Beyond the Fringe
If there were one big question you wanted answering, what would it be?
That was the question addressed to interviewees in 'Beyond the Fringe', a newly published research project conducted by LICC and the Diocese of Coventry, in which 60 'non-Christians', of all ages and walks of life, discussed their attitudes towards God, society and many other issues.
What emerged was a fascinating picture of spiritual Britain today, which turned on one key fact: everyone, no matter how materialist, atheist or nihilist they claimed to be, had at least one question they wanted answering. Many had many more.
Six key areas emerged: destiny (what happens after we die?), purpose (what's the point of life?), the universe (how did it start? is it designed?), God (does s/he/it exist and, if so, what is s/he/it like?), the spiritual realm (what form does it take and what relevance does it have to my life?) and suffering (why is there suffering and what can be done about it?).
People's answers to these questions varied widely. The commonest form of destiny envisaged was a spiritualised, disembodied, reuniting kind of afterlife. People tended not to claim that life had a purpose but invariably lived as if it did.
God (in as far as he was believed in) was a divided character, on one hand an abstract explanation for all there is, credible but remote and frankly irrelevant, and on the other hand, a personal 'being' who was closer to humanity but rather less credible.
People's understanding of these (and other) issues was self-confessedly insufficient and hesitant but nonetheless very real. Interviewees may not have been churchgoers or even theists, but all were happy 'doing theology', albeit in a vague and sometimes Godless way.
And all were 'spiritual animals', frequently echoing the words of one interviewee from LICC's earlier project, Beyond Belief?:
'What have you lived say 50/60 years for? To die?... You could say that everyone is spiritual because everyone thinks about that at some point.'
The fact that interviewees didn't think they could find answers to their spiritual questions and longings in church - 'the church could be tried in a court of justice and found guilty of killing off spirituality', as one woman said - should not surprise us. They were, after all, recruited to be 'beyond the fringe'.
But it does raise an interesting question: is the church spiritual enough for 21st century Britain?
Nick Spencer
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