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!

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.

Selective Memory

November 5 is a British Memorial Day.  Each year it falls within a week of November 11, the day that 'remembers' the twentieth century's two World Wars.  Our church is no exception to this and we are deeply moved to ponder a sacrifice that is sufficiently recent to connect the older of us to grandparents or even parents affected by the War.

This pursuit of collective memory is not new.  Here follows a Prayer for the Daily Office of the  national Church for November 5th:

LMIGHTY God, who hast in all ages shewed thy power and mercy in the miraculous and gracious deliverance of thy Church, and in the protection of righteous and religious Kings and States, professing thy holy and eternal truth, from the wicked conspiracies and malicious practices of all the enemies thereof; We yield thee our unfeigned thanks and praise for the wonderful and mighty deliverance of our late gracious Sovereign King James, the Queen, the Prince, and all the Royal Branches, with the Nobility, Clergy, and Commons of England, then assembled in Parliament, by Popish treachery appointed as sheep to the slaughter, in a most barbarous, and savage manner, beyond the examples of former ages. From this unnatural conspiracy, not our merit, but thy mercy; not our foresight, but thy providence, delivered us: And therefore, not unto us, O Lord, not unto us; but unto thy Name be ascribed all honour and glory in all Churches of the saints, from generation to generation, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

For all the depth of feeling it contains, however, it is no longer said.  1605 is a very long time ago.  It is, of course, typical of the modern church to have ditched such politically incorrect referral to popish treachery.

Except that it wasn't the modern church that removed it.  It was removed in 1859, not a time conspicuous for the British being warm toward the Roman Church or the Pope.  By then 250+ years had done their work and the collective memory had new things to memorialise in liturgy with an Empire encompassing the globe.

This coming Sunday we will share Communion.  The Apostle Paul indicated that this 'proclaims the Lord's death until he comes'.  We are never to forget the greatest victory, the greatest Saviour and the greatest Salvation of all.

Sabbatical Picture No 11 Eucharistic Lipstick

I thought I'd attend General Synod (yes, the Church of England General Synod) on my Sabbatical.  I was in Yorkshire, it was in Yorkshire, so why not? After all, I am never going to have the Ecumenical credentials to go along as the Baptist Union observer (if they have one) and this blog entry will help to demonstrate why.

So there I was, seeing what was gripping the Established Church.  It turned out to be whether liturgical resources should be created for transgender people to renew their commitment in their new gender identity.  Except it became clear fairly quickly that this was no such pastoral-litugical discussion but a power struggle between the wings of the Church.

On Sunday morning the Synod were special guests of York Minster and even though I am no fan of hierarchy the interesting prospect of a Eucharist led by the Archbishop of York with the Archbishop of Canterbury as the preacher was too hierarchical to resist.

On the plus side there were a lot of people there.  Most of them were wearing General Synod badges so the armed police outside probably regarded me more suspiciously for not having one to wear.  I tried to enter in as saintly and Anglican a way as I could.  It occurred to me that the effect of my lack of a badge was to give me the appearance of being a Minster regular amid a sea of visiting Synodites (that may not be a word but the alternative might be Synners . . .).

I took my seat (well of course it wasn't MY seat but who was to know?) at the end of an empty row.  In this way I left fate or God (hard to know in this setting) to decide who sat next to me.  Few congregations can have so many people in dog collars and various states of overdress as they busily greeted one another (but not me).

A middle aged lady and her friend sat next to me - at least she said "Hello".  Middle aged she might have been but her umbilical link to her mobile phone was definitely teenage.  In between sending and receiving messages she said,
"Sorry about the phone.  I'll switch it off in a minute. Do you worship here regularly?"
"No, I'm only in York doing research."

She returned to the messaging and that was all that she found out about me.  I did better.  I found out all about her - but not until much later.  What I quickly worked out was that she was a great deal more interesting to the gathered persons than I was, and more interesting to herself than I (or as it turned out the Eucharist) was.

The service began and somewhere in the 20 minutes of standing at the beginning (and people complain when Baptist churches sing three songs and stand for nearly 15 minutes!) the phone was abandoned at last.  Presumably she wasn't messaging the Archbishop of York at the front but in his own Cathedral he was surprisingly hesitant.  General Synod probably does that to an Archbishop.

Archbishop Justin of Canterbury preached and he, too, seemed greatly restrained, as though he was giving a press statement which, to all intents and purposes he was.

I always get the jitters at Anglican Communions because of the walking up the front bit, and this was all the more confusing for the fact that my row were to head backwards to the middle of the Minster.  Before that the Peace and my fellow-worshipper stood little chance of sharing it with me because her phone was out again and several people came to, I presume, wish her well.  Perhaps a better word for the Peace would be The Connection, then the phone could have its rightful place there.

When hundreds of people have to take the Eucharistic elements logistics are complex; the Minster did it well but it took a while.  When I returned to my seat my neighbour seemed to have adopted a new, slimmer phone.  Closer inspection (as the choir intoned an adoration of the Bread of Angels) revealed that she was in fact holding a mirror and doing her lipstick.

Caught in the act, as it were, she apologised, pointing out that she had an interview with The Times straight after the service.  Presumably our Lord would have used a mirror, but probably not lipstick, had this been his next appointment directly after the Last Supper.

His next appointment was Gethsemane.

The woman I shared this bizarre Eucharistic distraction with is certainly well known once you dig around a little.  She isn't bringing the C of E any closer to Jesus from what I can make out but she had a peculiarly beneficial effect in me by demonstrating exactly what not to be like in any Lord's Supper, however grand.

Magna Carta

Freedom is a strangely elusive idea.  Instinctively we want it, value it, demand it, yet it is much less clear what it really is.  

Take the striking opening of the Magna Carta, and one of the only four of its clauses that remain in contemporary English Law:

• I. FIRST, We have granted to God, and by this our present Charter have confirmed, for Us and our Heirs for ever, that the Church of England shall be free, and shall have all her whole Rights and Liberties inviolable. 

This might warm the heart, one would think, of any Christian. Yet strangely it did not work out quite as this reads.  After all, it was the Monarchy that effectively changed the Church of England (on account of Henry VIII's marital woes) into a non-Roman Church.  That seems some way short of the Church being free of the monarch as the Charter indicated.

Then there have been the times when, whatever freedoms the Church did enjoy it used against other expressions of church and religion.  You would have to look very hard to find any other longstanding expressions of Church on the actual City of London (which is a double irony as the freedoms of the City of London are also contained as a remaining Law from Magna Carta).

Then there is the irony that the institutional Church of England (which Magna Carta most obviously references) is, in fact, the least free of all expressions of Church with a multitude of things it can't do, must do, must have and may not have.

On the bright side, it offers an early trend toward freedom of religion in a broader sense, and one which is happily still respected (though losing ground through the double whammy of militant Islam and rampant secular Humanism).

What it most confirms - and this I think is truly frightening - is that the basis of what old King John did was under the watchful eye of God - We have granted to God.  A society that no longer believes it is answerable to God and where pockets of it believe in a God of vengeance and violence is not likely for too long to hold dear the idea of freedom.  Oppression is so much more human (as Cain effectively said).

Congratulations?

If there is one point in an Induction when I wince it is when someone (often someone who I feel should know better) congratulates the new Pastor on their appointment.  The Biblical verbal phrase that seems to cover this kind of appointment is being set apart.  The implication - no, it is the explicit meaning - of congratulation is of human achievement, of promotion, of a new job successfully negotiated, of privilege or of some combination of some of those.

Setting apart is not a reason to be congratulated or commiserated.   If the year 4 teacher in one school is promoted to be Deputy Head in another you send a congratulatory message.  If the year 4 teacher is assigned year 2 next year you observe and note the change.  That is setting apart and exactly characterises the New Testament's approach to Christian ministry though of course not the disciples' - which earned them a telling off from Jesus.

 

“You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them.  It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant,  and whoever would be first among you must be your slave,  even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

 

This seems clear enough.

 

Today one of the Gentile rulers, David Cameron, changed his Government cabinet around - in the lordly manner that Gentile rulers do when an election is looming.  Meanwhile, in the Church of England Synod  the decision was made to allow the appointment of female Bishops.   David Cameron thought this was a great idea - most specifically, "a great day for the Church and for equality".

 

It all sounds so plausible.  It is a total denial of the meaning of ministry.  What is this equality?  Seen in the skewed vision of a venerable British establishment Institution and through the eyes of a Gentile ruler women have just broken through a glass ceiling.

 

Seen through the eyes of Jesus and the radical values of the Gospel they have secured a lower place than they had when generically left at home doing the ironing.  No congratulations there then.  Wait a minute: here comes (my italics) Regional Minister (Team Leader) of the East Midlands Baptist Association the Revd Dianne Tidball with the official Baptist line:

 

“Congratulations to our Anglican friends on having the wisdom, courage and grace to open the door to women becoming Bishops.  We are pleased to learn that the vote enabling women to fulfil all roles within the church has been passed.  We are delighted that the wider church will have the opportunity to benefit further from the gifts and experience that women, already in senior roles, will bring."

 

That's it I guess.  If you believe in senior roles, you offer congratulations.  Is there anyone out there who believes Jesus actually meant what he said?  If we are denying ourselves how can we thereby be congratulated or achieve a this-worldly equality?

Glass

A man that looks on glass,
On it may stay his eye;
Or if he pleaseth, through it pass,
And then the heaven espy.

George Herbert is remembered today in England.  It takes a little historical adjustment and width to work out why he is so spiritually significant but he represents the highest of Christian virtues from the least likely of settings.

Most of us who seek to follow Christ in the West struggle enough with the relative riches that we enjoy over against poorer people to whom God directs our gaze through his Son who had nowhere to lay his head.

 

Herbert was simply born to be great.  In an age when connections were everything he was famously and absolutely well connected.  Yet his glory seemed to be in reverse to his earthly prospects.  As his famous poem quoted above reveals he revelled in the extraordinary glory of the ordinary.

 

Here is a picture of the Parish Church he will forever be associated with.  It is only a mile or two from the grandeur of Salisbury Cathedral where his eloquent education might have more rightly been expected to be on display.  It resembles our church's scout hut in dimensions . . .

 

Bremerton Church

Praise God that not every Christian has felt the necessity to measure greatness in terms of greatness.

 

All may of Thee partake;

Nothing so small can be

But draws, when acted for Thy sake,

Greatness and worth from Thee.

Chu Chu Church

I imagine myself on a railway station.  This particular railway is only one of several that link the our region with the Destination City.

The railway that I travel on (my kind of ticket is not accepted on the other lines) has introduced a new way of operating from next summer.  The track systems  manager and the operations manager will lose their jobs and a new manager will look after everything (if she/he can).  Sometimes the thirteen trains a day will be reduced to six because there will probably be less drivers.  There will certainly be less maintenance engineers.  We are assured, however, that the railway will in fact be far more efficient at moving people to the Destination City.  I wonder how assured I am by this assurance.

Then there is the Big Railway down the road.  With its 42 trains a day (admittedly using some very old and varied but decorative rolling stock)  there is really no competition in this region.  It does have problems with the public however as it forbids women train drivers (though they can sit in the cab). 

Meanwhile, in the Destination City, the railways' purchaser, owner, inventor and builder looks at the diminishing passenger numbers from this particular region - which is his great concern.

 

 

Rowan

Church of England Archbishop Rowan Williams announced his resignation from that role as of the close of this year.

An atheist of Jewish heritage said, "He has done a very, very difficult job and seen the church through difficult times in a very skillful way. But most of all has shown himself to be someone of the deepest conviction and the deepest values and all my good wishes go with him."

A fellow Anglican Archbishop wrote, 'Rowan Williams took over the leadership of the Anglican Communion in 2002 when it was a happy family. Unfortunately, he is leaving behind a Communion in tatters: highly polarized, bitterly factionalized . . .'

Rowan Williams is a very reflective and prayerful man with a great mind.  But I doubt he can make any sense of those reactions on the public record.

Let us ask with Paul (Romans 14)

Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God; for it is written, “As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.”  So then each of us will give an account of himself to God. Therefore let us not pass judgment on one another any longer,

As a Football Chaplain it is amazing to see how football can publicly unite in support of its own, but the Church cannot.  Amazing, and frankly embarrassing to its Saviour and Head.

Synod

Rarely does the Supreme Governor of the Church of England stray into deeply theological territory.  I suppose that in the week after one of her junior bishops called her son Big Ears it is unsurprising that she is looking a little beyond her Church for virtue!

The Queen addressed her Church's General Synod thus,

"It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue and that the wellbeing and prosperity of the nation depend on the contribution of individuals and groups of all faiths and none."

Wow.  I wonder if she realised what she said?

This is profoundly true and far too little understood.  There is no difference in the duties and opportunities of virtue for the Atheist, the Agnostic, the Believer, the Nominalist, the Buddhist, the Muslim or the whatever.  This is explained by the apostle Paul:

For we must all of us appear before Christ's judgement-seat in our true characters, in order that each may then receive an award for his actions in this life, in accordance with what he has done, whether it be good or whether it be worthless. [Weymouth's translation] 

Virtue will indeed be expected all round.  Nelson Mandela, Stephen Hawking, Queen Elizabeth, Kim Jong-il, Barack Obama, Richard Dawkins, Pope Benedict and every one of the rest of us.  Does faith help virtue?  I think this is possible.  Indeed, our Lord said that his followers would be light and salt in a dark and rotten world.

 

But at the heart of the Christian message is no virtue.  Just the opposite in fact.  A cross.   Condemnation, not complements.   Death not life.  Savagery not elegance.  Blood not beauty. Bad not good.  Shame, not virtue.

 

What the Synodic observation lacks are two further observations:

 

1.  That people of faith and people without faith - all of whom have the same possibility and responsibility for virtue - ALL FALL SHORT.

 

2.  There is forgiveness through a crucified Saviour who calls us to him.

 

To put it another way - the call to virtue is universal, the remedy for our failing it is unique.  Thank you Jesus!