Sea of Faith is organizing!

I found the web site of an interesting movement of religious liberals in the United Kingdom that embraces religious language, and is non sectarian, yet understands that all religion and all language are social constructions of human beings.  It is an example of the kind of religious humanism that can embrace those who use Christian narratives, symbols, and metaphors as part of their religious expression, as well as those who prefer to use an alternative vocabulary.  It differs from the implicit scientism of mid twentieth century humanism in that it sees the function of language as empowering human beings, thus religious language is a human creation that enables religious expression. 

The name Sea of Faith came to designate a movement after a British television series by that name, that reported on the twin crisis of modernism and dogmatic Christianity.  The name originally alluded to Matthew Arnold's classic 19th century poem Dover Beach which likened the decline of organised religion to the outgoing tide of the "sea of faith".  While this movement responds to the concrete conditions of the United Kingdom, it might be of interest to North American Unitarian Universalists.

The following is a long quote for the web site:

Sea of Faith recognises that a huge and fundamental shift has taken place in the last thirty years: a shift not only in what we believe but in how we believe. We have entered a time of unprecedented thinking and rethinking, building and rebuilding, in which beliefs about belief are shaken as never before. We are exposed to other cultures, other paradigms, other religions, other politics, other ways of making art, other ways of doing science, other ways of building moral and ethical frameworks. We can no longer convince ourselves, let alone others, that our religion story is the "true" one, or that our political ism is the "correct" one - and we marvel that our culture ever had the arrogance to make such plainly nonsensical assumptions. In this sense, Sea of Faith embraces postmodernity and is postmodernist..

Sea of Faith neither abandons the many faith traditions nor seeks to create yet another competing sect. Its members are to be found in the parish church and the synagogue, in the Quaker meeting, and at the Catholic mass, as well as in all the varieties of secular life. But they know their religious practices and "truths", like everyone else's, are socially constructed, made by human communities and not laid down by gods or ghosts or denizens of a supernatural realm. So, since faith systems were man-made, created to fill certain needs at particular times in specific places, we know we can remake them for our needs, our times, our place. We can ordain gays - or abolish the priesthood: create "green" rituals - or abandon ritual: make God female - or re-fashion him/her as the symbol or imaged incarnation of wholly human values such as mercy, pity, peace and love. We see that even if the churches are crumbling, religious expression, alongside the arts, remains a valid means of rejoicing and mourning, celebrating and imagining, and firing-up the inspiration required to remake ourselves and our society. In this sense, Sea of Faith is religious.