs on the strength of brilliant lectures and tutorials rather than a mountain of published monographs.
• Aside from his St. Mark commentary and his epilogue to the notorious 1977 collection The Myth of God Incarnate (which argued that Jesus being the literal "Son of God" was a poetic metaphor), he published relatively little solid, multi-volume academic theology. Without a massive library of authored books, an academic's name rarely survives the generational shift. [2, 10]

4. The Churchman Who Cut His Own Branch

Nineham was an ordained Anglican priest who remained deeply, stubbornly loyal to the Church of England, its liturgy, and its synods until his death. This created an unsustainable paradox for his legacy: [1, 4]

• Secular skeptics didn't read him because he remained a devoted, church-going priest.
• Churchgoers and conservative theologians largely ignored him because his scholarship systematically dismantled the historical reliability of the gospels they preached. [1, 4]

The Trio Compared

If we look at the three thinkers together, we see the full collapse of mid-to-late 20th-century British radical theology:

• Macquarrie built a beautiful, elaborate house using a tool (existentialism) that people stopped using.
• Cupitt burnt the house down and walked away into the wilderness.
• Nineham meticulously took the historical foundations out from under the house, but then insisted on sitting in the living room anyway.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com

[2] https://www.churchtimes.co.uk

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org

[4] https://www.telegraph.co.uk

[5] https://www.amazon.co.uk

[6] https://www.amazon.com

[7] https://www.goodreads.com

[8] https://www.bristol.ac.uk

[9] https://www.thetimes.com

[10] https://www.thetimes.com

Disappearing Christian Thinkers: Don Cupitt

Don Cupitt (born 1934) presents a completely opposite type of "vanishing act" compared to John Macquarrie. While Macquarrie faded because his philosophical framework became outdated, Cupitt vanished because he deliberately stepped off the edge of traditional Christianity altogether, leaving both the church and academic theology behind.

As a Cambridge dean and the face of the radical Sea of Faith movement in the 1980s, Cupitt’s trajectory toward absolute "Christian Buddhism" or "solar living" became so extreme that he ceased to be a theologian in any conventional sense, effectively erasing his own place in the institutional memory of the Church.

His erasure stems from several sharp, self-inflicted and cultural departures:

1. The Shock of "Non-Realism"

Cupitt’s 1984 BBC television series and accompanying book, The Sea of Faith, popularized theological non-realism.

• The Core Idea: Cupitt argued that "God" is not an objectively existing being, creator, or entity out there in the universe. Instead, God is simply a spiritual ideal, a human projection, or a symbol of our highest ethical aspirations.
• The Fall-Out: By stripping Christianity of a real, objective God, a literal resurrection, and an afterlife, he turned theology into a branch of human psychology and linguistics. For the vast majority of practicing Christians, Cupitt was no longer reinterpreting the faith—he was introducing a disguised form of religious atheism.

2. A Movement Born and Died in the 1980s

For a brief moment, Cupitt was the most talked-about religious figure in Britain. He gathered a passionate following of clergy and laypeople who felt they could no longer believe in supernatural dogmas but still loved the aesthetic, moral, and community aspects of the Church.

• The Problem: The Sea of Faith network quickly ran into a structural dead end. If God is just a human construct and the church is just a club for ethical self-improvement, it is incredibly difficult to sustain institutional momentum.
• The Result: The movement aged out and shrank. Once the initial media shock factor wore off in the 1990s, mainstream theology largely ignored Cupitt, viewing his work as a spent firework of late-20th-century secularization rather than a lasting theological system.

3. Deliberate Self-Exile from the Church

Unlike other radical theologians (such as John Robinson, author of Honest to God, who remained an Anglican bishop), Cupitt eventually realized his positions were entirely incompatible with the Church of England.

• He stopped officiating at Holy Communion because he felt it was hypocritical to lead a liturgy directed at a personal God.
• He stopped attending church altogether, choosing instead to write increasingly idiosyncratic books on what he called "radical immanence," "lifeism," and "solar ethics" (the idea that humans should burn brightly and burn out, like the sun, without looking for eternal life).
• By severing his ties to the liturgy and the institution, he ensured that future generations of church historians and seminary students would treat his work as an eccentric footnote rather than a part of the living tradition.

4. Overtaken by Post-Modernism and the New Atheism

Cupitt’s writing style was highly fluid and fast-moving—he published over 50 books—but his ideas became trapped between two cultural waves:

• Philosophically: Academic theology moved toward Post-Liberalism and Radical Orthodoxy, which fiercely re-asserted traditional dogma and Christian narrative against secular critiques. Cupitt’s hyper-modernist scepticism suddenly looked old-fashioned.
• Culturally: In the 2000s, the "New Atheism" (led by Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens) took over the public square. Secular people didn't want Cupitt's nuanced, churchless "religious textuality"; they preferred outright scepticism. Meanwhile, religious people wanted a robust, supernatural faith to counter the secular onslaught. Cupitt's middle ground pleased absolutely no one.

Summary: Macquarrie vs. Cupitt

• Macquarrie is forgotten because he was a moderate coordinator whose specific philosophical tools (existentialism) grew dusty in the attic of academia.
• Cupitt is forgotten because he was a radical iconoclast who blew up the foundations of his own house. Once the smoke cleared, there was no building left for subsequent generations to inhabit.