Don Cupitt
Life Fellow and former Dean
Emmanuel College
Don Cupitt was a Life Fellow and former Dean of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. He was born in 1934 in Oldham, England, and educated at Charterhouse and Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where he studied Natural Sciences, Theology, and the Philosophy of Religion. He was ordained in the Church of England in 1959. From 1962 to 1965, he was Vice-Principal of Westcott House, an Anglican theological college in Cambridge, and became Dean of Emmanuel College in 1966. From 1968 to 1996, he also lectured in the Cambridge Faculty of Divinity.
Don Cupitt was best known as a teacher and writer. He was often described as a “radical theologian” or as “a liberal religious thinker.” Philosophically, he was a stalwart non-realist. Most of his books belong to a single series of twenty-three titles that reflect the development of his thinking, from Taking Leave of God (1980) to Emptiness and Brightness (2002). A frequent broadcaster, mainly for the BBC, he made three TV series, one of which, The Sea of Faith (1984), also gave rise to a book and an international network of radical Christians that continues to grow.
In his writing and in the various societies he sought to foster, Don Cupitt attempted to develop new thinking for a new epoch: a new philosophy, a new ethics, and a new religious thought. He passed away on January 18, 2025 and is deeply missed.
