World Cup Churches 12. Poland

Continuing a series of blogs heading round the 32 qualifying countries in the 2022 World Cup - I will pick out one church in each one.  I am not going to choose only churches that are to my liking.  This is an exploration not a recommendation! To see all in the series select the label 'World Cup Churches' below.

Poland is rare among European nations in having increasing numbers of churches.  The land of Poland has an unfortunate story of being a very suitable place to wage war, and as everyone knows, war is a historical preoccupation of Europeans.  Even as I write this blog, Poland is only over the border from Europe's latest war in Ukraine.

Perhaps it is heartening that such a troubled area has increasing numbers of Christian (mostly Catholic) sites.  Here is on such church, in a former Nazi SS Headquarters building:

This Church at Birkenau is, however, very controversial.   It is just down the road, as it were, from the infamous Birkenau Camp - also known as Auschwitz 2. Whilst, looked at from the perspective of Christian - Catholic - tunnel vision it is surely heartening to see a place of such dishonour being redeemed for Christian worship, this is most certainly not how it is perceived by the Jewish community.  And as such it brilliantly illustrates the problem of Church History.

There were, of course Catholic Christians (and other Christians) who died in Nazi Concentration Camps.  But the broad sweep of the Catholic response to Nazism was ambiguity - at best.  Pope Pius's attitude has been the subject of volumes of claim and counter-claim but that his official position was largely neutral is the best that can be said for him.

Hence the problem with this church.  Had it met in the building when the Nazis were there - and challenged them - it might have its rightful place.  But for the Jews it simply reminds them that they were ignored then and ignored now.

Churches need to be good news first and buildings second.

World Cup Blogs 21: Poland

Poland features large in the life of the UK these days with workers and shops and signs that figure in our daily lives.  The affinities with Poland run deeply into the history of the Second World War.  The football history runs simply back to one memorable night, October 17 1973, the night that brought England's first failure to qualify for the Finals Tournament.

Having won the 1966 World Cup and played moderately successfully in the 1970 tournament nobody was ready for the possibility that England would not even reach the tournament in 1974.  But in the decisive game against Poland  at a full Wembley the inevitable victory would not come.

Poland's goalkeeper was Jan Tomaszewski (now a Polish politician).  His heroics secured the draw Poland needed; his proneness to unorthodox goalkeeping with some errors had him labelled a clown by the then great Brian Clough.  Years later Clough was man enough to apologise publicly for that slur which had proved so untrue.

Opponents are rarely clowns.  That night something happened to England that blew an aura away, Sir Alf Ramsay, the heroic winning manager of 1066 fame, was sacked and having failed to qualify for that World Cup they also failed, four tears later, to qualify for the 1978 tournament too.

Opponents are rarely clowns. In the deeper issue of life the Scriptures encourage us to take the battle seriously.  The whole of Ephesians 6, for example, is a call to spiritual arms.  Jesus repeatedly advised his disciples to watch and pray.  Those who think their opponent is a clown are likely to end up knocked out.