Not dead, only sleeping
Well, several years have elapsed since the last post. I guess this is the pattern with many
blogs. This blog was always in large
part just about setting down some of my thoughts, regardless of how many people
(if any) might read it. If you, dear
reader, are reading this then I guess
either you have found it more-or-less at random, or maybe you have long had my
blog in your list of feeds. In the
latter case particularly, thank you for reading! Will I blog regularly now? I’m not sure. It would be nice to think so, but I
shouldn’t make promises I can’t keep.
First, then, a personal update. My previous blog posts were written while I
belonged to – as a leader and regular congregant – a small (and shrinking) free
Evangelical church in Oxford. Since Trinity
Sunday in 2014, I have been worshipping fairly regularly at the University
Church of St Mary the Virgin. A church
with a somewhat pivotal role at certain points in the history of the English Church (almost two centuries ago,
Newman preached some of his most influential sermons there; a few centuries
earlier, the church saw the trial of Cranmer for heresy: stoneworks to facilitate
this are still visible) today it adopts the label “liberal catholic”.
That label has assumed particular significance lately: the
incumbent of the last thirty years, Brian Moutford (he took up the post just
before I arrived in Oxford as an undergraduate: to my mind he has always been the vicar) retired just
after Easter this year, and the church has been seeking a new vicar. The parish profile is a certain work of art –
describing in code the particular brand of Anglicanism preferred by the present
congregation. It was, of course, Mountford's writing that attracted me to St Mary's.
The church’s role – as a University church, and as a parish
church covering much of the city centre (and hence, predominantly, the
University) – surely shapes this outlook.
Here I find a Christianity that doesn’t need to be embarrassed when
faced with the learning of the modern university. I find a way of believing that isn’t dogmatic
or unthinking. I find an inclusiveness that is in keeping with the openness of
the University – in contrast with the welcome announced by some churches, which
are apparently open to all, but some are much more welcome than others.
And yet, it’s also a very (though not exclusively) middle-class
church, as you might expect: and I could believe that that would be alienating
to plenty of others. Also potentially
alienating is the form of the worship: not the ‘highest’ of Anglican
churchmanship, but high enough to have incense on a number of festivals,
careful liturgical dress, a robed choir which frequently sings the communion
setting in latin, and a rather demoralising commitment to the New English
Hymnal, with its
apparently-ecclectic-but-actually-dominated-by-the-nineteenth-century poetry
and music. In a University that seems to
love dressing up and holding seemingly archaic ceremonies, this doesn’t seem
out of place: but it’s decidedly detached from what we might otherwise call the
Real World.
This, then, is where I’m at.
I’m the guy who sits at the back, in the gallery, and doesn’t get too
involved. That’s quite a turn-around:
I’ve spent the last 30 years being at the front in church, leading, preaching,
and making music. It’s instructive to do
none of these for a while: I’ll write more on this, and many other things,
later.
