Colin’s description of these SAINT and HTB churches reminds me very much of the way that academy schools are governed. Rigid control from the top, and teachers/priests have their personal autonomy removed. Everything is done to a pattern prescribed by the centre. The other similarity is that Academy School networks and these church networks are target of sponsorship and control by wealthy Conservative donors. For example Sir Paul Marshall was a founding member and donor of the St Mellitus College, and sits on the board of St Paul’s Theological Centre. Marshall has given at least £10 million to the Church… Read more »
Absolutely horrified by the idea of security guards to keep the unwashed out of church. And dread to think of what goes on inside.
Michael H
20 days ago
Sacred space is sacred. Plenty of other places to hold graffiti exhibitions. Perhaps Mark Clavier or the Dean and Chapter at Canterbury Cathedral should offer their own homes to be graffitied inside and out.
I am often moved by this song and video of Stormzy, which took a Christian message of salvation to the 135,000 people at Glastonbury (who seemed to know and join in with the words) and to a BBC audience of about 1.1 million.
Thanks. I didn’t know that song. Stormzy is no Tupac, but still worthy. Did I ever tell this story ? I was working at Saudi Aramco in Dharhan. I was in the offices at the weekend and thought nobody was there. I started playing Tupac on the speakers. Soon after, a colleague came down and told me it was not appropriate to play that music. I think I could have got into serious trouble. Tupac declared himself to be, at one time, Muslim. At other times Christian. Dharhan was not known for music and dancing in the streets. An eerie… Read more »
Over my lifetime the Church of England has sold off many sacred spaces to become houses, community centres, cafes and shops. I find that far more disturbing than a temporary exhibition and, if temporary exhibitions and commercial events are necessary to stop the sale of more sacred spaces then so be it. I share your preference against uses such as the graffiti exhibition but I fear the alternative, in general, is worse.
Charles Read
20 days ago
Colin writes: “I’ve asked these clergy, ordained in the last two decades, what training they received in the conduct of worship and the celebration of communion. In each case the answer was, effectively, none. There are some colleges and possibly some non-residential courses where such training is given, but in general the CofE seems to be indifferent to eucharistic practice, theology and meaning today. “ As someone who has been teaching liturgy in colleges and courses for over 25 years I am taking a particular interest in this issue and have been doing a bit of a survey of what… Read more »
How can this be possible? Even lay preachers in other denominations get some training – and we have much less set liturgy than the CofE does. What on earth is happening in the colleges? Or are they expecting people to learn this stuff as curates?
Certainly the United Reformed Church expects authorised lay elders presiding at Communion to have done approved training. Not the case in my own Baptist denomination though.
I suspect what is supposed to happen, and what actually happens, varies quite a lot across denominations. In the URC, Synods take varying views on lay presidency, with some considering it an in extremis option that needs explicit authorisation on each occasion. However, there is no requirement that preachers have been trained or accredited, which strikes me as far more dangerous.
This is a worrying trend as conducting worship and preaching are two of the central and non-negotiable tasks of clergy. A basic grounding in the theological understanding of worship, the liturgical traditions of the C of E and how to prepare and conduct worship using the church’s liturgical resources should be essential on any ordination course at every TEI. But they hasn’t been for decades. And so we have a situation where for some their ordination vows are taken in bad faith and regarded as irrelevant.
The age of liturgical barbarism goes back at least a generation, with the result that many curates are placed with clueless incumbents. I would sometimes give Aidan Kavanagh’s Elements of Rite to curates as an ordination gift: pithy, and wise as it is waspish as it challenges a few Anglo-Catholic and Evangelical shibboleths.
By accident I came across a review of Leslie Newbiggin’s “South India Diary” in which the reviewer drew attention to the fact that Newbiggin welcomed the firm traditions of Anglican worship in his ex-anglican churches in contrast to others noting that ” the churches which have given the greatest liberty of liturgical improvisation have given the least training in liturgical principles”
FrDavid H
20 days ago
It is gratifying that Colin Coward has undergone, on our behalf, the experience of attending various CofE churches in London so that we don’t have to. It sounds utterly horrendous. In any other walk of life, I’d hate to undergo a professional procedure where the leaders had no training whatsoever. Why would anyone expect untrained doctors, teachers or lawyers to deliver a service worth having? And yet the Holy Communion ‘service’ is conducted by untrained amateurs with no clue about what they are offering . The transformation of the CofE in recent years has become something unrecognisably ghastly. I hope… Read more »
Jonathan Jamal
19 days ago
I think reading what Colin has written well about experiences of the Eucharist in some of the London Churches, where he was doing his Research. It shows the danger of the Eucharist being reduced to a simple Fellowship meal, and handling the Eucharist in a casual or lite way can lead to a Blasphemous debasement of the Eucharist. There needs to be recovery in some churches of the idea of representing the eternal Sacrifice of Christ, the sense of awe and reverence before the Holy One, the Most Holy Trinity, that Godly fear, approaching God with awe and reverence as… Read more »
I made no comparison with pubs. It is not my place to tell Jews anything about the Passover which is celebrated at home. I was thinking of the origins of the Eucharist being a fellowship meal rather than a Passover meal. It’s older scholarship now, but Gregory Dix in, The Shape of Liturgy has a discussion of the Jewish ritual chaburah/chaburoth in his section on, The Last Supper. NT scholars writing at or nearer the time of Dix challenged him on that point. It was a Passover. Debate over this remains ongoing and has some wider implications. See for instance,… Read more »
It is not an “active calling to mind”. That is merely subjective and is dependent upon an individual’s imagination. The Real Presence – some say transubstantiation – is far more than a “simple fellowship meal”
Actually an “active calling to mind” is a kind of heuristic device for understanding and appropriating the connection between the past and the present. It is applicable to both Jewish and Christian ways of thinking. Passover, which you introduced into the conversation, can perhaps be understood that way. It is intended to overcome the ‘merely’ subjective and facilitate subjective–objectivity. But I would be interested in how you might define “active calling to mind” to test whether or not you and I are talking about the same notion. In my view it is a sense in which one arrives at a… Read more »
A well-known Mennonite scholar once wrote that if our celebration of the Lord’s Supper is not vulnerable to the dangers Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 10-11, what we’re doing is very different from an early church Eucharist (I’m paraphrasing as I don;t have the book any more).
Interesting point. Maybe an ‘inverse correlation’ kind of analysis? I once heard a story in a conflict management course on the subject of contending with persistence in the face of change. Some members of a gun crew would move back and place their hands at their side before the firing. It was a residual from when field guns were horse drawn. The suggestion was that they were going back to ‘hold the horses’ –no longer used to propel guns at that time. lol. Eventually obsolete practices, once practical, disappear. Who knows?
As a small boy I always wondered who ate all the food before Holy Communion. The minister always started with the words ‘ After supper…’ I had my suspicions.
Tom O’Loughlin holds that, on the evidence of the Didache, the feeding of the multitude is the original paradigm of the Eucharist, and that the last supper narratives are possibly aetiological fictions.
Tom O’Loughlin. Now there is a fine Irish scholar. I’m not conversant with his work specifically; but the point you reference is certainly part of the conversation. On these matters I think one has to live with not knowing all the answers. Brown, whom I referenced previously, discusses the issue in terms of the differences in narrative construction and theologoumena between the synoptics and John and the difficulty of discerning a reliable ‘historicity’. In terms of making sense of what we may know from all perspectives, I like the idea of saying, let there be an instance of cultural memory.… Read more »
Not on this thread but in my heart. What a lovely man. Fun to be around. Witty, smart, generous. We had a decade working together. A wife who loved him and his dedication.
Drexel joy and optimism.
It feels like another time…probably the scent of eternity.
“Well done, good and faithful servant.”
Anglican in Exile
19 days ago
Thanks to Colin once again for some very thought provoking field work and reflection. I suspect some extremely deep pockets have helped greatly in bringing the structures, services and liturgies Colin describes into reality and will continue to do so, particularly in the area of clergy selection and training. But then again this has probably always been the case. Follow the money as they say, and pray earnestly that it doesn’t lead the church too close to any obnoxious visions of Reform (look out particularly for the ‘Alliance Defending Freedom’. The Newsagents have just highlighted some of the concerns surrounding… Read more »
Hmm. I can’t help thinking that there are lots of different takes on what is the ‘right’ way to preside at the Eucharist … and often it really seems not much more than a matter of personal preference. Could we not just say – use an authorised liturgy, and use it with reverence, and you won’t go far wrong?
Colin’s description of these SAINT and HTB churches reminds me very much of the way that academy schools are governed. Rigid control from the top, and teachers/priests have their personal autonomy removed. Everything is done to a pattern prescribed by the centre. The other similarity is that Academy School networks and these church networks are target of sponsorship and control by wealthy Conservative donors. For example Sir Paul Marshall was a founding member and donor of the St Mellitus College, and sits on the board of St Paul’s Theological Centre. Marshall has given at least £10 million to the Church… Read more »
Absolutely horrified by the idea of security guards to keep the unwashed out of church. And dread to think of what goes on inside.
Sacred space is sacred. Plenty of other places to hold graffiti exhibitions. Perhaps Mark Clavier or the Dean and Chapter at Canterbury Cathedral should offer their own homes to be graffitied inside and out.
If the term ‘modern art’ were to be used, rather than ‘graffiti’, would you have the same objections?
Or if the art was more to your taste?
Or if a rock band played Bach? Or if the organist played Deep Purple?
Behold I make all things new.
https://youtu.be/kV4RSUmYyVo?si=t5UKlo4qssZ3b_xK
Does “sacred” mean “somber”? Or “joyless”? Or, worse, “uninteresting”?
Oh…and graffiti need not be vulgar…Would you object to a graffito that read “Jesus is Lord” in a typically hip-hop style and typeface?
Talking about hip-hop, rap and R&B etc., some do not realise how deeply felt some of it is, even religious.
No idea what this song is about, parental advice, explicit content, but the religious allusions are obvious.
Probably CoE is not yet ready.
https://youtu.be/b0iIA5p8swk?si=bHLg7a6-SDqKXf-d
Tupac was a very complex man.
https://youtu.be/t_vjHqaZidU?si=uqmSnenTI1Wnf1In
Worth listening to other of Tupac’s songs, such as Dear Mama and Unconditional Love.
I agree Nigel,
I am often moved by this song and video of Stormzy, which took a Christian message of salvation to the 135,000 people at Glastonbury (who seemed to know and join in with the words) and to a BBC audience of about 1.1 million.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxsjQ967kV8
Thanks. I didn’t know that song. Stormzy is no Tupac, but still worthy. Did I ever tell this story ? I was working at Saudi Aramco in Dharhan. I was in the offices at the weekend and thought nobody was there. I started playing Tupac on the speakers. Soon after, a colleague came down and told me it was not appropriate to play that music. I think I could have got into serious trouble. Tupac declared himself to be, at one time, Muslim. At other times Christian. Dharhan was not known for music and dancing in the streets. An eerie… Read more »
If you wish to understand ‘sacred’ I suggest you attend the service of Benediction, an awesome and awe-ful experience.
And would it be any less so, if surrounded by graffitied walls?
Over my lifetime the Church of England has sold off many sacred spaces to become houses, community centres, cafes and shops. I find that far more disturbing than a temporary exhibition and, if temporary exhibitions and commercial events are necessary to stop the sale of more sacred spaces then so be it. I share your preference against uses such as the graffiti exhibition but I fear the alternative, in general, is worse.
Colin writes: “I’ve asked these clergy, ordained in the last two decades, what training they received in the conduct of worship and the celebration of communion. In each case the answer was, effectively, none. There are some colleges and possibly some non-residential courses where such training is given, but in general the CofE seems to be indifferent to eucharistic practice, theology and meaning today. “ As someone who has been teaching liturgy in colleges and courses for over 25 years I am taking a particular interest in this issue and have been doing a bit of a survey of what… Read more »
How can this be possible? Even lay preachers in other denominations get some training – and we have much less set liturgy than the CofE does. What on earth is happening in the colleges? Or are they expecting people to learn this stuff as curates?
Certainly the United Reformed Church expects authorised lay elders presiding at Communion to have done approved training. Not the case in my own Baptist denomination though.
I suspect what is supposed to happen, and what actually happens, varies quite a lot across denominations. In the URC, Synods take varying views on lay presidency, with some considering it an in extremis option that needs explicit authorisation on each occasion. However, there is no requirement that preachers have been trained or accredited, which strikes me as far more dangerous.
This is a worrying trend as conducting worship and preaching are two of the central and non-negotiable tasks of clergy. A basic grounding in the theological understanding of worship, the liturgical traditions of the C of E and how to prepare and conduct worship using the church’s liturgical resources should be essential on any ordination course at every TEI. But they hasn’t been for decades. And so we have a situation where for some their ordination vows are taken in bad faith and regarded as irrelevant.
The age of liturgical barbarism goes back at least a generation, with the result that many curates are placed with clueless incumbents. I would sometimes give Aidan Kavanagh’s Elements of Rite to curates as an ordination gift: pithy, and wise as it is waspish as it challenges a few Anglo-Catholic and Evangelical shibboleths.
By accident I came across a review of Leslie Newbiggin’s “South India Diary” in which the reviewer drew attention to the fact that Newbiggin welcomed the firm traditions of Anglican worship in his ex-anglican churches in contrast to others noting that ” the churches which have given the greatest liberty of liturgical improvisation have given the least training in liturgical principles”
It is gratifying that Colin Coward has undergone, on our behalf, the experience of attending various CofE churches in London so that we don’t have to. It sounds utterly horrendous. In any other walk of life, I’d hate to undergo a professional procedure where the leaders had no training whatsoever. Why would anyone expect untrained doctors, teachers or lawyers to deliver a service worth having? And yet the Holy Communion ‘service’ is conducted by untrained amateurs with no clue about what they are offering . The transformation of the CofE in recent years has become something unrecognisably ghastly. I hope… Read more »
I think reading what Colin has written well about experiences of the Eucharist in some of the London Churches, where he was doing his Research. It shows the danger of the Eucharist being reduced to a simple Fellowship meal, and handling the Eucharist in a casual or lite way can lead to a Blasphemous debasement of the Eucharist. There needs to be recovery in some churches of the idea of representing the eternal Sacrifice of Christ, the sense of awe and reverence before the Holy One, the Most Holy Trinity, that Godly fear, approaching God with awe and reverence as… Read more »
“It shows the danger of the Eucharist being reduced to a simple Fellowship meal…” But isn’t that the fons et origo of the ‘eucharist’ ?
No. Tell that to Jews celebrating the Passover. It’s not comparable to an ordinary meal in the pub.
I made no comparison with pubs. It is not my place to tell Jews anything about the Passover which is celebrated at home. I was thinking of the origins of the Eucharist being a fellowship meal rather than a Passover meal. It’s older scholarship now, but Gregory Dix in, The Shape of Liturgy has a discussion of the Jewish ritual chaburah/chaburoth in his section on, The Last Supper. NT scholars writing at or nearer the time of Dix challenged him on that point. It was a Passover. Debate over this remains ongoing and has some wider implications. See for instance,… Read more »
It is not an “active calling to mind”. That is merely subjective and is dependent upon an individual’s imagination. The Real Presence – some say transubstantiation – is far more than a “simple fellowship meal”
Actually an “active calling to mind” is a kind of heuristic device for understanding and appropriating the connection between the past and the present. It is applicable to both Jewish and Christian ways of thinking. Passover, which you introduced into the conversation, can perhaps be understood that way. It is intended to overcome the ‘merely’ subjective and facilitate subjective–objectivity. But I would be interested in how you might define “active calling to mind” to test whether or not you and I are talking about the same notion. In my view it is a sense in which one arrives at a… Read more »
A well-known Mennonite scholar once wrote that if our celebration of the Lord’s Supper is not vulnerable to the dangers Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 10-11, what we’re doing is very different from an early church Eucharist (I’m paraphrasing as I don;t have the book any more).
Interesting point. Maybe an ‘inverse correlation’ kind of analysis? I once heard a story in a conflict management course on the subject of contending with persistence in the face of change. Some members of a gun crew would move back and place their hands at their side before the firing. It was a residual from when field guns were horse drawn. The suggestion was that they were going back to ‘hold the horses’ –no longer used to propel guns at that time. lol. Eventually obsolete practices, once practical, disappear. Who knows?
As a small boy I always wondered who ate all the food before Holy Communion. The minister always started with the words ‘ After supper…’ I had my suspicions.
your comment is both humorous and pertinent. lol.
Tom O’Loughlin holds that, on the evidence of the Didache, the feeding of the multitude is the original paradigm of the Eucharist, and that the last supper narratives are possibly aetiological fictions.
Tom O’Loughlin. Now there is a fine Irish scholar. I’m not conversant with his work specifically; but the point you reference is certainly part of the conversation. On these matters I think one has to live with not knowing all the answers. Brown, whom I referenced previously, discusses the issue in terms of the differences in narrative construction and theologoumena between the synoptics and John and the difficulty of discerning a reliable ‘historicity’. In terms of making sense of what we may know from all perspectives, I like the idea of saying, let there be an instance of cultural memory.… Read more »
https://anglicannews.org/news/2025/10/obituary-archbishop-drexel-wellington-gomez.aspx
Not on this thread but in my heart. What a lovely man. Fun to be around. Witty, smart, generous. We had a decade working together. A wife who loved him and his dedication.
Drexel joy and optimism.
It feels like another time…probably the scent of eternity.
“Well done, good and faithful servant.”
Thanks to Colin once again for some very thought provoking field work and reflection. I suspect some extremely deep pockets have helped greatly in bringing the structures, services and liturgies Colin describes into reality and will continue to do so, particularly in the area of clergy selection and training. But then again this has probably always been the case. Follow the money as they say, and pray earnestly that it doesn’t lead the church too close to any obnoxious visions of Reform (look out particularly for the ‘Alliance Defending Freedom’. The Newsagents have just highlighted some of the concerns surrounding… Read more »
Hmm. I can’t help thinking that there are lots of different takes on what is the ‘right’ way to preside at the Eucharist … and often it really seems not much more than a matter of personal preference. Could we not just say – use an authorised liturgy, and use it with reverence, and you won’t go far wrong?