The blog is called English Pulpit but we don't use the pulpit in the church where I pastor. Or rather we do, but as a platform for a large white screen. Not great for the architectural purist, but a cheap projection solution.
It must be time to write about someone who did have an English Pulpit. William Huntington SS had one.
Long before William had a pulpit he had a hand cart for carrying coal. This earned him his nickname THE COAL-HEAVER PREACHER. William was the name his mother gave him. Huntington was the name he gave himself after accruing a kind of dirt other than coal dust through a scandal with a local young lady in his home county. Having run away and changed his surname he was converted. That's where the SS comes from. In mockery of divinity degrees he awarded himself the initials SS for Sinner Saved.
William became a preacher. However, while many a preacher has wished for more attentive hearers, William expected it with a vengeance. If one unfortunate made a noise he was likely to abandon any attempt at the prophetic to cry, "Silence that fool!". Fool was one of his politer insults. Divine providence placed William prior to age of social media.
His prayers were legendary and very rewarding. If he needed meat he would pray for meat. If he needed a horse and carriage he would pray for that. Of course we are talking public prayer here. Whether the good Lord answered him, his followers most certainly did and he died a very rich man.
All of which goes to show that an English Pulpit is not as boring, as unproductive or as unnewsworthy as the observer may be tempted to think.
Or as inherently respectful and virtuous as a preacher might like to assume.
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