God spare us from trendy vicars

[Nigel Watts]

Just been to my 10 year-old's carol service in St John's Wood church and last Saturday attended a Memorial service at my old school's chapel.

In both the choir stalls seem relatively recently to have been ripped out and replaced with chairs on a kind of bare stage facing down the nave behind naff new alters, with the High Altar reduced to a mere shelf at St John's Wood. Lots of microphones, speakers and plasma screens for those in the trascept to see what is happening and numerous other horrors.

I dont mind if the clergy are female or gay or both but why do they have to meddle so much with their buildings? I thought we had seen off this type of thing, which was so rife in the 1970s, but it seems not.

If I were a believer I would have to be a High Anglican - bells, incense, King James bible, Book of Common Prayer, beautiful churches, properly dressed choirboys....

 

[JoceAndChris]

Which is why Chris and I got married in St Martin's, Stamford, as I was not prepared to compromise! (complete with glorious gay vicar, whose sermons were all about wine, and who would often remark, in our pre-marital chats "who am I to advise? ")

I think it's absolutely terrible, this modernisation. The best thing about church is the building (sorry to any true believers reading this). I always loved churches and would sneak out of lessons in Stamford to go and sit in them and just look about me -so much better than chemistry! If they destroy that what's left? And why would they get rid of pews? Pews are so much fun!

Sorry for this traumatic experience Nigel. St J W too; I'd have expected better :evil:

 

[JoceAndChris]

"A serious house on serious earth it is,
In whose blent air all our compulsions meet,
Are recognized, and robed as destinies.
And that much never can be obsolete,
Since someone will forever be surprising
A hunger in himself to be more serious,
And gravitating with it to this ground,
Which, he once heard, was proper to grow wise in,
If only that so many dead lie round." (Larkin)

That's what these trendy vicars need to take on board.

 

[Nigel Watts]

complete with glorious gay vicar, whose sermons were all about wine, and who would often remark, in our pre-marital chats "who am I to advise? "

Wonderful! Only in the good old C of E. That's why I could never become a catholic.

They seem to have spared the congregation's box pews at St J W, which is something I suppose. Do listed building rules apply to the interiors of churches? (I would love to witness a battle between a diligent CO and an iconoclastic vicar)

My older boy's carol service is glorious (at Westminster Abbey, which comes directly under the juristiction of the Queen, rat her than the bearded wonder of Lambeth Palace), but I am going to miss it this year (my first, and probably last ever use of a smilie)

 

[JoceAndChris]

Gosh, I hadn't noticed your strictness about smilies - you must be very upset indeed if you have been moved to use one! What a pity to miss the carol service at Westminster! That must be beautiful beyond words, and to have your son in it too.

Choral music is my absolute favourite. I'm missing the carol concert of our choir this year as I'm still terrified of the A1, but am determined to force myself to learn its ways and join again in the new year to rehearse Israel in Egypt for Easter in Peterborough Cathedral.

Just remembered Betjeman's lovely church mouse, where's his place in these modern abominations?


"Diary of a Church-Mouse

Here among long-discarded cassocks,
Damp stools, and half-split open hassocks,
Here where the vicar never looks
I nibble through old service books.
Lean and alone I spend my days
Behind this Church of England baize.
I share my dark forgotten room
With two oil-lamps and half a broom.
The cleaner never bothers me,
So here I eat my frugal tea.
My bread is sawdust mixed with straw;
My jam is polish for the floor.
Christmas and Easter may be feasts
For congregations and for priests,
And so may Whitsun. All the same,
They do not fill my meagre frame.
For me the only feast at all
Is Autumn's Harvest Festival,
When I can satisfy my want
With ears of corn around the font.
I climb the eagle's brazen head
To burrow through a loaf of bread.
I scramble up the pulpit stair
And gnaw the marrows hanging there.
It is enjoyable to taste
These items ere they go to waste,
But how annoying when one finds
That other mice with pagan minds
Come into church my food to share
Who have no proper business there.
Two field mice who have no desire
To be baptized, invade the choir.
A large and most unfriendly rat
Comes in to see what we are at.
He says he thinks there is no God
And yet he comes ... it's rather odd.
This year he stole a sheaf of wheat
(It screened our special preacher's seat),
And prosperous mice from fields away
Come in to hear our organ play,
And under cover of its notes
Ate through the altar's sheaf of oats.
A Low Church mouse, who thinks that I
Am too papistical, and High,
Yet somehow doesn't think it wrong
To munch through Harvest Evensong,
While I, who starve the whole year through,
Must share my food with rodents who
Except at this time of the year
Not once inside the church appear.
Within the human world I know
Such goings-on could not be so,
For human beings only do
What their religion tells them to.
They read the Bible every day
And always, night and morning, pray,
And just like me, the good church mouse,
Worship each week in God's own house,
But all the same it's strange to me
How very full the church can be
With people I don't see at all
Except at Harvest Festival."

 

[Flyfisher]

I recall reading about the trend of removing pews from churches to create more flexible open spaces. Something to do with making it easier to host many different functions and to encourage wider use of the church and attract newcomers into the fold.

I can see why such changes might upset devout and regular church-goers but it seems a bit much for people who only go to church for Christmas, marriage and funerals (or just marriages and funerals in my case) to complain about how 'the church' organises its own affairs and decor. Isn't that a bit like inviting oneself to someone's house and then complaining about the furniture arrangements?

 

[JoceAndChris]

:lol:

That all depends on how you see churches though doesn't it? Someone's house or heritage that belongs to all of us?

 

[Flyfisher]

I see your point, but surely churches belong to 'the church' in question? (I'm constantly amazed at the number and variations of 'churches').

Mind you, the Swiss are not averse to banning minarettes so perhaps we could also legislate for pews being replaced!

 

[Penners]

(my first, and probably last ever use of a smilie)

As you know, Nigel, I abhor pedantry, but I think you'll find that's a weepie, rather than a smiley.

 

[Penners]

the Swiss are not averse to banning minarettes

I wonder whether they've banned majorettes, too.

OK - that is, without doubt, my worst-ever attempt at a pun. But you have to admire my courage in posting it anyway.



Don't you?



Please?

 

[DaveBrigg]

I wonder whether they've banned majorettes, too.

Time to check your spelling Penners. Anyway, if they were band majorettes they would have instruments.

Nigel - your absence at Westmisnster Abbey may be a blessing in disguise. We were going to pop in before the climate demo on Saturday, but a ticket for two adults and two children was £36.

 

[Gareth Hughes]

Ah, church fashion, a potentially hilarious topic:

There are two sides to this, of course - here's Betjeman putting an alternative view:

The Church's Restoration
In eighteen eighty three
Has left for contemplation
Not what there used to be

and here's M R James expressing similar views about what we now think of as a golden age of ecclesiastical architecture - the legacy of Pugin, Scott and the rest

It was in 1840 that the wave of the Gothic revival smote the Cathedral of Southminster. "There was a lot of lovely stuff went then, Sir," said Worby, with a sigh. "My father couldn't hardly believe it when he got his orders to clear out the choir. There was a new dean just come in — Dean Burscough it was — and my father had been 'prenticed to a good firm of joiners in the city, and knew what good work was when he saw it. Crool it was, he used to say: all that beautiful wainscot oak, as good as the day it was put up, and garlands-like of foliage and fruit, and lovely old gilding work on the coats of arms and the organ pipes. All went to the timber yard — every bit except some little pieces worked up in the Lady Chapel, and 'ere in this overmantel. Well — I may be mistook, but I say our choir never looked as well since. Still there was a lot found out about the history of the church, and no doubt but what it did stand in need of repair. There was very few winters passed but what we'd lose a pinnicle." Mr. Lake expressed his concurrence with Worby's views of restoration, but owns to a fear about this point lest the story proper should never be reached. Possibly this was perceptible in his manner.

Worby hastened to reassure him, "Not but what I could carry on about that topic for hours at a time, and do do when I see my opportunity. But Dean Burscough he was very set on the Gothic period, and nothing would serve him but everything must be made agreeable to that. And one morning after service he appointed for my father to meet him in the choir, and he came back after he'd taken off his robes in the vestry, and he'd got a roll of paper with him, and the verger that was then brought in a table, and they begun spreading it out on the table with prayer books to keep it down, and my father helped 'em, and he saw it was a picture of the inside of a choir in a Cathedral; and the Dean — he was a quick-spoken gentleman — he says, 'Well, Worby, what do you think of that?' 'Why,' says my father, 'I don't think I 'ave the pleasure of knowing that view. Would that be Hereford Cathedral, Mr. Dean?' 'No, Worby,' says the Dean, 'that's Southminster Cathedral as we hope to see it before many years.' 'In-deed, Sir,' says my father' and that was all he did say — leastways to the Dean — but he used to tell me he felt really faint in himself when he looked round our choir as I can remember it, comfortable, and furnished-like, and then see this nasty little dry picter, as he called it, drawn out by some London architect. Well, there I am again. But you'll see what I mean if you look at this old view."

And there were significant liturgical changes at the same time, with the appearance of this sort of thing in what had been decidedly low church environments before:
http://www.norwichanglocatholic.org/video-festival.shtml (The CofE at its very tippy topmost, what the Precentor of Norwich Cathedral is thinking about when he - quite often - preaches on Hebrews 13:13 "let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp")

The current trend to simplification is just another passing fad, which like its predecessors will involve chucking out a lot of nice things. I think my difficulty with it is my difficulty with the church in general - nothing it does now ever seems to be rooted in any sense of permanence - but then the things alluded to above, which seem so timeless and unchanging to us, were once innovations themselves. The Victorians didn't have quite such awful nylon carpets though.

 

[jocelyn plummer]

I too HATE the bland interiors where pews have been ripped out.

Nigel, I'm most interested to see your boy is at Westminster-- brought back memories of my youth when most of our crowd were Westminster boys ( Lloyd Webber and co.). I lived with friends in Dean's Yard for a few months when doing my 'year in London' after leaving school. My Father was Rector of Islip,( birth place of Edward the Confessor) Noke and Woodeaton. My best memory is of the patter of plimsolls as the boys ran around the Yard first thing in the morning, do they still do that?

 

[Gareth Hughes]

Just been to my 10 year-old's carol service in St John's Wood church and last Saturday attended a Memorial service at my old school's chapel.

In both the choir stalls seem relatively recently to have been ripped out and replaced with chairs on a kind of bare stage facing down the nave behind naff new alters, with the High Altar reduced to a mere shelf at St John's Wood. Lots of microphones, speakers and plasma screens for those in the trascept to see what is happening and numerous other horrors.

I dont mind if the clergy are female or gay or both but why do they have to meddle so much with their buildings? I thought we had seen off this type of thing, which was so rife in the 1970s, but it seems not.

If I were a believer I would have to be a High Anglican - bells, incense, King James bible, Book of Common Prayer, beautiful churches, properly dressed choirboys....

The church has always meddled with its buildings, with varying results.

Not all (indeed in my experience, very few) at the top of the candle in terms of the look and smell of services use the BCP and the Authorised Version - there's a tendency to see them as a bit low church. Then there are so many flavours of Anglo-Catholicism it's impossible to make any sort of generalisation - my parish is Forward in Faith and won't have a woman vicar in any circumstances, but has been more than happy with the decidedly unmarried ones it's had for the last hundred years.

Anyway, here's a useful reference guide (not very well indexed for searching) should you wish to go sampling the quality of churchmanship on your travels

http://www.ship-of-fools.com/mystery/index.html

 

[JoceAndChris]

bahahahahaha!! You can buy a knitted testament and an inflatable church in the "gadgets for god!" section of that website!

 

[JoceAndChris]

hahahah!! the nativity kitchen timer and the nativity rubber ducks! Never be stuck for Christmas gifts again!

 

[JoceAndChris]

Ah, church fashion, a potentially hilarious topic:

There are two sides to this, of course - here's Betjeman putting an alternative view:

The Church's Restoration
In eighteen eighty three
Has left for contemplation
Not what there used to be

and here's M R James expressing similar views about what we now think of as a golden age of ecclesiastical architecture - the legacy of Pugin, Scott and the rest

It was in 1840 that the wave of the Gothic revival smote the Cathedral of Southminster. "There was a lot of lovely stuff went then, Sir," said Worby, with a sigh. "My father couldn't hardly believe it when he got his orders to clear out the choir. There was a new dean just come in — Dean Burscough it was — and my father had been 'prenticed to a good firm of joiners in the city, and knew what good work was when he saw it. Crool it was, he used to say: all that beautiful wainscot oak, as good as the day it was put up, and garlands-like of foliage and fruit, and lovely old gilding work on the coats of arms and the organ pipes. All went to the timber yard — every bit except some little pieces worked up in the Lady Chapel, and 'ere in this overmantel. Well — I may be mistook, but I say our choir never looked as well since. Still there was a lot found out about the history of the church, and no doubt but what it did stand in need of repair. There was very few winters passed but what we'd lose a pinnicle." Mr. Lake expressed his concurrence with Worby's views of restoration, but owns to a fear about this point lest the story proper should never be reached. Possibly this was perceptible in his manner.

Worby hastened to reassure him, "Not but what I could carry on about that topic for hours at a time, and do do when I see my opportunity. But Dean Burscough he was very set on the Gothic period, and nothing would serve him but everything must be made agreeable to that. And one morning after service he appointed for my father to meet him in the choir, and he came back after he'd taken off his robes in the vestry, and he'd got a roll of paper with him, and the verger that was then brought in a table, and they begun spreading it out on the table with prayer books to keep it down, and my father helped 'em, and he saw it was a picture of the inside of a choir in a Cathedral; and the Dean — he was a quick-spoken gentleman — he says, 'Well, Worby, what do you think of that?' 'Why,' says my father, 'I don't think I 'ave the pleasure of knowing that view. Would that be Hereford Cathedral, Mr. Dean?' 'No, Worby,' says the Dean, 'that's Southminster Cathedral as we hope to see it before many years.' 'In-deed, Sir,' says my father' and that was all he did say — leastways to the Dean — but he used to tell me he felt really faint in himself when he looked round our choir as I can remember it, comfortable, and furnished-like, and then see this nasty little dry picter, as he called it, drawn out by some London architect. Well, there I am again. But you'll see what I mean if you look at this old view."

And there were significant liturgical changes at the same time, with the appearance of this sort of thing in what had been decidedly low church environments before:
http://www.norwichanglocatholic.org/video-festival.shtml (The CofE at its very tippy topmost, what the Precentor of Norwich Cathedral is thinking about when he - quite often - preaches on Hebrews 13:13 "let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp")

The current trend to simplification is just another passing fad, which like its predecessors will involve chucking out a lot of nice things. I think my difficulty with it is my difficulty with the church in general - nothing it does now ever seems to be rooted in any sense of permanence - but then the things alluded to above, which seem so timeless and unchanging to us, were once innovations themselves. The Victorians didn't have quite such awful nylon carpets though.

Nice quotations. I don't think they should be allowed to chuck out old stuff on a fad. I'm appalled when I rehearse in the Methodist Church in stamford and it's all zingy colours, heating and coffee. I want to shiver and smell dust!

I love the camp of High Church, the censing of the altar, the dissonant chanting - I'll go out of my way for that. And the setting needs to be at least 100 years old please!

 

[JoceAndChris]

the Swiss are not averse to banning minarettes

I wonder whether they've banned majorettes, too.

OK - that is, without doubt, my worst-ever attempt at a pun. But you have to admire my courage in posting it anyway.



Don't you?



Please?

Yes, of course we admire your bravery and love your jokes, just sometimes we can't post our response from having to cling on to our sides, they hurt so much from laughing! xxx

 

[Nigel Watts]

I can see why such changes might upset devout and regular church-goers but it seems a bit much for people who only go to church for Christmas, marriage and funerals (or just marriages and funerals in my case) to complain about how 'the church' organises its own affairs and decor. Isn't that a bit like inviting oneself to someone's house and then complaining about the furniture arrangements?

I would liken it to the Duke of Devonshire ripping out the interior of Chatsworth House then saying it was no business of the public who only visit occasionally to tell him what to do.

Of course there have been many changes to churches over the centuries: the reformation, the Elizabethan settlement, the puritans, the gothic revival, the trendy vicars. But in general most damage has been done by the low church evangelicals who see refinement, beauty and mystery as wicked and distracting. But if you peel back the onion too much you might find there is nothing left. The Church of Rome, although not innocent of similar atrocities, understands better the need to preserve the otherness of churches and their ceremonies and has been more successful than the puritans in hanging onto congregations.

Nigel - your absence at Westmisnster Abbey may be a blessing in disguise. We were going to pop in before the climate demo on Saturday, but a ticket for two adults and two children was £36.

One consolation of paying nearly £20k a year in fees is that you get in free.

Those majorettes are damned cute!

 

[JoceAndChris]

I can see why such changes might upset devout and regular church-goers but it seems a bit much for people who only go to church for Christmas, marriage and funerals (or just marriages and funerals in my case) to complain about how 'the church' organises its own affairs and decor. Isn't that a bit like inviting oneself to someone's house and then complaining about the furniture arrangements?

I would liken it to the Duke of Devonshire ripping out the interior of Chatsworth House then saying it was no business of the public who only visit occasionally to tell him what to do.

I completely agree with you.

refinement, beauty and mystery

It's what I want from church too, and what modern attitudes don't seem to take into account.