Christianity from the No 43 bus: 6. Temperance and the Tavern

 Continuing a journey through London on the 43 bus route - with a Christian eye.  The whole series is viewable on the '43 bus route' tag below.

Opposite Archway underground station (a previous terminus of the Northern Line) stands what was, until quite recently, Archway Methodist Church.  And nearby - what still is - Archway Tavern.

A penny for every time you have heard some church leader have an epiphany that their church building should no longer look like a church because people don't like that (when what they mean is that they want to change something because - well, - they want to be able to say that they've changed something),

The bad news is - that's old news.

Methodism quite specialised in it and, in addition to churches that looked like churches, they built Central Halls that didn't.  In fact on this very New Years Eve the most famous Central Hall - over the road from Westminster Abbey - will be busy having a lights and music spectacular to welcome in the New Year.  Without a trace of God.

The idea of Central Halls in general and Archway's (the last ever built) in particular was to provide a hub of wholesome activity in town and city centres.  It was a church, but functioned as a 7 day a week activity centre.  But none of the alcohol or general worldliness of the Archway Tavern and its long lost fellow alehouses.

So in the picture and without the wording it would never be thought of as a church.  It had several glorious years of witness in the working-class (as was) buzz of Archway.

It's closed now.  

So its architecture didn't actually save it and the congregation have retreated to a small chapel-looking church not too far away but absolutely not in the centre of Archway life.  

And meanwhile Methodism in England seems intent, in the past ten years particularly, on embracing some of the standards of Archway Tavern as against offering a holier alternative.

We look to a New Year and long for the believers of Britain to, once more, catch the call to be salt and light instead of a tasteless anonymity.

Christianity from the 43 bus: 5. Beauty and the Beast

Continuing a journey through London on the 43 bus route - with a Christian eye.  The whole series is viewable on the '43 bus route' tag below.

It's Hallowe'en so an appropriate day for something a little scary.  This building doesn't look scary to me - but it is very noticeable in a long row of anonymous shops with flats above them as the 43 trundles down the Archway Road towards London.

In bright sunlight it shines as the rays hit the golden statues and surroundings.  It doesn't look like it belongs in its setting, but it generally cheers the place up.

It isn't a church, and has never been a church.  Rather, it is a Hindu temple in what was formerly a synagogue.  As it happens it does not belong in its setting in another sense because the actual Sri Lankan community this type of temple serves does not live in this part of London.  Still, there's not much gold visible from a 43 bus so it is nice to see.

Then there is the parish church, just a block further along the road. 

A critic, upon its completion in the Victorian era, called it the ugliest church in London.  It is quite hard to know every church in London so this seems like an exaggeration.  Speaking for myself I would be inclined to place it on any shortlist though, notwithstanding some of the celebrated architects who helped to design (I use the word loosely) it.

As a Baptist I am not at all of the view that the church is the building.  Nor am I well disposed to golden images on the outside of Places of Worship.  Yet taking a step back from my theology and imagining myself on a search for a God who might welcome me I cannot escape the thought that on Archway Road it might a lot easier to step through golden portals to seek Him than enter what appears to be Europe's first nuclear bunker with its ventilation shaft.

Christianity from the 43 bus: 4. Single Please

Continuing a journey on the 43 bus with an eye on Christian connections.  For other blogs in the series click on the '43 Bus Route' tag.

Leaving Muswell Hill for Highgate the 43 bus joins the A1.  Though its numbering may make this seem like an ancient road into London this is not the case - the Great North Road of olden times is now, in London, the A10.  That is significant because the current A1 owes its existence to the developing new areas north and west of London and into that area was planted Cholmeley Hall.  A fellowship that has had multiple identities, starting as part of the Brethren, and various names - it is today Highgate International Church (much easier to pronounce correctly than Cholmeley [Chumly]).

A striking thing about this church in its heyday - the 1920s (as Highgate and Archway developed) - was its singleness.  It was much remarked upon at the time.

Whereas the nearby areas were developed for families where the husband commuted into London, Cholmeley Hall had this astonishing profile: 253 members; 193 single.   In an era free of divorce, and a new residential area largely without widows and widowers, that is a phenomenal statistic.  Of course it was no doubt somewhat self-perpetuating as a place suited to finding a suitor.

Today there are many University churches with just that profile, but here among the families of North London was an unlikely reflection of that, and possibly an early version of a Christian Dating App.

Christianity from the 43 bus: 3. Dress Smart

Continuing a Christian journey on London's no 43 bus! (for others in the series click on the 43 bus tab)

Into Muswell Hill the 43 bus passes the Church which I work in, but we'll ignore that and look at the next church building it passes.

For sure it looks like a church building, albeit one whose flint-clad walls might more appropriately belong in a Scottish seaside town.  This is, however, not entirely fanciful as it was built to be Muswell Hill Presbyterian Church, representing Scotland's major ecclesiastical form.

It is a restaurant (and its Sunday School rooms now apartments).  This indignity must be put in the context that apparently, for several earlier years before my time here, it was a Harngey Council storage area.  Or to put it another way, a junk yard.

In between it was a pub-restaurant and for a while we held midweek Bible studies in one corner of it.  This felt like a nice resumption of its original purpose.  I find closed churches a constant irritant so you can imagine how often this one negatively impacts me!

In its current iteration it has a fascinating warning on its entrance:

We kindly ask all our guests to honour a smart casual dress code or dress to impress

Mmm.  In fairness, the Presbyterian door steward of former years likely held a similar view or perhaps more severe.  Nevertheless I have yet to see a church that places such a notice on its doors (well, head coverings for women) - and I hope I never will.  The Gospel is for everyone.

Christianity from the 43 bus: 2. St Peter-le-Poer

This is the second blog on our journey on the 43 bus from Friern Barnet to London Bridge.

The automated voice intones that we are approaching St. Peter's Church.

This is surprisingly prophetic for a TFL recorded voice, because until very recently this was, in fact, St Peter-le-poer Church (which is harder to say). Now the former high church with its Solemn Mass has merged with Grace Church, its evangelical Fresh Expressions tenant, so it has adopted the simpler new name that uncannily TFL had prophesied on the adjoining bus stop.

If, unwarily, you were to assume that a Parish Church is an unchanging pivot in a fast-changing landscape the above paragraph is disarming.  But not as disarming as this church's actual story.

Granted the stone is hard to read, but it tells the story of a City of London Church which was demolished early in the 20th Century.  You can read about it clicking here.

Poer has very many meanings in various languages, some best not dwelt upon.  But in this case it simply is a variant of 'poor'.  This could refer to monks in poverty vows or to the nearby slums.  If the latter, the name ended as ironic for the City parish became fabulously wealthy, today housing office spaces that would rival the cost of almost anywhere on the planet.

And that is not all.  The original church from towards a thousand years ago was itself rebuilt and, then rebuilt again and resited to what is now Old Broad Street.

All of which makes me think, as the 43 bus heads down toward Moorgate (barely a stone's throw from Old Broad Street) that few if any passengers realise that the church they are passing has already done the same journey the other way!

Christianity from the 43 Bus: 1. Friern Barnet

Near our house, and nearer our Church Building runs the 43 bus.  It follows an amazing route (shortly to change yet again) and sitting on it today it occurred to me that it offers plenty to blog about.

The route begins in Friern Barnet and if looking for Christian connections it begins right there as the Friern references the medieval Brotherhood of the Knights Hospitaller, founded in the 13th Century Kingdom of Jerusalem.

However the monumental buildings near the 43 bus terminus (now apartments) was one of London's more famous buildings in its day.

It was an Asylum.  Or as it would have been termed, a lunatic asylum.  Not any asylum though - this was the largest asylum in Europe, and housed thousands of patients.  Thousands.  A small town. You can read all about it on the internet if you wish, including the stories of people who lived out their lives there.  But my blog interest is Father Chester.

The revered father was one of the line of chaplains who served the institution.  It is hard to imagine the agonising strain of such a ministry surrounded by such peculiarly weak parishioners.  

But fear not. It was never entirely clear that the reverend father really ever met any of the said parishioners.  Instead, he was famed for the High Mass that he held in the chapel to which he invited his clerical buddies from that wing of the Church of England. 

'He was quite an odd bloke – very, very High Church – and he would have private Masses in the hospital chapel, and I don’t know if patients were included'  He died while in office and without any family.  Those clearing out his things were surprised to find what purported to be a relic of the true cross.

Quite where he came upon that, other saints relics and an array of church accessories that would not have been out of place in the Treasury of a great cathedral has never been explained.  Friern Hospital was full of many mysteries, including ecclesiastical ones.

Great (Hymn) One Liners 13. The wine of the world

For me, one of the greatest English language hymns that I have never sung (in a congregation) is Lift up your voice and sing. 

It is a reflection on freedom in the context of slavery and oppression in America, and framed in the language of the Exodus.  Although it could apply in many situations it has never resonated outside Black America and those who are its allies.  It has been sung at the SuperBowl, and especially in the context of George Floyd's death - but certainly not at Wembley or Westminster Abbey  This is why I have never got to sing it, having only once preached in a Black American church.

It deserves far better and although much of it is movingly written, the line I have chosen is in the last verse which applies the spiritual warning for the freedom ahead - a verse sometimes left out perhaps exactly because it is so spiritual:

[Keep us forever in the path, we pray . . .] Lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee;

Freedom is painful to achieve, wonderful if it is gained, potentially intoxicating when it is known.  The devil loves oppression, division and hatred, but he is clever enough to do well in freedom too.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lift_Every_Voice_and_Sing

Great (Hymn) One Liners 12. Conscience

Growing up with evening services I have memories of setting sunlight on pews and sometimes quite doleful evening music with quite doleful evening congregations.  There were, happily, many exceptions to this.  Overall I used to, and still do, prefer evening services to morning ones.  London thankfully has many evening services but there are many English towns with hardly one at all.

So it is rare today that a congregation sings At even e.er the sun was set, a hymn which is full of great lines but strangely the only one of Henry Twells' hymns to make it into 20th century consciousness before the 21st century snuffed it out.

I think a special line, describing gathered worshippers, recognises a genuine mark of holiness:

and they who fain would serve thee best are conscious most of wrong within

Too many of us worship with an attitude of entitlement, but a God-sensitive conscience will never allow this.

For other blogs in this series click on the 'hymnline' tag

Great (Hymn) One Liners 11. More

Matt Papa's worship song What love could remember was written in this century but owes its greatest line to an 18th Century sermon by John Newton which inspired it:

Our sins they are many, His mercy is more

Among great hymn lines it is hard to imagine a greater one than this.  We come to worship trying to block out of our thoughts the behaviours of another week, the things undone or scarcely done or wrongly done.  Yet in coming to our great yet forgiving and merciful God we discover that the pile of detriment is dwarfed by the sea of mercy.  Something John Newton had needed to depend on more than many.

Hallelujah.

For other blogs in this series click on the 'hymnline' tag

Great (Hymn/Anthem!) One Liners: 10. Zadok and Nathan

After a short blog break I can't resist cheating for my next Great Hymn One-Liner.

It is not a hymn!  So it really is a cheat.

And it's not great!  So it's a total cheat.

But it is worth a blog for more than one reason.  So what is it?  It's a line from the Anthem sung at the fundamental moment in the Coronation of the Monarch in Westminster Abbey.  The words are 

Zadok the Priest and Nathan the Prophet anointed Solomon King . . .

It references Solomon's coronation, recorded in 1 Kings Chapter 1.  It references it, but it takes plenty of liberties because it ignores Benaiah and a whole bunch of others - the Cherethites and the Pelethites. 

Its use in English coronations goes back into antiquity, but the setting now used for hundreds of years is the setting by Handel.  What makes this a great one liner in my opinion (though not just mine) is that Handel has taken just about the most boring line imaginable and somehow elevated it to the position of highest drama.

By a clever and long introduction that seems repetitious but changes in all kinds of subtle ways the composer prepares us for a dramatic line. A pause and the choirs come in at full volume.  What they are singing is lost in the fact that they are singing and the setting they are singing in.  

It is the triumph of music over meaning and is therefore perhaps as great a lesson in musical worship as any of the great one liners we have looked at.

(To see the whole series click on the hymnline tag)

Great (Hymn) One Liners 9. The Gate

 It's Easter, and today our Great Hymn One Liner comes from a German hymn.  Generally Easter hymns are simple by the very nature of the event.  Whilst profound in its significance, the Resurrection of Christ tends to be sung about in straightforward terms.  And why not?

henceforth is death but the gate to life immortal

The line neatly captures the forever transformation that Easter Day brings to the singer, and everyone else, who believes.   Nothing, following the resurrection, will ever be the same again, ever.

There is such a difference between the brick wall that unbelievers see themselves  hitting in death and the gate to a new future that the believer in Jesus sees.  This is a glorious day to be a Christian.  Yet in  truth, so is every other day!!

Great (Hymn) One Liners 8. In man for Man

A vast array of memorable lines are on offer for Good Friday.  I am going for a line that, frankly, most people singing it probably do not grasp (here I am judging others by my own weaknesses, it is true).

The double agony in man, for Man. should undergo.

The line comes from 'Praise to the holiest in the height' by the Victorian Anglican-turned-Roman Catholic John Henry Newman.  The line describes the extent of the generous love of God in Jesus who died for us.  

The whole hymn is deep and dense, but here Newman uses the simplest of words - in man for Man - to describe the humiliation of God becoming human (Agony Number One) in order to save humans by his death (Agony Number Two).

Did you see what happened there? I took a long and complex sentence - Newman took four words totaling eleven letters. 

These agonies are the agonies of this day, and our good salvation.

(To see the whole series click on the hymnline tag)

Great (Hymn) One Liners 7. Ride On

The essence of great one liners is that they say an enormous amount in a tiny space.  On Palm Sunday approaches (as I write) this one line comes from an old Palm Sunday hymn, Ride on, ride on in majesty.

In lowly pomp ride on to die

If this seems like just an obvious line for Palm Sunday it might be worth pointing out

a) lowly pomp  This is all but a meaningless expression - pomp is exactly the opposite of lowly.  Yet lowly pomp is exactly what was on display as Christ rode the young donkey into the great city.  Incongruous, yet true; and incongruity is in the middle of the atmosphere of Easter.

b) ride on This phrase captures the partial nature of this journey.  He is riding, but he must ride on.  There is very little Gospel in Palm Sunday though at first glance it is almost the best news imaginable. The point of Jesus entry into the city was, in fact, to leave it.  

c) to die. He made evident to his disciples - who did not really listen - that he was up to Jerusalem in order to die.  A ride to the triumph of the cross.

Henry Milman, who wrote this hymn, was far from a great devotee of the Gospel - but he was a great writer and here, in 7 short word, he captured a lot that is essential about Easter week.

Great (Hymn) One Liners 6. To the loveless

 Recently we sang this line at Communion:

Love to the loveless shown that they might lovely be

Samuel Crossman's hymn, one of the first written in the English language, is full of poignant phrases of which this is perhaps the most profound.  A threefold use of love which in summary describes the operation of the love of God on lost humanity.

Love is used in many ways in the lives of people and via the media, but never is it so wisely located as it is here.

Great (Hymn) One Liners 5. The Way In

On St Patrick's Day it seems only right to have a one liner from a hymn written in Ireland.  

This line summarises something which passes a great many people by - including almost the entire UK education system.

He only could unlock the gate of heaven and let us in

From the children's hymn, There is a green hill far away this line expounds so many things in so few words.  You can't just choose to go to heaven (and nor could your dead relatives).  There is a way of getting to heaven - there is only one way though.  The Way is a person, one person.  There was no other good enough.

Cecil Frances Alexander, wife of the sometime Archbishop of Ireland (earlier Bishop of Londonderry), may have been writing catechetical hymns for children, but she also gave us all something important to remember as we approach Easter.

(for more in this series click on the hymnline tag below)

Great (Hymn) One Liners 4. Reaching the Light

Thomas Binney goes against the grain of the first three in this series (tag hymnline below) in that he wrote very few hymns, though he was a prolific writer.  None he wrote are really sung much any more either, but one that should be - perhaps the only one - is Eternal Light.

The whole hymn is amazing poetry, but Binney excels himself and perhaps nearly all other hymnwriters when he describes the answer to the question of how (sinful) human beings can hope to reach, or even live, in God's eternal light  . . .

An offering and a sacrifice, a Holy Spirit's energies, an Advocate with God.

Rarely has anyone captured so succinctly so many of the riches of the Gospel, for which we truly owe God our song.

Great (Hymn) One Liners: 3. God's Peace

It's St. David's Day - the national day of Wales - so it only seems right to have a hymn line from William Williams, the most famed welsh hymnwriter.  In this verse he is describing the peace of God:

O! anchwiliadwy fôr, Sy’n cynnwys ynddo’i hun Ryw annherfynol stôr;

The hymn is set in the context of battle but describes the Gospel as the banner that assures peace.  And in this line, O well of peace . . .

O deepest ocean, containing within it, unending stores.

As we have already seen in these blogs, the sea and the sky supply hymnwriters with the poetry of divine greatness - and in a troubled world, how wonderful to reflect that this metaphor of endlessness is also applicable to God's peace in which we rest day by day.

Great (Hymn) One Liners 2. God's Hands

 In this series of blogs I'm looking at some of the great lines in hymns and songs in the Christian faith.  Of course these do not carry the weight of great texts from the Bible, but many summarise vast ideas in poetic genius. The series can be selected by using the 'hymnline' tag.

Two things that are easily but wrongly assumed are that:

1. Old hymns have depth and new ones don't

2. People who write many hymns and songs write lines that cannot have lasting significance.

This blog series will debunk Point 1. On Point 2, nearly all hymn/song writers have written vast amounts of material, much of which has long been discarded (in some cases by the writer themselves).

With this in mind my second one-liner in this series comes from my own lifetime - and Spring Harvest, and Graham Kendrick.:

Hands that flung stars into space, to cruel nails surrendered.

No matter that the stars were not flung, this line profoundly describes the bewildering sacrificial love of God in Jesus Christ.  

My surrender to him can never match his surrender for me.

Great (Hymn) One Liners: 1. God's limitlessness

In this series of blogs I'm looking at some of the great lines in hymns and songs in the Christian faith.  Of course these do not carry the weight of great texts from the Bible, but many summarise vast ideas in poetic genius. The series can be selected by using the 'hymnline' tag.

John Mason is a relatively mystical figure from the troubled 17th century in England.  He was hugely admired both for his preaching and his godly spirituality and his poetry and hymnody has made its mark.

Francis Jackson, one of the greatest church musicians in 20th century England, and who lived to over a hundred years old, selected Mason's hymn 'How shall I sing that Majesty which angels do admire?' for his funeral service in York Minster last year.

There are few hymns which explore in such depth the sheer glory of God - and even in that hymn no line which so captures the infinity of God as this:

_________________________

Thou art a sea without a shore, a sun without a sphere.

_________________________

Though Francis Jackson was a phenomenal musician, he recognised in the choosing of this hymn the unlimited greatness of the God who cannot be limited to any borders, let alone the walls of York Minster.