Cupitt was born in
Oldham,
Lancashire, England, on 22 May 1934, son of Robert and Norah Cupitt. He was educated at
Charterhouse School in
Godalming,
Surrey;
Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where he graduated as a B.A. in 1955 and M.A. in 1958; and
Westcott House, Cambridge. He studied, successively, natural sciences, theology and the philosophy of religion. In 1959, he was
ordained deacon in the
Church of England, becoming a
priest in 1960. After serving as a
curate in the parish of St Philip's and St Stephen's in
Salford from 1959 to 1962, Though he had been a priest, he was better known as a writer, broadcaster and populariser of innovative theological ideas. He wrote 40 books—which have been translated into Dutch, Persian, Polish, Korean, Portuguese, Danish, German and Chinese—as well as chapters in more than 30 multi-authored volumes. Cupitt came to the British public's attention in 1984 with his
BBC television series
The Sea of Faith, in which
orthodox Christian beliefs were challenged. The series took its title from
Matthew Arnold's poem
Dover Beach, which reflected on the decline of faith. Cupitt was a key figure in the
Sea of Faith Network, a group of spiritual "explorers" (based in the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia) who shared Cupitt's concerns. Prompted by the series,
Giles Fraser sought a meeting with Cupitt, which led Fraser from atheism to Christian faith and ordination in the Church of England. After he began writing in 1971, Cupitt's views continued to evolve and change. In his early books such as
Taking Leave of God and
The Sea of Faith Cupitt spoke of God alone as non-real, but by the end of the 1980s, he moved into
postmodernism, describing his position as "empty radical humanism": that is, "[T]here is nothing but our language, our world, and the meanings, truths and interpretations that we have generated. Everything is non-real, including God". In his writings, Cupitt sometimes described himself as a
Christian non-realist, meaning that he followed certain spiritual practices and attempted to live by ethical standards traditionally associated with Christianity but without believing in the actual existence of the underlying metaphysical entities (such as "
Christ" and "
God"). He termed this way of being a non-realist Christian "solar living". Cupitt married Susan Day in 1963 and the couple had three children. He died at
Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge following a short illness on 18 January 2025, at the age of 90. ==Quotations==