Not Just Museums

How necessary, some have asked, was the total closure of our parish churches, so that not even live streamed services from the church building was permitted? There is a growing sense among one section of the Church of England that the decision owes more to the resurgence a Puritan spirit within the church.

 "The Privatisation of religion,"  Bishop Peter Selby called it in an article in the Tablet;  and, more accessibly here on a YouTube Easter Message for members of the congregation of st. John the Divine, Kennington.

The big guns may be lining up in defence of the Church as Holy Place with a function more important than a museum of curiosities or a sheep shed.  In a thoughtful and inspiring sermon, part of BBC4 Sunday Worship service marking the 800th anniversary of Salisbury Cathedral, Bishop Nicholas Holtam had some important things to say about church buildings. The words were used in connection with the much loved Salisbury Cathedral, but are equally true for all of England's parish churches.
Church is people, as the reading from 1 Peter said ‘living stones’, as well as buildings. But it’s not one or the other: church is both. People and buildings are intimately connected across time. Our churches, what Simon Jenkins calls “the museums of England”, carry people’s stories and history. .......
Philip Larkin memorably wrote in a poem called Church Going, A serious house on serious earth it is.What is much less well remembered are the opening lines, Once I am sure there is nothing going on I step inside, letting the door thud shut. Well, now the doors are shut and the people outside, but the building is still working for us; “a thin place”, “where prayer has been valid.”  These are not just the museums of England.  They are places where we find ourselves in relation to God and one another and all creation.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

First Day of the Rest of My Life

Image
 I have not posted much of late. I have been struggling. Between completing the pioneering work on a possible Withburga Way between Holkham and Dereham in the summer of 2022 and today my health has gone downhill in alarming way. I'll never walk the route in a couple of days, nor yet in 3.  I'll never walk it.  The rapid onset Pulmonary Fibrosis has left me struggling for breath putting my boots on let alone walking.  Yesterday, I went to St. Benet's Abbey , ate my picnic lunch in the car park and set myself the challenge of walking from the car park to the Abbey ruins. It is 0.35 miles and uphill all the way from from the Gate House to the old rugged cross that marks the site of the high altar at the summit. The hill looked quite daunting -  "Who can ascend the hill of the Lord?" I sang under by breath. Stopping often to catch my breath, slowly one foot in front of the other, I got closer to the summit. There before the cross, wind in my hair, it felt as i...
Read more

North Elmham

Image
I’d come to North Elmham pursuing a mystery. Did the Bishops of Elmham from Bedwinus in the 7th century to Herfast in the 11th have their cathedral in Norfolk or  Suffolk?  North or South Elmham? I’d followed a circular walk I’d found in the  Norfolk Health Heritage and Conservations Walks  leaflet (You can get hold of one from Norfolk County Council or on-line at www.countrysideaccess.norfolk.gov.uk .)  It took me through parkland,  along quiet lanes and ended up at the parish church  (Well worth a visit in its own right!) My final destination was indicated by a brown tourist sign. Uncompromisingly it asserts “Saxon Cathedral”! But when you get to the ruins and read English Heritage’s helpful interpretation boards there’s no certainty at all.  What you see are earthworks and  ruins of a castle built by Henry Despencer,  the fighting Bishop of Norwich. He was famous for putting down the Peasants’ Revolt in 1381. A man not witho...
Read more

York Minster Pilgrimage

Image
The statue is of Constantine lolling in a chair, just outside York Minster’s south door. On the other side of a pedistrianised roadway one of the great columns of the Roman Garrison’s Principia building has been re-errected. As I stood and surveyed the scene I was very close to the place where in 306 CE the IX Legion proclaimed Constantine Emperor, the successor to his father Constantius. Before Constantine died in 337 CE he had converted to Christianity and the privileges and status that had once belonged to those who promoted the cult of the Divine Emperor fell to well placed churchmen. Some thought the privilege, power and status too much and retreated into the cleansing austerity of the desert. Other’s relished in it, climbing the dizzy heights of hierarchy and enthusiastically taking over Imperial Rome’s loveof monumental buildings pouring endless resources into the building, beautifying and maintenance of Christain basilicas. I am inclined to say, “This is where,...
Read more