We must be grateful for Colin’s reflection; concise and forensic. It provides a challenge to those of us, fortunate to belong to congregations which, seemingly secure in their comfort zones of formal liturgies, ‘traditional and consistent’ worship, feel insulated against such threats to our faith. In reminding us of the frailty and vulnerabilities of religious organisations, we too must be vigilant against complicity and conscious of the challenges facing us.
John Davies
1 month ago
Sadly there are other reasons why so many churches are locked and bolted, whether they’re HTB associates or not. Insurance companies have a lot of responsibility in the matter; many insist on there having to be someone present in the building in order for it to be open at all, like my old parish church in rural Staffordshire. The days when you could expect to simply walk in and sit in quiet prayer, for many, are long gone. That’s particularly true if the building contains anything historically valuable and portable. OK, I’m a fairly modern, informal type of believer who… Read more »
I think the only solution to this, in both the UK and the US, would be for each parish/congregation to establish a rota for one person to be on site at all hours (or at least during reasonable ones–is it really necessary for the church to be open at, say, 2:30 AM?). But with the dwindling numbers on both sides of the pond, that seems unlikely,
Another possibility could be for the CoE (or, in the USA, TEC) to self-insure.
All Church of England buildings are insured through Ecclesiastical Insurance who are generally very encouraging of churches staying open. We are an inner city church in an area with a transient population, a large number of HMOs and hotels providing accommodation to asylum seekers, and the usual inner city problems of drugs and prostitution. Our doors are open from 8 to 6 every day with the full agreement of our insurers and have been so for 25 years. We believe that this is an important part of our mission to the community. The church is visited frequently by people of… Read more »
Thanks for your comment, Matthew. In response to John Davies and Pat O’Neill, my evidence suggests you are wrong about problems with insurance and Matthew is right. I’ve visited three churches that were open. Two of them had no-one present in the church: St Peter de Beauvoir Town and St George in the East. There was a church warden present at St James Islington, supervising a pianist rehearsing. I had a long conversation with the church warden. She said the church is open every day unsupervised and there have only been minor problems. I’m told that St Paul’s Bow Common… Read more »
I’m pleased that you are able to keep your church open. In my experience it is the PCC rather than the insurers who raise concerns about churches being kept open unattended.
Good case has been made for being open safer than locked. If you break in to a locked church you can be reasonably sure of being undisturbed as you thieve, whereas if it is kept open there is fair risk of someone walking in & catching you in the act..
That’s interesting, Matthew, as I’d heard the opposite about the EI – admittedly some years ago, when I was last involved with a PCC. However, you prove the point which I was seeking to make – that the whole point of having a church building is that it should be open for as much daily use, formal or otherwise, as possible. Rural churches, in my personal experience while visiting on country rambles, are very hit and miss as regards accessibility – that may depend on the PCC or possibly the diocese?
Taking up Dexter’s observation, I think it is likely that you heard what the PCC wanted you to hear, and not what EI were actually saying. I have been vicar of the same church for 25 years and many times they have reiterated their position that churches are as safe unlocked as they are locked, as long as you put easily removable valuables away. During opening hours we put on the High Altar a substitute set of six wooden candlesticks and a wooden crucifix purchased cheaply on ebay sprayed with gold paint. We didn’t think a very huge brass eagle… Read more »
When I had a parish on a crime-ridden housing estate, we had vandalism on the building both when it was closed and when it was open with people inside. We had a policy that if the church was unlocked there had to be at least two people inside, because it simply wasn’t safe otherwise. It was a modern building which didn’t look like a traditional church – I don’t know if that made any difference.
Nigel Goodwin
1 month ago
Let me try to challenge a bit. Unbiased facts are thin on the ground in all these febrile debates. On Sunday, a hostile, aggressive crowd of between 110,000 and 150,000, followers of Stephen Yaxley-Lennon/Tommy Robinson attended a far right protest addressed by Elon Musk. Really? Yet we hear elsewhere that the crowd were mainly friendly and not the far-right normal suspects. Few were, if I believe other reports, followers of Tommy Robinson. ‘populist’. Since when was the view of a large section of the population considered harmful? The idea that progressive, open, liberal and left leaning tendencies are the natural… Read more »
‘When bishops trot out well worn naïve liberal progressive views, the church is in trouble.’ Which of those qualities is the problem? The bishops’ views being naive, progressive, or well worn? Would you prefer them to be regressive, but fresh?
I meant them to be ‘and’. well worn and naïve and liberal and progressive.
To be honest, I’m not sure what I think. I regard myself as liberal and progressive. But I am also aware of hard truths, balancing the books and the markets is very tricky, and I hope I am not naïve.
in addition, I don’t think I recall anything being said by bishops or church leaders on these issues in the last 20 years, or maybe nothing memorable.
“he said he didn’t like Trump either, but he voted for him, he disliked Hilary Clinton even more.” True of a very great many people. And in 2024, substitute for “Hilary Clinton” the sad state of affairs that the democratic party has become — a fact bemoaned by democrats, confirmed by all polls, and showing no signs of change. “When we demonise half the population (of the USA or UK), we are in trouble.” True. A recent Rutgers University poll said 59% of those on the left wouldn’t be bothered if Trump or Musk were killed. 20% actively wanted it.… Read more »
Hmmm. The protest was organised by Yaxley-Lennon, so however warm and cuddly the protesters who marched the streets might have appeared, they were there at his bidding, that concerns me, even if it is of little consequence to you. As to the question ‘Since when was the view of a large section of the population considered harmful?’ – isn’t that one of the central themes of the Easter story and crucifixion of Christ according to the Gospels?
But it might make it very dangerous. The fact that Hitler’s arguments were wrong is of scant consolation to the tens of millions of lives he ruined.
I’m not a historian, but as I understand it the chance to stop Nazism was lost in the 1920s when the destruction of the German economy through war reparations could have been eased. Instead it continued, and led to the grievances which Hitler exploited.
The Nazis could have been stopped in 1933, had conservatives not been so blind to the threat they posed. Recall that when Hitler was appointed chancellor he did not command a majority in the Reichstag and there was no requirement to appoint him. No, Versailles made the rise of Nazism possible but it did not make it inevitable.
‘Versailles made the rise of Nazism possible’ – just because enough people say it doesn’t make it true. Quite apart from anything else, if it were true then we’d need some mechanism to account for the fact that the post WW2 settlement re Germany made Versailles look like a warm cuddle! Unless you mean re Versailles that, as historians do these days tend to think, that the real error at the end of WW1 was the Armistice, rather than pressing on for a total destruction of the German state and the Allies marching into Berlin, which was by November 1918… Read more »
Following the July 1932 elections the Nazis had 230 seats and the communists 89 out of 608. So no one could hold a majority without either Nazi or communist support. And given the history of communism in Russia, a government involving the communists might not have worked out well either. By November that had slightly eased to 196 Nazi seats and 100 communists. So yes, there might have been a path to avoiding Nazism or communism in Germany, but it was very narrow. Could that have been headed off earlier, and if so how? Not by conceding ground to the… Read more »
We simply don’t know what democratically elected European communism might have looked like, without Stalin shaping things directly as happened after 1945.
Isn’t one of history’s lessons that when someone persuades a large fraction of a population to mobilise against a grievance, there’s usually something real behind the grievance that needs fixing even if the grievance itself is contrived?
There is no requirement by insurers to lock-up a church building just because there is no one from the “home” community on site, neither in a remote rural nor challenging urban environment. It would be the exclusive nature of that community to decide otherwise: more to do with social and theological control than property protection; “how dare anyone enter “our building” uninvited, guided just by the Holy Spirit!”
I think the church is in far more trouble if it defaults to handwringing centrist dreck about “reasonable concerns” and pandering to people pushing hate. Robust challenge to those being seduced by the far right is the only option. Trying to reach an accommodation between Christianity and fascism just means surrender to the latter. Look up the Deutsche Christen to see where that road leads.
I would happily have argued with any of the guys in the railway carriage on the way back from the march last week if I had met them in smaller numbers – say in a pub . I would genuinely have been interested to know why they thought going on the march was doing their bit for the country . They were not by many peoples’ standards doing badly- retired, able to afford a train ticket to London and in between whiles talking happily about their gardens , man sheds and many their dogs. But they all seem to have… Read more »
We must be grateful for Colin’s reflection; concise and forensic. It provides a challenge to those of us, fortunate to belong to congregations which, seemingly secure in their comfort zones of formal liturgies, ‘traditional and consistent’ worship, feel insulated against such threats to our faith. In reminding us of the frailty and vulnerabilities of religious organisations, we too must be vigilant against complicity and conscious of the challenges facing us.
Sadly there are other reasons why so many churches are locked and bolted, whether they’re HTB associates or not. Insurance companies have a lot of responsibility in the matter; many insist on there having to be someone present in the building in order for it to be open at all, like my old parish church in rural Staffordshire. The days when you could expect to simply walk in and sit in quiet prayer, for many, are long gone. That’s particularly true if the building contains anything historically valuable and portable. OK, I’m a fairly modern, informal type of believer who… Read more »
I think the only solution to this, in both the UK and the US, would be for each parish/congregation to establish a rota for one person to be on site at all hours (or at least during reasonable ones–is it really necessary for the church to be open at, say, 2:30 AM?). But with the dwindling numbers on both sides of the pond, that seems unlikely,
Another possibility could be for the CoE (or, in the USA, TEC) to self-insure.
All Church of England buildings are insured through Ecclesiastical Insurance who are generally very encouraging of churches staying open. We are an inner city church in an area with a transient population, a large number of HMOs and hotels providing accommodation to asylum seekers, and the usual inner city problems of drugs and prostitution. Our doors are open from 8 to 6 every day with the full agreement of our insurers and have been so for 25 years. We believe that this is an important part of our mission to the community. The church is visited frequently by people of… Read more »
Thanks for your comment, Matthew. In response to John Davies and Pat O’Neill, my evidence suggests you are wrong about problems with insurance and Matthew is right. I’ve visited three churches that were open. Two of them had no-one present in the church: St Peter de Beauvoir Town and St George in the East. There was a church warden present at St James Islington, supervising a pianist rehearsing. I had a long conversation with the church warden. She said the church is open every day unsupervised and there have only been minor problems. I’m told that St Paul’s Bow Common… Read more »
I’m pleased that you are able to keep your church open. In my experience it is the PCC rather than the insurers who raise concerns about churches being kept open unattended.
Good case has been made for being open safer than locked. If you break in to a locked church you can be reasonably sure of being undisturbed as you thieve, whereas if it is kept open there is fair risk of someone walking in & catching you in the act..
That’s interesting, Matthew, as I’d heard the opposite about the EI – admittedly some years ago, when I was last involved with a PCC. However, you prove the point which I was seeking to make – that the whole point of having a church building is that it should be open for as much daily use, formal or otherwise, as possible. Rural churches, in my personal experience while visiting on country rambles, are very hit and miss as regards accessibility – that may depend on the PCC or possibly the diocese?
Taking up Dexter’s observation, I think it is likely that you heard what the PCC wanted you to hear, and not what EI were actually saying. I have been vicar of the same church for 25 years and many times they have reiterated their position that churches are as safe unlocked as they are locked, as long as you put easily removable valuables away. During opening hours we put on the High Altar a substitute set of six wooden candlesticks and a wooden crucifix purchased cheaply on ebay sprayed with gold paint. We didn’t think a very huge brass eagle… Read more »
When I had a parish on a crime-ridden housing estate, we had vandalism on the building both when it was closed and when it was open with people inside. We had a policy that if the church was unlocked there had to be at least two people inside, because it simply wasn’t safe otherwise. It was a modern building which didn’t look like a traditional church – I don’t know if that made any difference.
Let me try to challenge a bit. Unbiased facts are thin on the ground in all these febrile debates. On Sunday, a hostile, aggressive crowd of between 110,000 and 150,000, followers of Stephen Yaxley-Lennon/Tommy Robinson attended a far right protest addressed by Elon Musk. Really? Yet we hear elsewhere that the crowd were mainly friendly and not the far-right normal suspects. Few were, if I believe other reports, followers of Tommy Robinson. ‘populist’. Since when was the view of a large section of the population considered harmful? The idea that progressive, open, liberal and left leaning tendencies are the natural… Read more »
‘When bishops trot out well worn naïve liberal progressive views, the church is in trouble.’ Which of those qualities is the problem? The bishops’ views being naive, progressive, or well worn? Would you prefer them to be regressive, but fresh?
I meant them to be ‘and’. well worn and naïve and liberal and progressive.
To be honest, I’m not sure what I think. I regard myself as liberal and progressive. But I am also aware of hard truths, balancing the books and the markets is very tricky, and I hope I am not naïve.
in addition, I don’t think I recall anything being said by bishops or church leaders on these issues in the last 20 years, or maybe nothing memorable.
In contrast, David Shepherd?
Or this sermon?
https://youtu.be/dBGmQPJOslI?si=phw4ehugFYW_o_an
This may be more relevant.
https://youtu.be/dxXcE6GRrjA?si=50xxI8HKI-Um8pZf
https://youtu.be/b_z_6rT3-fc?si=_tRyE31ckBDWHxkr
https://youtu.be/WLTopH7IB6E?si=YHPlna6Qm2KlgWhN
Philip North has had useful things to say about poverty and social deprivation, if that’s part of what you mean?
I think I am just trying to think outside of the box and see how we can engage people to avoid falling into far right – or even mid right – traps.
Always a good idea to think outside the box!
“he said he didn’t like Trump either, but he voted for him, he disliked Hilary Clinton even more.” True of a very great many people. And in 2024, substitute for “Hilary Clinton” the sad state of affairs that the democratic party has become — a fact bemoaned by democrats, confirmed by all polls, and showing no signs of change. “When we demonise half the population (of the USA or UK), we are in trouble.” True. A recent Rutgers University poll said 59% of those on the left wouldn’t be bothered if Trump or Musk were killed. 20% actively wanted it.… Read more »
Hmmm. The protest was organised by Yaxley-Lennon, so however warm and cuddly the protesters who marched the streets might have appeared, they were there at his bidding, that concerns me, even if it is of little consequence to you. As to the question ‘Since when was the view of a large section of the population considered harmful?’ – isn’t that one of the central themes of the Easter story and crucifixion of Christ according to the Gospels?
Well said. Lots of people believing something does not make it true (or good).
But it might make it very dangerous. The fact that Hitler’s arguments were wrong is of scant consolation to the tens of millions of lives he ruined.
I’m not a historian, but as I understand it the chance to stop Nazism was lost in the 1920s when the destruction of the German economy through war reparations could have been eased. Instead it continued, and led to the grievances which Hitler exploited.
The Nazis could have been stopped in 1933, had conservatives not been so blind to the threat they posed. Recall that when Hitler was appointed chancellor he did not command a majority in the Reichstag and there was no requirement to appoint him. No, Versailles made the rise of Nazism possible but it did not make it inevitable.
‘Versailles made the rise of Nazism possible’ – just because enough people say it doesn’t make it true. Quite apart from anything else, if it were true then we’d need some mechanism to account for the fact that the post WW2 settlement re Germany made Versailles look like a warm cuddle! Unless you mean re Versailles that, as historians do these days tend to think, that the real error at the end of WW1 was the Armistice, rather than pressing on for a total destruction of the German state and the Allies marching into Berlin, which was by November 1918… Read more »
Following the July 1932 elections the Nazis had 230 seats and the communists 89 out of 608. So no one could hold a majority without either Nazi or communist support. And given the history of communism in Russia, a government involving the communists might not have worked out well either. By November that had slightly eased to 196 Nazi seats and 100 communists. So yes, there might have been a path to avoiding Nazism or communism in Germany, but it was very narrow. Could that have been headed off earlier, and if so how? Not by conceding ground to the… Read more »
We simply don’t know what democratically elected European communism might have looked like, without Stalin shaping things directly as happened after 1945.
Isn’t one of history’s lessons that when someone persuades a large fraction of a population to mobilise against a grievance, there’s usually something real behind the grievance that needs fixing even if the grievance itself is contrived?
There is no requirement by insurers to lock-up a church building just because there is no one from the “home” community on site, neither in a remote rural nor challenging urban environment. It would be the exclusive nature of that community to decide otherwise: more to do with social and theological control than property protection; “how dare anyone enter “our building” uninvited, guided just by the Holy Spirit!”
It was the people guided by a very unholy spirit we needed to worry about.
I think the church is in far more trouble if it defaults to handwringing centrist dreck about “reasonable concerns” and pandering to people pushing hate. Robust challenge to those being seduced by the far right is the only option. Trying to reach an accommodation between Christianity and fascism just means surrender to the latter. Look up the Deutsche Christen to see where that road leads.
So if the majority of the crowd were friendly, how come so many policemen were knocked about, some quite badly?
I would happily have argued with any of the guys in the railway carriage on the way back from the march last week if I had met them in smaller numbers – say in a pub . I would genuinely have been interested to know why they thought going on the march was doing their bit for the country . They were not by many peoples’ standards doing badly- retired, able to afford a train ticket to London and in between whiles talking happily about their gardens , man sheds and many their dogs. But they all seem to have… Read more »