I promised a few posts ago I would say more about St Marks Centre for Radical Christianity. The photo is of St Mark's Church, Broomhill in Sheffield. It is remarkable as a large growing church in the Church of England's liberal theological tradition.
St Marks CRC has brought some major speakers to Sheffield who I would not have otherwise heard; they include Marcus Borg, Jonathan Dominic Crossan and Bishop Spong.
These speakers draw up to 400 people from all over the region and indeed the whole country. This means the opportunities to hear them is in the form of 3 lectures in one day. There has never been much oppportunity to interact directly with them. Nevertheless I am grateful for the opportunity to be introduced to these writers and to hear them speak.
CRC contrasts markedly with the Urban Theology Unit, on the other side of the city. UTU has always emphasised the importance of Christian lifestyle over simply reading and studying the writings of others. Its approach is normally called radical theology. This name is somewhat unfortunate these days as radical seems to have become equated with violent. Indeed I gather the name radical was applied to literalist protestant Christians at the time of the Reformation!
Liberal theology is a species of literal reading of scripture where the task is to use critical methods to show that the texts were intended never to be take literally. Classic liberal theology seems to be locked in endless debates with fundamentalists about whether or not Jesus walked on water or whether demons exist. The complaint in the 60s, during the Honest to God debates, that the clergy believed what they were taught about biblical criticism in college but preached a traditional literalist interpretation of the faith is still very much alive today. Modern liberalism is perhaps best found in the writings of Dion Cupitt and his Sea of Faith network. It is marked by a rejection of what Cupitt calls supernaturalism. This seems to be a dominant theological stream at the CRC.
UTU took its approach from liberation theology in Latin America during the 1970s. It's priorities are solidarity with the oppressed and a recognition that theology is lived and so not the sole preserve of academic theologians. It does not question whether or not Jesus walked on water but asks what the story means in the context we live in here and now.
So, these approaches are often confused and the words used interchangeably. CRC seems to be something of a spectator sport compared with UTU. I have found CRC immensely helpful and stimulating but also frustrating. Once bitten by UTU's approach it is difficult to shake it off.
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