The Open Door Baptist Church, Downs Road, 19.06.11

I have a theory that if you believe in God you’re more likely to support a football team, have political affiliations, and vote on X factor. My theory is that these commitments indicate you’re interested in contributing to a larger state of consciousness; you want to be part of mass culture. Obviously some Christians are not interested in such false idols but I would argue that the majority of Christians want to celebrate similarities and create an inclusive community. The desire to belong, to be part of a larger sense of community has led Christianity to adopt non-religious celebrations and adapt them for Sunday worship. This Sunday The Open Doors Baptist Church allowed the sectarian celebrations of Father’s Day into their service to be Christianised. The congregation celebrated with such passion a more passive thinker like me had to run home and check that Father’s Day did not have any biblical foundation.

Quick internet research (Wikipedia) told me that Father’s Day is an American creation that did not become a permanent national holiday in the States till Richard Nixon signed a proclamation in 1972. The history of the creation of Father’s Day includes various people and events from the plans to commemorate the death of 210 fathers in the Monogah Mining disaster in West Virginia at the turn of the century to the independent rural celebrations of the patriarch in Spokrane, Washington; however there is no evidence that Father’s Day has any religious heritage. Unlike America’s history which provided some historical context to Father’s Day, such celebrations in the UK have no history and therefore (in theory) should have no future. Father’s Day, as I had feared, was a product of global marketing that projected superficial values and material celebrations onto our society that could only be best described in a gift card. But to The Open Doors Baptist Church Father’s Day provided the opportunity to inject some Christian substance into the self-promoting commercial holiday.

Besides our heavenly father, who was alluded to in the projected text that accompanied all the church hymns, who was mentioned at the end of every prayer and whose name decorated the church nave. Besides our father of all fathers, Pastor Ghann (a big bear of a man but with a very soft voice) wanted to focus on the men of the congregation’s role as spiritual leaders.  The majority of the congregation appeared to be first and second generation Ghanaians with a few West Indians, a single white lady and a very cross looking Asian man. The undercurrent to the very jubilant celebrations was that men could do a lot better; Pastor told the predominantly black male group that our children were suffering. Clichés with the support of statistics have often portrayed black men as absent fathers and the pastor was eager to counter these stereotypes with a display of black male pride in the form of an all-male choir. The male choir was made up of strictly fathers but there were too few, so the Pastor invited all the fathers in the congregation, again the numbers were too small and so all the men were eventually invited (including the kids and myself). What followed was a well-intentioned badly executed rendition of a hymn I have never heard (and don’t believe the majority of the singers had) which displayed an image of male solidarity but also indicated a lack of thought, planning and commitment (the very criticism the Pastor had made in regards to common attitudes to fatherhood). The shambolic but celebratory performance contained all the positive sentiments and lack of depth of Father’s Day.

The reason behind my cynicism of adopting Father’s Day as a template for the service was the unintentional negative effect it had upon the congregation. The sermon lacked Bible passages and replaced them with personal accounts of the ills of male youth delinquency which was attributed to a lack of a father. As Pastor Ghann listed several horror stories of male youth misdirection from other congregations he had visited he intentionally celebrated the role of the father but unintentionally undermined the role of the single mother. Pastor Ghann stated that without a father figure the youth was lost and that despite the best efforts of the mother the youth needed “male spiritual leadership.” Pastor Ghann and listed their admirable charitable work with the youth and it became clear that they were self-appointed surrogate fathers to the spiritually orphaned. Not that Pastor Ghann’s spiritual leadership was restricted to the local congregation or even restricted to London or the UK. The Pastor’s reach was international as use the sermon to raise his concern about the lack of bibles in countries he had visited: Philippines and Zambia. Ironic that the raising of money for these two international Baptist ghettos by Ghann mirrored the work of their colonial fathers.

Academics have spent years debating the main contributing factors behind colonialism: did it come into existence by pure economic expansion or born out of desire to spread religious control. Obviously the two factors are bound by culture and history and one clearly could not ignore the other. But I would argue that slavery would never have survived as long as it did if Christianity had not created a paternalistic attitude among the oppressors towards their slaves. My lack of Christian belief and love of history did create a smug smile as members of the congregation stood to donate to the Bible plight of the Philippines. A Bible costs £2.50 in the Philippines and members were asked to donate enough for four Bibles (£10) or eight (£20). The charitable exhibition appeared strategically devised to reward those rich enough to give and humiliate those unable to provide, highlighted by Pastor Ghann separating the two donating groups (a needless exercise). Maybe I am cruel to criticise such acts of altruism but I was raised that money should never be given and taken too easily and knew that my father would never have approved. My distrust of these spiritual fathers was typically a product of my lack of faith that had become apparent earlier in the service.

After the sermon the congregation had gathered to share testimonies, one elderly female member declared that earlier during the children’s parade of thanks for their fathers she had seen Jesus appear and fire a white light into the entire congregation. Now clearly no one else experienced this revelation but everyone applauded with the exception of my cynical self. The congregation clearly saw the elderly lady’s experience as a genuine supernatural encounter that was exclusively hers. I am all for people having religious visions but not when I am in the room. By having a religious vision in you presence you feel spiritually inadequate. As a non-witness I was pissed off and jealous, unlike the faithful congregation.  Further testimonies left me equally unimpressed as more Holy visions took place in the most everyday surroundings and spooky coincidences became divine interventions. My personal favourite was a testimony by Pastor Ghann in which he claimed that a broken brake in his car that had almost caused him to crash was actually caused by the devil but he was so glad of this as it demonstrated that the devil wanted him dead and therefore God must have something really important planned for him. I do not doubt the man’s sincerity and honesty but I would not trust him to spend my money wisely.

I don’t see a supernatural world, I can’t give money to a need I can’t see or don’t know, and I don’t feel the need for spiritual fatherly guidance. Similarly I don’t celebrate father’s day, I am scared of affiliating myself with a political party and I don’t watch the X factor. I would say I don’t feel the need to belong to a mass culture and that I am scared it would reduce my individual identity but actually I do love Arsenal football club. And more importantly I love football to my father’s disgust.  We all individually decide the beliefs we care to share and celebrate but to try to compress something as vast and complex as the Bible into the thin and incidental concept of Father’s Day is to warp and distort the former and ingratiate and indulge the latter.

The Georgian Orthodox Church London Parish of Saint George formerly The Ancient Catholic Cathedral of The Good Shepherd originally Agapemonite Church of The Ark of the Covenant, Rookwood Road, 12/06/11

In The Beginning was the word, and the word was with God and the word was God.

Book of John, Chapter one, verse one is one of the most famous quotes from the Bible. The line is so heavily used by a variety of Christians because it is one of the most clear ontological statements in the Bible and its general sentiment can easily be appropriated to other areas of existence. It is Ironic that the poetic simplicity of the words was not translated until the King James Bible was published in 1611. Words and their meaning in Christianity are forever changing as my blog has illustrated. All churches may share core Christian values (whatever they maybe) but that is not to regard modern Christianity in a permanent status (as the majority of the media would like to believe) instead Christianity is constantly reacting to the changes within modern society. From the rise of a right wing conservative rhetoric by Jehovah’s Witnesses to the gradual increase in popularity of prosperity gospel in smaller evangelical churches and to more multicultural congregations within the Catholic and Anglican churches. Regardless of these churches desire to uphold Christian traditions they cannot remain outside the society they are part of.  No church(es)  is a better example of the multiple personalities of Christianity than The Georgian Orthodox Church London Parish of Saint George formerly The Ancient Catholic Cathedral of The Good Shepherd and originally the Agapemonite Church of The Ark of the Covenant on Rookwood Road.

Of all Rookwood church’s many guises it is its originators, the Agapemonite cult who still haunt the church architecture. From the grand front entrance you are greeted by four large statues of a winged bull and lion, an angel and a giant bird. This quartet of statues reappear in many sizes within and outside the church, the most mythical incarnation being four bronze figurines positioned in each corner of the base of the church steeple looking out over every angle. The steeple has a particularly piercing gothic quality with its spear like top. Built in 1895 and designed by J Morris its gothic styling and mystic symbolism is odd for its era. The building is designated a Grade 2 listing for its “curiosity value,” but to patronise the architecture is to do the church a disservice. The reason behind the unusual architecture is that the churches builders held a unique but short lived interpretation of the Bible.

The Agapemonites, who held decidedly unconventional views on marriage and the role of women, relocated to Upper Clapton from their spiritual community in Spaxton, Somerset, and had clearly prospered by this time. To understand the true lunacy of the Agapemonites cult please read the extract below taken from “The Clapton Messiah” which I found on a Clapton website http://www.clapton.freeservers.com/photo3.html.

The Clapton Messiah
In 1892 the Agapemonites began the building of a magnificent church at the junction of Rookwood Road and Clapton Common, which they called the Church of Ark of the Covenant. Seating about 400 people this magnificent church, decorated with elaborate symbolism, cost in the region of 20,000 pounds. The preacher at the opening ceremony in 1896 was J H Smyth-Pigott, (later to become Prince`s successor).

The building of the church was paid for with money raised by an Anglican priest named Henry James Prince (1811-99). Prince studied medicine, obtained his qualifications in 1832 and was appointed medical officer to the General Hospital in Bath. Ill-health caused him to abandon his medical profession and subsequently he studied for the priesthood at St David’ Theological College, Lampeter. Shortly after his ordination into the priesthood he became curate of Stoke in Suffolk, but after a while his relations with the Church of England became strained (c 1843). He then opened his own church in Brighton called the Adullam Chapel. Prince`s passionate evanglical ways proved irresistably attractive to the wealthy and the gullible.Prince claimed that the Holy Ghost had taken up residence in his body thus proclaiming the imminent second coming of Christ.

In 1849 the Agapemonites moved to the village of Spaxton, in Somerset to a 200 acre plot of land and set about creating a self-supporting community of some 60 followers, all dedicated to the Agapemonites unconventional views on marriage, the messiah, immortality and the role of women. The community prospered so much that they were able to build the church in Clapton. Meanwhile, besides attending to the spiritual needs of his flock, Prince also had to attend to the demands of his many brides as women regarded it as a honour to be taken by him as Prince explained in his work "The Little Open Book" (1856). When Prince died in 1899 he was buried standing up in readiness for the resurrection.

After the death of Prince, John Smyth-Pigott became the acknowledged head of the Agapemonites, born in 1852 in Somerset he had a varied career as a soldier and a curate of the Church of England amongst other things. Smyth-Pigott fitted the part completely. He was a charming womaniser who managed to convert several members of the Salvation Army to the way of the Agapemonites. All was going well until, on the 7th of September 1902, the assembled congregation noticed that the communion table was replaced by a chair occupied by Smyth-Pigott who proclaimed himself to be the Messiah. He said "God is no longer there" pointing upwards, "but here" pointing to himself. During the following sermon he promised that Christ would appear in due time in the Ark of the Covenant.

In the ensuing riots Smyth-Pigott, the self-proclaimed new Messiah, had to be protected by the police from the violence of an angry mob. Unable to provide proof that he could walk across Clapton Pond he left Clapton with great haste.  Smyth-Pigott returned to the less hostile environs of Somerset where he committed himself vigorously to a demanding succession of brides, reputedly 7 a week. Records of the time show there were nearly 100 women living in Spaxton House.
Smyth-Pigott was defrocked by the Anglican Church under the Clergy Discipline Act, and died in March 1927.

Naturally some of the history of the Agapemonites might have been sensationalized but other sources I have come across confirm the amazing legend of the Clapton Messiah.  After the scandal Rookwood church was abandoned by the cult and was acquired by the Ancient Catholic Church in 1956. Despite the Apagemonites incredibly short and exciting history I have not been able to find direct reasons for the symbolic quartet of figurines. The Apagemonites spiritual and rebellious history does indicate how unconventional they viewed mainstream Christianity. The symbolic use of animals is very likely indebted to a more mystic approach to religion that harks back to pagan imagery. I would claim that the Apagemonites batty reputation has led to its most enduring and impressive achievement, the church architecture, to not receive the praise and attention it deserves.

The church’s reputation was so tainted by the Agapemonites scandal that the church did not fall into the hands of the Anglican Church until 1927 as the majority of abandoned churches would have but was given to the Ancient Catholic Church (whose origins are Dutch). Despite the Ancient Catholic Church’s long tenure I could not find any notable features within the interior and exterior of the church, instead The Georgian Orthodox whose residency had begun in 2005 had made the church their own. Inside the nave the Agapemonites presence can still be felt in Walter Caine’s amazing stained glass windows filled with depictions of flowers and plants with no religious imagery except at the rear of the building. The Agapemonites claim that the plant and flower imagery was to portray the “true station of womankind,” which might explain why church male leaders felt they had to impregnate so many women as if they were cross pollinating a field like the famers they were. Other remnants of the Agapemonites can be seen in the scattered statue heads of bulls, lions, angels and birds that decorate the side of the nave. Despite these features the nave had been highly converted into a more Eastern Orthodox Church.

 Following Eastern Orthodox convention the Georgians had installed a wooden iconostasis to separate the nave from the sanctuary and various icons and candles were positioned in the corners of the church. Below are two short videos on the Rookwood church, the first is a Georgian telly feature on Rookwood Road church and its spiritual conversion and the second is a member of the congregations mobile phone video. Obviously I do not speak Georgian and do not understand any of the dialogue but the video is still a great insight into the hard work and money that Georgians contributed to renovating the damaged church. Look out for the amazing church tiling, the long carpet that goes from the church steps to the sanctuary (second video) and the English man interviewed who I presume is a descendent of Henry James Prince who seems amused by the interest and relieved that no one is asking him difficult questions about his scandalous ancestor.

The second video indicates the transformative ritualistic chanting that fills the nave which projects a distinctly Eastern Orthodox identity onto the Western built church. The church in many respects bridges the East West schism in that it combines architecture from a short lived West Christian Cult with one of the most ancient forms of Christian worship from the East. 

The Orthodox Church is the oldest Christian religious establishment in the world, as the organization grew it fragmented into self-governing bodies despite remaining theologically connected. The Georgian Orthdox Church was established as a sub division in 1010 surviving various cultural attacks throughout its history most notably from Russia and remains an independent body to this day.  The service predominantly consisted of four hours of chanting and held strong similarities to The Greek Orthodox Church I had visited, however the Georgians had more variety to their voices (not that I could be aware of the differences of their words) making a more dynamic worship. The priests whose deep and lows chants came from in front and behind the iconostasis was counter balanced by a lighter sounding response from the female contingent placed in the upper narthex above the front entrance. The surrounding chanting created an omnipotent atmosphere that broke conventions of performer and spectator and generated a sense of community. The caller response paradigm was not a too rigid structure of worship as I had feared but instead it felt non hierarchal due to the voices appearing disembodied throughout the service. The Georgians had brought an authentic sense of mysticism to the contrived gothic mysticism of J Morris’s architecture creating a very postmodern spiritual identity. The link below is for The Georgian Orthodox Church, please click  on it and scroll down to the mp3 player to get sample of the churches chants.

 http://www.goclp.org.uk/eng/

The clashes between 19th century gothic architecture and Eastern Orthodoxy were not striking but seamless and enchanting; the reason for this smooth amalgamation of time and culture was the congregation.

The congregation seemed at ease with the ancient traditions of the Georgian Orthodox church and its relationship to the outside world. All rituals were respected and adhered to but they were not strictly implemented. The rituals were demanding, congregation members had to stand, at times get on their knees and partake in some elaborate ceremonies however many children played throughout the service, mobile phones were constantly ringing and being  answered and a few members popped out for a cheeky cigarette. Such contrasting behavior would often create a split in the congregation between the devout and the obligated but during the brief chanting breaks within the service the congregation would burst into chatter across the entire nave. Besides the beautiful ordained robes of the Holy Order, the hierarchies of the Georgian congregation were not clearly identifiable. The Georgians did appear to be fairly rich and stylishly dressed:  a high number of men in smart jeans and jackets and women with Louis Vuiton head scarfs. The smart attire was not similar to the more outlandish Sunday best of other predominantly migrant (but African) congregations of Dalston Lane instead the Georgians smart casual would be more commonly found in a designer catalogue. Nor was the congregation similar to The Greek Orthodox Church I had visited on Mare Street, the Rookwood congregation consisted of much younger families with a larger generational variance and more fashionable attire. The church seemed to have a mystic quality but was entirely modern and at ease.

In the beginning was Rookwood Church, and Rookwood Church was with God and Rookwood Church was God but that is not to say it did not change. From The Ark of the Covenant to The Cathedral of The Good Shepherd to The Parish of Saint George the building remains the same but the name signifies a change in spirit. It seems ironic that the church’s origins set out to form a new Christian mythology eventually returned to one of Christ’s oldest adherents. Not that the Georgian congregation are interested in historical primacy they appeared to understand that for traditions to remain sacred they must adapt and integrate to survive, something the Agapemonites could never do.


PS 


Due to copy write and other technical gobbins i have been unable to post the photos. They will be posted soon

Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses, Grove Road, 5.06.11

How do you confuse a Jehovah’s Witness?

You invite them in for a cup of tea.

Or you could actually go to their church uninvited. My earliest memory of Jehovah’s Witnesses is they were a butt of a playground joke. The source of a lot comedy on the conservative nature of Christianity comes from the Jehovah’s Witness movement. So when arriving at the Kingdom Hall on Grove Road I did wonder, would the evangelical church live up to its ridicule? But can I call the Kingdom Hall a church? Jehovah’s Witnesses have rewritten so much of the Bible I am at risk of blaspheming when I attempt to describe my experience using common Christian terminology.  What I regard as Jehovah Witness’s rewriting the Bible they would describe as reawakening the true gospel. To explain our differences I need to provide a short history lesson but first a few more childhood memories surrounding my first impressions of Jehovah’s Witnesses.

In my short venture into school bullying I distinctly remember me and my gang teasing a small, blonde, feeble looking kid called buck tooth Lee for being a Jehovah’s Witness. Not that I fully understood what a Jehovah’s Witness was, and not that it mattered to me. The very little I knew was that Jehovah’s Witnesses did not celebrate Christmas, they knock on your door to sell you Jesus (instead of cleaning appliances) and they did not give blood. These three vague facts were enough to make little Lee’s GCSE Science classes a living hell (not that he believes in it).  In my defence I was merely following the crowd and not thinking (ironically a criticism I often aim at Christianity). Now more mature I realise I could have bullied Lee for believing more ridiculous notions,  as I later learned that Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that secular society is under the influence of Satan and that Armageddon is imminent. Jehovah’s Witnesses have a firm belief in Christian primitivism which disregards  the Holy Trinity, immortality and hellfire but instead believe that Christianity should return to the values of the Old Testament and that God will return and make Heaven on Earth before Armageddon (not so imminent as first thought).

 Emerging from the Bible Student movement in the late 1870s in America, its founder Charles Taze Russell formed the Zion Watch Tower Tract Society, but the name Jehovah’s Witness only came into use in 1931 as a way to disassociate the group from other dissenting Bible Students. The Jehovah’s Witnesses largest innovation is The New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures: a translation of the Bible by the Watch Tower Tract Society published in 1961 drawing from the Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic biblical texts that have been rediscovered, analysed and translated by linguistics. The New World Translation of Holy Scriptures is the foundation for all that is odd about the Jehovah’s Witnesses and I feel it’s the most destructive and regressive interpretation of Christ I have yet to come across. The reason for my distrust of NWT is that this week’s Sunday service ironically had an atmosphere of unconscious bullying running throughout the religious dogma.

  Jehovah’s Witnesses created NWT to revive Christian morality which they felt had been lost from Christianity as society’s secular culture had grown in the 21^st century, however by shunning the older churches  the Jehovah’s Witnesses inevitably appeared more modern despite their desire to return to the Old Testament’s values. The Kingdom Hall on Grove Road is a plain, modern and ultimately boring building that lacks the romance of history found in older faiths. Unlike other evangelical churches which inhabit disused Anglican churches in London the Jehovah’s Witnesses prefer the spiritually sanitized environment of a newly built modern building. Inside the hall, a placid palette of beige walls, wood panelling, light blue seats, non-descript curtains with low bright lights in a room with no windows forms a pleasant prison cell. Four identical portraits of Jesus with the same bible quote written in four different languages elevates the room to some spiritual aspiration but besides this generic decoration the hall could have been mistaken for a conference room in a Holiday Inn. A corporate cleanliness undercuts any identity the congregation brought to the service. Similarly the congregation might have been dressed in Sunday Best but they could have done better. Suits were less celebratory and more business-like; the occasional African traditional clothing was the only noticeable fashion style to stick out from the crowd. Oddly the conservative dress hid the most diverse congregation I was yet to come across. Overhearing accents of the congregation they ranged from the Caribbean to Africa, across to Asia and as far north as Yorkshire. The lack of a distinct cultural identity fitted the corporate church setting and the general uniform attire created an American sense of conformity.

The service matched the surroundings in that it did away with all traditions I have associated with Sundays. Gone was the beautiful lyricism of the King James Bible and in its place was a more modern language to clearly instil so called Christian values into the congregation. I missed the routine rituals of the Anglicans and Catholics or the raising of the Holy Spirit of the Pentecostalists and Charismatics. Jehovah’s Witnesses do not even say Amen. At first I was excited to think I might find a new modern interpretation of the Holy Scriptures despite the mundane surroundings but soon my excitement turned to disappointment and then anger. The service was an exercise in communal bullying that echoed my earliest school memories of Jehovah’s witnesses. And who are the biggest bullies at school? But the teachers! Not that all teachers are bullies. The majority of teachers I have met are kind hearted people with good intentions (as I am sure the majority of Jehovah’s Witnesses are) but they are in a position of authority and have a responsibility to pass on knowledge which they can abuse. A good teacher knows that education is about providing the pupil with information so they can discover who they are but a bad teacher bullies the pupil into what they think the pupil should be. Arguably a teacher can only be as good as the curriculum allows and NWT does not allow for much.

 Jehovah’s Witnesses are a hierarchal organisation who puts the running of the church in the hands of its male elders. The majority of the service was overseen by the head elder who navigated the congregation through The Watchtower Study pamphlet.  The Watchtower Study pamphlet had weekly articles with questions and answers, the June edition contained the following titles “Serving Jehovah with All Seriousness,” “Make Decisions That Honour God,” “The Fruitage Spirit, Glorifies God,” and “Are you Allowing Gods Spirit to Lead You.” The Watchtower Study pamphlet did not focus on full passages from the Bible but took a wide variety of scripture quotes to create a general moral guide for its reader. As the congregation did not focus on specific passages in the Bible it led them not to ask the important spiritual question of how the text relates to their lives instead they were provided with religious dogma in the form of selective NWT quotes which were presented as answers to their everyday lives.  As the head elder read through the article he would pause after every passage and ask the congregation a question on what he had read, the answer would be a quote within the previous passage. The elder was not interested in the individual’s thoughts on what he or she had read, the elder did not want a personal testimony, he wanted the answer from the text. As the first answers were shouted across the hall I realised I was watching a GCSE English Comprehension Lesson with the core text being a poorly written right wing religious pamphlet and the classroom of children were actually fully grown adults. The illusion of learning had a hypnotic effect on the congregation; only the children seemed bored by the head elder’s self-important patronising tone. The exercise was not the only insulting aspect of the service as the content of NWT quotes contained everything that is vile and wrong with Christianity.

Christianity has always been strongly associated with conservative rhetoric with a firm belief in the family unit (despite Jesus’s immaculate conception) but a huge part of the Bible askes its reader for empathy and acceptance which has led to very liberal values being introduced into its society. Judging by the congregation’s dogmatic answers in Kingdom Hall on Grove Road the New World Translation seems to have rebooted the Holy Scripture without any empathy or acceptance; replacing the King James Bible’s faith in the mystery of God with clear conservative values. Answers I heard round the church hall were that “Men are meant to be leaders,” “Women must not sabotage their husband’s spiritual leadership,” “You must only flirt with the person you intend to marry,” “Family members should not be critical and the family extends to entire the congregation.” Naturally the majority of Christians I meet have more conservative ideals than my agnostic self but never was I prepared for such blatant right wing rubbish. The service not only bullied children, it bullied women but also bullied the idea of tolerance and acceptance, the very idea that the majority of Western philosophy attributes to Jesus Christ.

At least at the young age of 12 I knew I was bullying bucktooth Lee for being a Jehovah’s Witness, even when we called him names we all knew we were being cruel. The upsetting and worrying aspect of Jehovah’s Witnesses is they are not aware they are bullies or being bullied and therefore they show no sign of regret and firmly believe that they hold the truth. Despite my anger towards the service it’s important to realise that such right wing beliefs must be tolerated but should never be beyond humour. 

Stoke Newington High Street Methodist Church, High Street, 29.05.11

Some church services are like visiting the congregation’s funeral but before the parishioners have passed away, instead the congregation is attending their own wake predicting that the Day of Judgment will soon be upon us. These services are more common in evangelical churches but they feature across numerous denominations of Pentecostalists, Charismatics, Baptists and Methodists. The more established Anglican and Catholic churches seem less preoccupied with the End of Days and always feature more topical prayers for recent international crises rather than citing wars in the middle east or environmental disasters as signs of the second coming. Not that all evangelicals focus on a forthcoming apocalypse, the general link amongst the majority of Rapture predicting church goers is that the congregation is small and elderly which creates an atmosphere that the church itself is dying.

The congregation of Stoke Newington High Street Methodist Church was warm and welcoming but you could smell death in the air. The service reached its peak capacity at 30 and did feature at least 3 families with 8 children in total but despite half the congregation being under 60 a feeling of contented lethargy and resolved defeat spread across the nave. The ominous signs were apparent when entering the large church doors, the lack of an organist, an absent resident Reverend, and too few Bibles for a relatively small congregation all indicated that this church was struggling. The lack of materials manifested into a more cynical Christian attitude, focusing on the end rather than the now. The service, despite containing 3 families was run by a group of elderly West Indian women (the dominant demographic) with Sister Woolcock leading the service.

Sister Woolcock fittingly wore regal red and had a Queen like demeanor when conducting the service. She never raised her voice and was beyond the histrionics of testimony but her reserved manner still discouraged the pitfalls of modern society by comparing the book of Leviticus to the rise of atheism claiming that the world was becoming more violent as the church’s power had declined (statistically crime reached new low levels in the last decade) and we were returning to an early period of Christianity. I found the most depressing aspect of Sister Woolcock sermon was her reserved and conservative manner, for a person to unreasonably criticize modern society and claim that Jesus is our saviour and not raise their voice seemed odd. The reason Sister Woolcock and the majority of the congregation did not feel a desire to raise the Holy Spirit was that they seemed at peace with God without needing to communicate with him through group prayer. I would have been happy with her calm tone except her belief demanded more emotion. If you think The End is near its better to bang a drum and save a few more souls than sit quietly in the church hall content that you are saved. The biggest exhibitionist behaviour outside the singing was Sister Woolcock asking all the children to come to the front of the congregation. As the children awkwardly stood in a row Sister Woolcox told their parents that they may not realize or have not yet reaped the benefits of taking their children to church however they are sowing the seeds for their future salvation; this message of hope was undercut by her concern that not enough youth were in attendance. In such a dry service I had no chance of finding God but was more preoccupied with finding an interest.

When visiting churches I do not have writing formulas to fall back on (that would be far too professional) but I do have certain recurring interests if the service does not inspire. Architecture, history and cultural shifts are my research staples to flesh out a boring service. Even in these research areas I found little inspiration. The church was a modern building built in the 1970s and looked like a terraced house which had undergone a cheap spiritual conversion, yet the interior did have a pleasing arch. Historically the church did not exist except in its present form from what I could find very little written. Culturally the congregation was all black; it appeared they were a combination of first and second generation West Indians and West Africans but the service did not contain any culturally specific references. The Methodist Church is such an established religion the congregation did not the share the vibrancy of the younger churches I had visited on Dalston Lane. I was desperate for something to elevate the spiritual funeral to my interest but arguably my desire for an epiphany was missing the importance of routine and ritual traditions that are key foundations for all religion.

Perhaps my desire to find a magical moment led me to observe and magnify the smallest of incidents, but as soon the congregation begun hymn 341 I had my epiphany. Ironically the lack of organ I had criticized was actually the key facet to creating a scenario in which two sections competed for ownership of the church hymn. A church organ provides necessary cover for bad singing. Mumbled lyrics, lack of holding a tune and general silence can all be masked by the sound of a powerful organ but this congregation had no such hiding place. The dominant singers were a clique of ladies whose faces were hidden behind their incredibly high and colourful hats in the front three rows but whose unashamedly high pitched voices were out in the open for all to hear. The clique found competition in the late addition of a suited gentleman in his 30s sitting at the back of the nave that had a loud, deep, resonant voice that undercut the female shrills. The two could of have formed a duet in complete harmony or at least have been drowned out by an organ but the two separate groups sung contrasting tunes leading to a cacophony. The hymns rigid formula was broken down into a dance of searching stares and polite pointing as the congregation could not disappear into routine but were forced to communicate in choral chaos. Sister Woolcock eventually put an end to the proceedings claiming that the hymn had two different tunes (this is often the case) but the interruption had led to the breaking of formality that had awoken the congregation to each other. Greetings, jokes and smiles were shared by all and the church felt more alive for it.

The service did spiral back into a snail’s pace but the injection of mannered anarchy had provided vigour to the church order. As I slipped back into a spiritual coma I began to peruse The Methodist Hymn Book. After The Holy Bible, The Methodist Hymn Book was the biggest relic within the ceremony and it pleased me that an honest misinterpretation of the book created such a sense of community. The majority of hymns within The Methodist Hymn Book were written within the mid to late 18^th Century so you can forgive the congregation not knowing which tune was to be sung. In many ways the hymns existing at all is a tribute to the Methodist faith. A huge number of the hymns written by John Wesley’s (founder of the Methodist Movement) brother Charles Wesley and the hymns were a significant tool in bringing the gospel out of the rigid structure of  the Anglican Church and providing a more evangelical forms of worship and social outreach. The old hymns have no chance any longer of attracting new worshippers in modern Britain but have instead evolved into almost antique tradition. The Methodist Hymns now exist in the past even when sung in the present; to the congregation they provide a sense of communal preservation and a belief in the mystery of God. After all, the hymns have been sung longer than any man on earth has existed so who is to say what is the correct tune.

PS

My internet gone rubbish so I will photos will have to follow at a later date