World Cup Churches 5. England

It's World Cup year - taking place in November/December in Qatar instead of the Northern Hemisphere summer as it has always previously done.  Heading round the 32 qualifying countries I will pick out one church in each one.  I am not going to choose only churches that are to my liking.  This is a exploration not a recommendation! To see all in the series select the label 'World Cup Churches' below.

Moving into World Cup Group B we are on familiar territory with England.  

How can I choose a church in a place where I have visited and perhaps even taken some part in hundreds?  I found it surprisingly easy because one church epitomises more about England and churches than any other I know.

Westminster Abbey was an obvious kind of choice.  

But this is not Westminster Abbey - though it is consciously almost exactly the same as one end of the Abbey.

At least it is obviously a Church of England building.

But this is not a Church of England building.  Or a Roman Catholic one.  Nor has it ever been - although in another way it has been several Church of England buildings . . .

Welcome to Christ the King Church, Bloomsbury, London, a building so monumental that any first time passer-by will inevitably look at it - though it is far harder to see inside.  It is/was/is a Catholic Apostolic Church (building).

English church life has never been simple and full of quirks - but this is a church that almost defies description in that regard.

Although it is my choice of English church it does owe a great deal to Scotland - more specifically to Edward Irving.  He was a Church of Scotland Minister who developed what might now be called Pentecostal theology.  Irving was part of a great 19th century revival.  As a Church of Scotland minister in London he was thrown out of his church.  In a long story which I tell in one sentence his story inspired followers who brought the Catholic Apostolic Church into being.  As you can see from the picture (you could also hear it from the organ at a recital or see it in the ceiling vaulting) his followers were not poor.

After various splits the tradition lives on in derived denominations in America and Germany in particular.  But the original thinking was based on the Apostles, Angels (as per the Book of Revelation), of the End-Time church preparing for the Return of Christ.  It represented one of the countless Christian movements birthed in England - and indeed in London.

As such no provision for succession was made and eventually the church died out through lack of key leaders.

The building is set in the middle of London University - by far and away the largest university in the UK.  The Church of England University Chaplaincy eventually took over the use of the building for its work.  Many former London University graduates will remember the building (without probably ever realising it was not, in fact, an Anglican church).  

Then the Chaplaincy moved out.

All of us in church life in England know that the Church of England is a fantasmagorical mix of Catholicism that is almost too Catholic for the Pope and Evangelicalism that is indistinguishable from an independent Charismatic Congregation, or a sturdy Bible Teaching Centre.

Forward in Faith, representing Catholic Anglicans looking to stem non-traditionalism  (including feminine leaders) has its home - you've guessed it - here.  In the shut-off end where the altar is, they hold mass on weekdays.  It is a building that epitomises the grandeur of a Catholic-minded liturgical incense-fest.

On Sundays Euston Church meets here.  Euston Church is an Evangelical Anglican mission aimed at the international students, dynamic, biblical, young.

If you've read all that, you are now bewildered.  You are asking of this monumental building, "Yes but what is it then?".

And the answer is, it's English.