Christian Life Family Church, Somerford and Shacklewell Community Hall, Shacklewell Road, 24.07.11

Last week I was disappointed by the spiritually reflective but restrained ritual of the Anglican Church. Despite the well intentioned sermon on religious tolerance I felt the transformative nature of Christianity was absent from the service, but the Anglican church has no need to transform or challenge the establishment. When a religious institution has the majesty of St Pauls and some of the most beautiful church buildings in the world, the wealth of one of the  richest countries and a great history of inspiring highly celebrated works of literature and art you can understand why the church might grow conservative in its evangelism. No need to rock the establishment when you are the establishment. Other churches have less and therefore must believe in more and that’s why I chose to visit the Christian Life Family Church based in Somerford and Shacklewell Community Hall just in the centre of the Somerford estate on Shacklewell road.

Located in the back roads of Hackney away from the richer surrounding areas of Dalston and Stoke Newington, the community centre might only be a short distance from Kingsland Road/Stoke Newington High Street but the convoluted pathways form an isolated maze of alleyways and cul-de-sacs so the people from the estate don’t fully mix with the  gentry. London’s windy roads create a subliminal sense of segregation and safety yet appearing integrated. It’s a trick that modern cities are unable to replicate.  So despite its very short distance from the richer and historical churches of Stoke Newington the poor surroundings of Somerford and Shacklewell Community Hall felt far further. To even call the small modest construction a hall was to embellish its humble architecture, so to call the hall a church was to aspire to see God in one of the most depressingly uniform of  buildings. No cloisters, no arches, no stained glass, no pillars, no steeple, no tower, just a concrete rectangluar box with windows that could not fully open. Inside no sanctuary, no nave, no altar, no font, no pulpit, no pews, no organ, no crucifixes, no bible quotes, no bibles. Just four rows of chairs, a few tambourines, one pair of congas and a Perspex transparent lectern decorated with dust stains, a small crack and the faded red text declaring the box sized room a “Tower of Refuge.” I found the room beautifully bleak and was comforted by the congregation’s aspirations for spiritual transcendence because for all its unimaginative design this building was being used to celebrate life in the form of Christian worship. The church in the congregation’s eyes was far bigger and all-encompassing than the dimly lit depressing room we stood in.

The reason behind the congregation’s acceptance of such a squalid building was necessity and experience. Pastor Patrick Yeboah who led the service informed me that the entire congregation was from Ghana with the exception of one Nigerian and that the congregation had started in Dalston Methodist Church (which I visited in February) but had moved to the community centre in 2003. A modest ministry had a skeleton attendance. At the start of the service the room contained only the pastor, me and one lady but as the celebrations began the worship magically raised the attendance to 12 people by the services’ final blessing.  The Christian Life Family Church are a part of the larger organisation, Rhema Christ religious network, which are based in South London but appear to have pop up ministries across London with ties to West Africa. Rhema Chist seemed to be a very niche organisation with its congregation members reading from The Holy Bible Illustrated for People of Colour and singing religious harmonies like tribal folk songs without hymn books and very little musical accompaniment. In short the congregation did not go to church they brought church to the community centre in their strong belief in the transformative spirit of God.

From the opening prayer Pastor Patrick Yeboah and a single lady with a large voice started the service and managed to create an amazing atmosphere to transport you from the most mundane surroundings. Leading caller response prayers intercut with singing and spoken aloud testimonies to god the entire room was filled with a large vocal range of West African accents. The squeaky pitches of excitement offset by low baritone calmness had a raw quality only musically supported by the rattling of tambourines. Anyone looking into the room would have been scared off by the cacophony of noise but to be inside the room and feel the atmosphere being generated was electrifying. Never before did I want to talk to god than in that single moment and never before had I realised how impossible it would be for me. The ability to create such emotion through stating ones monologue to God was inspiring because I am unable to do so myself. Luckily my own tokenistic out loud testimonies to God were drowned out by the raucous hiss of the tambourines. The tambourines created a sound level for the congregation to rise above and achieve a sense of liminality by calling out their open testimonies to God over a din of noise. I could feel my body elevate and feel free by the noise generated by the congregation achieving a pure sense of euphoria but no illusion to God or perhaps I did not recognise the euphoria as God.

 Ultimately the Christian Life Church ritualistically create an electric atmosphere of spirituality through a very informal manner that separates them from the more formal routine of the Eucharist in the Anglican and the Catholic Church. Maybe Anglican and Catholic services once had such raw energy and have now grown old and tired? My feeling is that the energy generated by Christian Life Church is built on the desire to transcend due to their less privileged situation.  Yet is blind belief all you need to be a Christian? Pastor Patrick Yeboah’s erratic sermon could have been improved by imitating the more bible centric and structured sermons of the Anglican and Catholic priests. The service spanned  four hours and we did not have one bible reading and not even a few quotes, instead we had a heavy use of a nonsensical metaphor that sounded like it was quoted from a business self-improvement class. Patrick Yeboah declared to the congregation to “Run your Own Race.”

Obviously you can’t “Run your Own Race,” if he had told the congregation to “live your own life” that would have made sense but the statement “Run Your Own Race,” is nonsensical and paradoxical. A race must include a minimum of two people by stating you only have to beat yourself you create a masochistic personality  who never gets the relief of winning or losing but are constantly preoccupied by a race that knows no end (until they die and meet God). To illustrate his point, Yeboah related his business idiom to inaccurate descriptions of ancient history (wrongly declaring Richard the “lionheart” beating the Romans because he ran his own race) and worrying opinions of global development (America broke free from the British Empire and is now most the developed country in the world because they ran their race). The most upsetting statements were not misinformation but the claim that you should not sympathise with others just “Run Your Own Race.” All of a sudden last week’s Anglican Church’s sermon on tolerance provided a good Christian tonic to the well-meaning but paranoid sermon of Pastor Yeboah’s plea for individualism.

The question is raised “Can the energy of Christ Life Church be married to the more reflective sermons of the Anglican and Catholic Church?” I don’t think they can because I think the energy of Christ Life Church but also the negative misinformation comes from its transformative nature. The Christ Life Church is still growing and has very few institutions therefore it lives more in the minds of its congregation. In the minds of the congregation it can transform and it can raise the spirits in any building but it can also change the bible’s morality to more personal fantasies. Christ Life Church is created by its ritual it does not have grand designs and large pillars to hide behind instead the ritual makes the building. The ritual is in the transformative practice of the congregation but the church felt like it was not fully formed as if it’s running a race against itself with no clear end in sight.

St Pauls West Hackney, Stoke Newington High Street, 17.07.11

Christians don’t go to church for a once in a lifetime experience but I do. I go to a different church each weekend hoping to have a spiritual epiphany or at least learn something new. My choice to visit a different church each weekend entirely misses the point that going to church is a communal ritual not an individual journey of self-discovery. Not that going to church does not help form ones identity but it is an identity that is intrinsically linked by weekly visits to a community. In earlier posts I have commented on my voyeuristic and isolationist position in relation to the congregation which has so far defined my identity throughout my blog but this week I grew indifferent (which is generally not in my personality). I don’t like being indifferent, I feel I lose my sense of self-worth. When I ask myself “Why indifference,” I naturally conclude that it was because “nothing happened,” but nothing is always something.  The word nothing is merely used by people to explain that they don’t have an opinion on the something that happened. So when I say “nothing happened,” I mean that nothing changed me and therefore my feeling of nothing is ironically the presence of everything being familiar. So what nothing happened at St Pauls of West Hackney Church on Stoke Newington High Street?

Nothing took many forms. It took the form of a recognisable 1960s modest church building. Nothing was the Byzantine interior design that created an intimate forum for worship, very similar to St Paul on Bow Common and St Michaels of All Angels on Landsdown Drive. Nothing was the Christian Liturgy from the Lord’s Prayer to the the sharing of the peace finishing with Communion and final blessing. Nothing was the typical urban multicultural congregation: young families with kids playing in a crèche behind the sanctuary during the service, the older families who seemed to be missing some relatives, the single women who run the church and the elderly who fill the majority of the pews. The only oddity was a young couple who it later transpired were soon to be married confirming themselves as another cliché. All these people are not the stereotypes I described and do have unique personal stories but it is their exterior familiarity that limits my interest and that is because the service allows me to be disinterested. Engaged in a ritual rather than seeking spiritual fulfilment I fall into the routine boredom of the Eucharist.  Unlike the aggressively passionate evangelicals, the institutionalised passivity in the Anglican Church leaves me to be who I am and not to be spiritually transformed or challenged. The curate, Janet Buchan’s (who conducted the service at St Michaels and All Angels in January) sermon encapsulated the modern Anglican Church message of tolerance and passivity.

The church deacon Janet Buchan was so pleasant and unassuming, tiny in size with giant smile and breathy voice which would be at home on Radio Four. Janet based her sermon around a passage taken from Mathew Chapter 13 “But he replied, “No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. Let both of them grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.” Jesus’s parable is a clear statement on the virtues of tolerance that understands that Christians must allow other walks of life to co-exist. The final line indicates that heathen existence is not be judged by Christians on Earth but in heaven by God. Janet Buchan elaborates on the parable that despite the best intentions of certain moral crusades you can sometimes blindly cause offence. In many respects the sermon indicates the pitfalls of evangelism and religious extremism and the general notion that one should not judge as God would. The sermon was not interested in the sins outside religion but sins within religious institutions. Buchan’s thoughtful sermon indicated the Anglican Church’s highly self-conscious identity and its desire to be accepted as a modern and liberal institution.

I found the sentiments unchallenging and uninspiring as they merely replicated my own sense of morality. In this respect my feeling of nothing was agreement. The liberal plea for democratic tolerance and understanding was echoed in the pamphlet. Every word of the liturgy, every word from hymns and every word of Bible readings were included. At the back of the pamphlet was an advertisement for a Farmer’s market held in the church, public information on plans for a new Sainsbury’s shopping centre (whose mere presence was an indication of opposition) and an advertisement for a comedy fundraising event at the Bloomsbury Theatre (whose headline act Stewart Lee has been famously boycotted by the Christian Right for his comedy musical Jerry Springer The Opera back in 2006).  All of these announcements at the back of the  pamphlet bred familiarity and chimed with my own personal interests and therefore I felt nothing. But how has the Anglican Church become such a liberal centre of Christian philosophy in comparison to other churches I visit? My simple answer is it is due to need a need to address the rise of criticism religion has experienced by science. 

Religions in recent years have taken a critical battering by science.  You would think science had something better to do like find the cure for cancer, develop an infinite power resource, or feed the world but instead science seems to have retreated into kicking the morality out of religion. Below I have attached an extremely good video from the Guardian that sums up morality without God. I think the video articulates the obvious shared set of values held by most agnostics, atheists and some theists. The Anglican Church is such a liberal body and self-conscious of social developments that I am sure they will have accepted the benefits of this no god centric morality. Unlike the Catholics and Evangelical groups I expect that the Anglican Church welcomes a more plural perspective of morality and may even have been humbled by the recent developments in social science. I think the video brilliantly articulates the predicament of the liberal Anglican Church goer as they find themselves in a world dominated by scientific thought over religious scripture.

The video does have its problems. For one I reject the notion of human progress, as it creates a concept that countries are developing for the better and that the most developed societies (the UK) have utopian ideals. I accept that certain societies are victims of a lack of education and good governance but surely all societies have their benefits. To hold up a so called developed society such as the UK as the promise land is a fallacy. Ironically in its projection of a superiority complex onto the lesser developed countries the video displays how the scientific study of society replicates Christianity’s Western bias.  History has shown that democracy existed long before Christianity and Ancient Greece but in tribal cultures in Asia, Africa and America. Similarly long before the homophobia of Christianity we have historical records of homosexuality existing in every continent on the planet.  Also the belief that racism was prevalent in the past is a fiction, racism has developed in time through science and economics, and we have little proof of racial segregation and persecution being as common in societies until colonialism. My point is that scientific ideals risk replacing religious ideals as proponents of power in a global hierarchal system instead science should merely reveal universal morality and separate it from religion.

The other key problem with the video is its need to define scientific morality in opposition to religion and therefore it misses the non-moral benefits of church. The video indicates how morality does not need religion but it importantly does not outline why people don’t need religion. The Anglican Church should take comfort that morality can be handled by the scientists and they can focus on the pure celebration of the Holy Spirit. The belief of the unknown and the communal raising of a shared consciousness are beyond the scientific realm and it is the central reason people go to church. The Anglican Church should focus on recognising Grace, God and the glory of the unknown in our lives instead of defending itself against the modern world. If church merely replicates the morality that I and fellow agnostic/atheists share then it is being made redundant by social developments in modern society. When I go to church I don’t want to feel nothing, I want to be challenged, I wanted to be inspired, I want questions not answers and therefore I want religion not science.

New Testament Church of God Clapton, Cnr Downs Park/Cricketfield Road, Lower Clapton, 10.07.11

Does having God in your life make you a better singer? Let me rephrase that for all fellow agnostic readers! Do the best singers believe in a God or some form of higher power?  Now the logical atheist answer is no. Where is the scientific fact that a belief can improve your vocal range? However I would argue that if you went across the many different cultures of the world and asked a wide range of societies to name their best singers, the majority of singers named would have some form of faith or spiritualist background. I have no research to back up such a sweeping statement; however in Western Society I can’t think of many great classical/gospel/opera singers who did not have some form of religious influence in their singing. For the record I don’t class punk, rock or pop as great singing. Only folk and jazz singers appear to have a vocal range on the level of classical, gospel and opera.  Similarly when I think of the traditional non Western singers I think of tribal chanting and prayer calling which are all linked to a belief in a high power. I am not claiming that every religious person is a better singer than a non-believer but I am merely stating that great singers have a certain level of spiritualism. Not religion but spirituality. After this week in which I visited The New Testament Church of God Clapton, nestled in the corner of Hackney Downs I can say for certain that evangelists are far better singers than Catholics or Anglicans.

 As the wondrous voices of two girls singing a duet filled the gian,t grand wood panelled nave you could feel a communal elevation come across the congregation. Their voices merely confirmed my past experience that Evangelists understand singing in ways Catholics and Anglicans have never dreamed of. Evangelists are less confined by set rituals and empowered by a firm belief to proclaim the word of God : it’s this informal manner that blesses their singing performances. Evangelists are all about showing their faith off in the form of loud prayers, even louder testifying and boisterous singing. The formal harmony of other churches is overshadowed by the Evangelical churches greater emphasis on rhythm with less formality in the song. Evangelists more modern gospel sound stems from a belief that to be more contemporary and to bring God into the here now instead of linking him to traditions and rituals. Attempting to sing about God with a more modern musical arrangement can sound disastrous (Cliff Richard!) but it also opens the door for great voices to flourish, not restricted by rigid harmonies, the good singer’s personality can pour out. I am not naive that classical music is hugely inspired by Christianity and that Mass and Requiems were written for the Catholic and Anglican church but such music does not reside in the East End and they are not representative of the common church worshipper. When the two girls started to sing, the shock at the sound of the sincerity of their voices blew me away. As the hairs on the back of my neck stood to attention I looked across the nave to see members of the congregation weep with joy.  The pure level of emotion, or spiritualism as my hosts would call it, comes from the Evangelical roots of Christianity and away from more rigid religious institutions.

Researching evangelical churches is difficult as they are not interested in their own church’s past but instead focus on the here and now and its relation to The Bible. Arguably Baptists, Methodists and the Sally Army are evangelical churches who have set traditions but those traditions are not essential to a definitive form of worship like the Eucharist is for Anglicans and Catholics. Yet Baptist, Methodists and the Sally Army do have a desire to appear modern and to spread God’s word which they share with the newer evangelical churches. The majority of new evangelical churches in the East End are Pentecostal not that they like to be seen as one large movement. The New Testament Church service  never mentioned following a Pentecostal movement but neither did Christ Apostolic Church or Sight of Eternal Life Church, who both I  later learned like The New Testament Church are part of a large Pentecostal organisation. The reason the churches do not want to associate themselves with other Pentecostal Churches by name is they desire to be viewed as new, modern, free and the true church of God. Evangelical churches, lack of historical records could be interpreted as an unconscious decision to remain forever young in their perspective and worship and not jaded by its own history.  In a Pentecostalist’s eyes the only valid historical document is The Bible and in general they are not interested in praising their churches past glories but concentrating on preparing for the return of God (in heaven or Earth). So when I embarked on finding the origins of The New Testament Church  I was not surprised to find that the website offered little information on the church’s history but plenty on their interpretation of The Bible. I was saddened that I could not find from the website or from the few congregation members I talked to, a history for this medieval styled church building (I did not need to research to realise it did not date back to the  dark ages). The church’s interior décor did reveal the organisation’s American roots with a  large Southern Chapel fittings but I would have liked to know more. The only piece of information I could find on the history of the church in the UK came from the website bio of Dr Oliver Lyseight and his work to help found The New Testament Church in the UK.  Interestingly the American church was adopted by recent West Indian migrants in the second half of the 20^th century not for religious differences but for racial ones.

Despite Evangelists belief in the now, the great singing of The New Testament Church of God comes from a certain cultural tradition. The majority of congregations I visit each week are predominantly black but while the Anglican, Catholic, Methodist and Baptist are more racially mixed, the Pentecostalists are 99% West Indian or West African. The reason is that so many black migrants who arrived in Post-World War Two Britain were rejected by the more established churches and black Christians looked to American organisations to help preach the gospel. Dr Oliver Lyseight arrived in the United Kingdom in 1953 and was instrumental in setting up The New Testament Church in the UK .After the racism he and others had received when trying to attend church he led the founding of a British branch of The New Testament Church. Already established in America and Jamaica The New Testament Church helped promote a loud and proud Christian form of worship for its predominantly black oppressed congregation. The history of racial opposition and cultural persecution of the congregation can only have provided motivation in the singing of the gospel;  a tradition that I feel was still present last Sunday and a tradition that has little to do with Holy Scripture and everything to do with social history.

Anticipation filled the church like any good concert but outside the divine duet the star of the show was naturally the Reverend, Pastor Brian Robinson. To state that Pastor Brian Robinson stood out from the crowd was an understatement, in a sea of black congregational members he was whiter than white. His hair and eye brows glinted in the sunshine pouring in from the church’s long arched windows so that you would have to wear sunglasses to recognise the features on his face. As the crowd raised The Holy Spirit, Brian Robinson oversaw the proceedings sitting on a leather arm chair more like a rural English granddad than an inner city Pentecostal pastor. Further into the service Brian Robinson proved his preaching was worthy of his congregation with one of the longest sermons I have ever heard. Robinson was a vintage performer, he had all the theatrical gasps, he could raise his voice to sound gruff, had self-deprecating jokes about his inadequacy as a husband, rants that drew no breath, and the most bizarre accent. Brian Robinson did not sound like a white Caribbean, his voice seemed too mannered and English with a hint of a Lancashire accent but when occasionally preaching he launched into a contrived elderly Caribbean accent. It was not patronising but highly effective in getting a laugh of acknowledgment from his crowd.  Pastor Robinson was either a white Caribbean who sounded very English and had spent his life in England or was an English man who spent a lot of his life with Caribbean people.  It was not only Pastor Robinson’s voice that intrigued me but the words that came from his mouth especially in regards to The Holy Spirit.

For evangelists it’s essential to raise the Holy Spirit through singing just as Communion is integral to Catholic and Anglican Sundays. Pastor Robinson recognised the importance of the singing but he also felt it essential to outline the other facets of the Holy Spirit as he declared “The Holy Spirit did not just come to speak in tongues.” Pastor Robinson drew from the book of John, chapter 15, verse 5, “I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.” The parable was used by Pastor Robinson to outline how Jesus, God and The Holy Spirit are extensions of each other.  Attacking what he called “people who believe in God for spiritual insurance” he asked the congregation to recognise that The Holy Spirit lives in all of them not just inside the church.  Pastor Robinson felt the congregation needed to reflect The Holy Spirit not just in church but outside during troubled times, he claimed like parable of the vine “we must be extensions of God. If you upset me you meet Jesus.” A plea for tolerance and acceptance within the church should always be commended but I did think the facets that Pastor Robinson outlined as the true fruits of the Holy Spirit are actually at odds with the attributes of raising The Holy Spirit. A blanket response to the troubles of the world in the guise of what Jesus would do breeds conformity but the raising of the Holy Spirit through singing is a communal act that also celebrates the individual’s voice.  Music and singing is the rare form of expression that demonstrates how an individual voice can form a communal partnership with others to create a unifying state of grace that needs no dogma. Music is ethereal and a far more spiritual expression than replicating the egocentric dogma of another even if that another is Jesus. I don’t disagree with Pastor Brian Robinson that treating others as Jesus would is not an essential facet of Christianity however the reason the congregation come to church week in and week out is not to practice being Jesus but to celebrate The Holy Spirit.

Singing is not a form of sacrifice and therefore it importance seems to be disregarded by more intellectual sides of Christianity. Members of The New Testament Church cannot disregard singing because it’s infectious even to a non-believer like me; it may lack the self-reflection but understands the emotional importance of being together and brings the congregation closer to a sense of grace than any form of morality.  What has Christianity given us? Great architecture, classical art and the foundation of Western moral philosophy are the staple answers, or alternatively Christianity gave us spiritual vocies of Sam Cooke, Nina Simone, Bob Marley, Aretha Franklin, Juinor Murvin, Staple Sisters, Ray Charles, Marvin Gaye, Ottis Redding, Stevie Wonder, Jimmy Cliff, The Gladiators, Abyssinans, The Heptones, Burining Spear (but I will say againthis is all about personal taste).  

St Pauls on Bow Common, Burdett Road, 03.07.11

A church should stand out from the high street. Traditionally they should rise to the heavens while other buildings sink to lower interests. Then sky scrapers came along and took the skies from God and sold them to the financial sector. Now public interest has sunk and a church can be any size. Certain modern churches make efforts to nostalgically restore and replicate architectural Christian traditions but a small number of new churches have aimed to create something modern and original. St Paul’s of Bow Common is one of those rare church buildings that are unashamedly original in its architectural design which has led it to be heralded as “the most significant church built after the 2^nd World War.”

When traveling down the busy intersection of A1205 three concrete blocks appear to orbit above the gridlocked traffic. The three are piled on top of each other like a make-shift pyramid; they seem separate but are strangely aligned. The ascent of the blocks does not look natural and instead provides the impression of a larger power at work. The Three are geometrically perfect shaped blocks formed principally by mass produced brown bricks that echo the post war 1960s building boom. Yet the descending size of the blocks as they rise in height is odd for the time. The three don’t want to be another tower block clogging up the sky line and have decided to strive for individual character in a mass produced age.

The block with the most character is the smallest which has risen the highest from buildings foundations. Its glass triangles mark a perimeter adding light and colour to an otherwise drab exterior. The contrast of the light colour in the glass to the brown brick strikes onlookers with relief.  In comparison to its brick brothers the smallest mechanically morphs above its station, crowned by a seven stone cube shaped cross. The cross finds the presence of God in unfamiliar materials. Materials more associated with industry and modernity than religion. It’s like God’s presence has been forced upon modern architecture. The building’s odd mix of religious symbolism and industrial production does not seem to belong together and therefore they appear other worldly, even alien. An industrial building with soul outside industry brings to mind the architecture of science fiction: the top block providing an alien like identity to the otherwise conventional 1960s large structure, yet the two remaining blocks have a few unconventional features.

 The larger second block merely holds up its smaller more extravagant brother and provides the link to the lower base. The base is the entrance to this church styled spaceship whose side door is a brown brick hexagon oddly decorated by pillars that hold a concrete slab above with a large engraved message. The message is written across three sides of the slab and overlooks all visitors with the words “Truly this is no other but the house of God this is the gate of heaven. “ The quote is taken from the book of Genesis, its large lettering is characterised as handwritten as if a giant had carved these important words onto the incidental side entrance. The entrance could not be more self-important for its time, it refuses to be ignored so much it declares itself the greatest entrance of all time as you enter. Inside a Christian may expect to find heaven but even a non-believer passing through the doors would expect to see something unknown.

Inside the nave the glass windows from the top block again provide a heart to the building, their light attempting to fill the dark tomb like interior. Smoke from the incense during the service was brilliantly pronounced in the sanctuary which was placed in the centre of the room directly under the large windows. Hanging corrugated iron arches marked the inner sanctum but did not divide the congregation as the seating was based on Byzantine features influenced by The Liturgical movement from 1960s (similar to St Michaels and All Angels on Lansdowne Drive). The inclusive space based on traditional ideas of worship broke from the more formal convention of Victorian churches to a space that aspires to be more spiritual than religious. Everybody was placed on an equal level with the priest, only the overlooking window that lit the room commanded a divine authority. The large size and minimal architectural clutter may have felt empty except the church was currently populated by an exhibition by the artist Charles Lutyens. The majority of the art works consisted of oil canvases displayed across the wall but near the centre of the light was a giant wooden statue of

Jesus entitled ”The Outraged Christ.” The large size of the bruised pine figurine filled the room with an otherworldly presence, not a religious presence but a presence that could only belong within these walls. The church felt like a temple because it did not fit formalised religious architectural ideas, it was attempting to form another identity, one that did not belong to time but belonged only to itself. No church is beyond its past, no matter how odd and sadly St Pauls did not belong to the realm of science fiction but had a very real and interesting past.

The original church was built just 150 years ago when the East End was beginning to emerge as a populated area after centuries of being no more than grazing land (hence the name Bow Common). The first St Pauls was a lofty Victorian Gothic church built in 1858 with an incredibly large spire. Sadly during the Blitz of World War 2 in 1941 incendiaries gutted the church, reducing it to a shell. It took over a decade for War Reparation funds to finance the building of a new church under the requirement that it seated a minimum of 500 people.  Led by the self-declared young radical Reverend Gresham Kirkby who hired designer Keith Murray and architect Robert Maguire under the mission to re-evaluate how earliest forms of church architecture can reveal  the true roots of Christian worship. Kirkby, Murray and Maguire all shared a rebellious belief that the architecture should break down institutional hierarchies and create a worshipping community that formed one body under Christ. Taking a post-modern approach to church architecture they claimed to borrow from the classical forms and Renaisance Revival – to the fundamental geometry square and circle – influences owing a debt to Brunschella, Palladio and Bramante. The oddness of the building comes from this amalgamation of traditional architectural ideas being produced by 20th century materials leading to a building that appears futuristic by the sheer fact it does not belong to a set era (except 1960s TV Sci Fi). Kirkby, Murray and Maguire were not interested in aliens but delivering a building that created an inclusive space that reflected the nature of liturgy, however I would argue regardless of the trio’s intention the unconventional ethos and design of the building has clear artistic aspirations.

 A church is intended to bring us closer to a communal sense of grace by which we all feel as one and this is also one of the central attributes of art. So if St Pauls is the theatre for great art, what of the service? Sadly the High Anglican Parish Eucharist felt like a tired trawl of traditions in comparison to the church’s unusual and innovative architecture. Despite the formulaic presentation, the service was saved by the softly spoken and bumbling old boyish charm of Father Colin Midlane and his sprawling sermon. Father Colin Midlane was filling in for the absent resident Vicar Duncan Ross. More directed than director of proceedings he took a while to get his bearings in the ritual but his sermon was full of sincere enthusiasm and intellectual wonderment at the power of church architecture. How the subject matter linked to the Feast of Saint Thomas I was unsure but there was no doubting his interest in the relationship between art and god personified by St Paul’s architecture. Father Midlane’s interests reflecting my own felt like the closest to divine intervention I had yet to experience since January. This traveling reverend was like a priest doppelgänger except he believes in God, was 40 years my senior and far more pleasant to strangers. Father Midlane could not help but take the opportunity to compare the modern eccentric uniqueness of St Pauls on Bow Common to the other churches he had visited and he questioned how these surroundings informed his relationship with God. He confessed in the kindest of tones that some church architecture made him depressed and that he would block them from his mind during his prayer while he also praised the work of Henry Moore’s fountain in St Michaels of the Fields for making him see God in other ways. This personal openness was refreshing if a tad self-indulgent (reminds you of someone?) but his frank and sincere thoughts on the importance of the architecture as an artistic device to emulate God stimulated discussion not dogma. Ironic that he had unconsciously hidden in the sermon an unintentional criticism of the robotic ritual of the Eucharist by praising arts ability to inspire the ethereal spirit of God, an aspect of God outside the scripture.

God outside scripture is alien; he is the unknown even to the Christians who put faith in him. When Kirkby, Murray and Maguire created St Pauls 2^nd they knew that they had to create a building that inspired the unknown power of God in a modern age. The unconventional architecture provides wonder that is to mirror a Christian’s wonder of God. Despite the routine ritual of the service Father Midlane acknowledged the desire in Kirkby, Murray and Maguire to create a building that inspires God in its inhabitants. Father Midlane recognised this quality as art and so do I. My reason is because the church building is not interested in replicating traditions but providing something new. In many ways the church did not care about the past it cared about the now but the now did not care about it and therefore it has a rare alien like quality. The alien like quality makes it truly unique and self-sufficient, an attribute I would most associate with art.

St Barnabas, Homerton High Street, E9 6DL, 26.06.11

Never before has church felt like such a duty and not an interest, this Sunday I was a fake reluctant Christian. Unlike the hypocritical worshipper who attends church out of some sense of cultural obligation and then emptily repeats the same religious dogma as if they were still in Sunday school I had no obligation to anyone or anything but myself and l was finding it hard to connect with the phoney spiritualism inside of me.  Not that I was suffering from a lack of faith in my project, the reason for my minimal motivation was not mental but physical. Currently moving between flats my body was shattered from heavy lifting and my mind preoccupied by furnishing logistics that I felt too distracted to question the existence of God, pontificate on God’s effect on his followers or even make architectural musings. I had become what all non-believers dislike in the church; I had become a non-spiritual Christian. Only in retrospect did I realise the importance in my conformity to my very own routine ritual.

My non spiritual epiphany came during the sermon at Saint Barnabas Church lead by Reverend David Silvester. Focusing on the book of Romans, and passage “Just as you used to offer yourselves as slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness leading to holiness.” Reverend Silvester stated it was important to understand that only by being a slave to God and giving up little freedoms do we truly become free. The classic Christian paradox did not lead me to my epiphany but instead it was the Reverend Silvester reminding the congregation that just because we had reached the quiet time in the liturgical calendar we should not stop upholding Christian values. Stating that the recent Easter celebrations with the Day of Ascension, Feast of Pentecost and Trinity Sunday should not reduce the importance from the remaining Sundays till Advent. My sin was far greater than Reverend Silvester’s warnings as I had attended church and entirely forgotten about The Ascension, Feast of Pentecost and Trinity Sunday

The above calendar celebrations are not mentioned in my blog as I focused on other areas or was simply unaware of their existence. In defence of my ignorance the Day of Ascension always takes place on the first Thursday after Easter however some conversation surrounding the Ascension on my boring Sunday with the Methodists may have sparked some interest in a dull service. Pentecost took place when I visited The Georgian Orthodox Church so it’s not entirely my fault for not realising the third largest celebration in the Christian calendar. As for Trinity Sunday, my excuse is that the Open Door Baptists on Downs Road clearly regarded the moral substance of Fathering Sunday over the Holy Scripture. Despite my excuses I did feel partly ashamed of my ignorance but later I came to regard my sin as an attribute, the disparity of my experience from the Christian calendar acted as an important characteristic to my blog.  Reverend David Silvester clearly wanted everyone to realise that to be true Christians they need to give up little freedoms and obey certain rules not just on the special Christian holidays but on every Sunday and similarly I had done the same for my blog.

When setting out on my blog I had only given myself 5 commandments as a clear outline but through habit and experience I have unconsciously formed rituals every Sunday or rules as (Reverend Sylvester would describe them) which have been used almost every week. The key rituals are

1.    Walk around the building and play guess its architectural age/history

2.    Quietly observe the service to form an opinion on the congregation

3.    Focus on an individual or incident that is interesting or unusual.

4.      Pay the tourist fee (give to collection plate) but don’t take the piss (never take part in personal blessings or communion).

5.    Find and project a theme onto the experience mirroring the service you have attended

All of these rituals are constructs to help formulate my blog, they are artifices but they are integral to performing my duty as a non-Christian church blogger. The rituals have been organically shaped by my own interests but I think I am beginning to see the importance of repetition and routine of these rituals in forming my identity similar to the rituals I have frequently criticised within Christianity. To demonstrate their importance I will deconstruct this entry to outline their importance

1.

I have visited all the churches more than once to generally to take photographs and scope out the churches origins. Visiting St Barnabas on a grey afternoon in March I was initially interested in how the building was built in a medieval style but had too modern looking sandy stone to be older than the 1800s. I wander around the grounds to find clues to the church’s origin before retiring to the World Wide Web for my answers. Online I discovered that the church was consecrated on 11 June 1847 as the parish church and built by Arthus Ashpitel (1807-1869) who was a resident of Hackney and architect of some note. I read various links about the church and if I cannot relate the history to my own experience I leave the information in the past like any good historian. Naturally If I love a building I will do my best to shoe horn it into the service and the congregation I meet.

2.

The congregation of Saint Barnabas Church gave a distinctly Anglican welcome on my arrival. Unlike smaller churches who welcome you with shocked smiles, a few suspicious whispers and more genuine enthusiasm, the Anglicans are far more laid back and mannered as they approach you (like Catholics but without the guilt). Anglicans are uniformly welcoming to strangers (they are not shocked to not know a fellow believer) and respectfully remain distant from new arrivals. I can see this approach is the most polite response but often it can be infuriating when you are only visiting the church once and want to get to know the congregation’s personality in a short space of time. Maybe in future I should wear a sandwich board stating “I AM ATHIEST,” on the front and “PROVE ME WRONG” as the message on the back. Such a confrontational manner is not my style but I am sure it would at least provoke a response. Due to my lack of aggressive greetings I often spend the majority of the hymns and routine prayers discreetly staring at various members of the congregation attempting to piece them together like a puzzle or a game of Guess Who. After my eyes wander across the sandy rocks and white paint of the nave my eyes begin to focus on individuals within the service who could be my main subject for the entry.

3.

When looking for a subject I attempt to focus on the cultural background of the congregation and pick an incident or an individual, which or who indicates a culture clash from my own. The multicultural congregation of St Barnabas had a few strong characters, behind me a small group of West Indian ladies gossipingly disapproved of the length of a young woman’s skirt who gave a Bible reading. The clear clash between the smartly conservative dressed black geriatric group and the lone white woman in revealing clothing was a great indication of the large variety of people who are part of the Anglican Church and their hypocritical differences. These characters were later upstaged by the late entry of the lone loud weird woman who came to stand in front of me midway through the opening prayer.

 Dressed in a matching orange summer dress and plastic straw imitation hat she carted an old fashioned pattern shopping trolley into the nave like a smartly dressed bag lady from the street. Throughout the service she constantly tilts her head up to the right corner almost turning to meet my wandering eye while forever muttering how much she loves that hymn or dislikes that prayer and agrees with the reverend on that passage. Originally I think she is talking to me but then I realise that I have not answered and therefore she is definitely talking to herself. The self-consumed personal monologue only needs the congregation as stimulus for her extrovert behaviour and it reminds me of my own internal internet monologue. Many would disregard the lady as mad but the service provides a structure and a set of routines for her to channel her eccentric personality and generate a sense of community and self-worth. Kinship between her self-sufficient delusions and my writing aspirations are bound by the collection plate and then broken as the services finishes with the Holy Communion.

4.

The collection plate passes in front of me to my mad woman and she does not give and I feel great that I do, not as an act of superiority but as a sense of balance. The mad woman was one of the many other extrovert lone worshippers who frequent Anglican and Catholic Churches; they clearly have a relationship with God that I do not and feel energised by the church in ways I can’t imagine. The act of her not giving demonstrates that her spiritual sense of enjoyment is not dampened by the economic and social infrastructure of the church but is actually supported by it. My act of paying is a necessary etiquette that does not feel wasted when paired with my mad woman.  As everyone is slowly shepherded to the altar I try as anonymously as possible to stand away and remain in the back cloisters with those too frail. My only act of defiance to the service was an act of obedience; by not taking communion I expose my true undecided identity and breaking my assumed kinship with the congregation.

5.

Despite sharing a lot with the congregations and churches I visit outside the routine rituals of the church I have my own. Like the lone mad woman I have my own solitary form of worship but comparison feels unworthy as my worship lacks spiritualism. The non-spiritual Christian has rules and reasons for his attendance but I am only beginning to realise that an individual’s relationship with God will always change but the rituals that will always remain.