Don Cupitt, a contemporary theologian who died in early 2025, described himself as “a secular Christian, a person committed to the critical way of thinking and a person for whom there is only one world, and it is this world; only one life, and it is this life.” What is unusual about a person with these views is that he was also an ordained Anglican priest.

I believe that Cupitt’s ideas offer a wise way forward for religious humanists (like myself). With this in mind, I have been thinking about a passage from his 2012 book, The Last Testament. In the introduction to that book he wrote “I have to try to persuade you to give up a lot of old and outworn ways of thinking so that you can learn a new, secular, everyday way to religious happiness.” Possibly this was the case for Cupitt when he was engaging with people steeped in the idea of his traditional church. For those of us who are humanists by nature or conviction, though, we have to be persuaded to consider that traditional religions have anything at all to teach us, and that faith need not be abandoned.  

In reflecting more on Cupitt’s statement about persuading people to change views, I might also want to alter persuasion so that it becomes an accompaniment. So here is Cupitt’s original quote:

I have to try to persuade you to give up a lot of old and outworn ways of thinking so that you can learn a new, secular, everyday way to religious happiness.

And here is my re-working of his ideas, to something that feels suitable to my way of thinking:

I can offer to accompany you in finding a way of thinking that allows faith to enter your secular, everyday way to religious happiness.