Thank you for your article, Gawain. As an English Jewish atheist who greatly appreciates the history and beauty of English churches, I am very sad to read this indeed.
You may guess that I haven't been too impressed with our (if I can say 'our') Archbishop of Canterbury with her ignorance and dangerous wokisms. But with that aside, only last week I had a tour round St Mary's in Shoreham by Sea and also visited St Nicholas' Church there - the very stones recording a history going back to the Anglo Saxon times - the architecture, leaded lights and interiors recording not only the Norman Conquest, the later Reformation, Victorian arts and crafts ... and not least, recording sacrifices made in both World Wars, for which, despite being an atheist, I am *eternally grateful (*I think you know what I mean ....).
These churches, large and small, are of course primarily living and sacred places for the congregation, whether I personally 'believe' or not - *particular* and important places with clergy and rectors, organists, choirs, weddings, funerals .... and they need the money that is due to them, to keep them going - how despicable of the CofE to withhold a penny and treat these places as just a bit of administered real estate.
For shame, CofE - Save Our Parishes! Power to the People!
An excellent event, very well attended and a real boost to all present, although some of the examples given of what is being done to Parishes and Priests, especially in rural areas, still consumes me with a cold rage. The next Synod elections are crucial if we are going to reclaim the Church.
Great but depressing article about the decline of the Anglican Church, but there seems to be a candle of hope burning amongst the young - thank God! I Loved that reference about the memorials to Agincourt and the Somme being in the same Church - if you require real evidence of what it is to be English look no further than that. I always felt that strong sense of historical continuity mixed with the smell of incense when visiting a little village Church.
I haven’t lived in England for over twenty years now and the thing I miss the most is the English Village and its local Church. I once drove back from a trip to London through all the back roads right up to Birmingham and it made me weep for joy. Little England still existed out there along those winding roads. Lose that community, lose those tiny parishes and quiet hamlets and England will be gone forever.
I loved seeking out those places on weekend trips and one of the greatest, most humbling places I ever visited was St George’s Church at Morebath in Devon. Made famous by Eamon Duffy and his brilliant book ‘Voices of Morebath’ - an examination of the diary of the Vicar, Sir Christopher Trychay, who served the out of the way hamlet between 1520 and 1574. It is a tale of the dramatic change visited upon the Catholic Church of England during the Reformation - devoutly Catholic at the beginning and begrudgingly Anglican at the end! The English Church has faced existential crisis and change before - let’s hope this current leadership is just another aberration that has to be survived.
When living in SE9 (1978-2008) and working in the City I often drove up to Sunday Evensong in Brian Brockless’ era. Beautiful church and Cloth Fair so nostalgic. (Have to also admit regular weekday attendances at the Rising Sun and other similar local refreshment facilities—when not driving). William Wallace and others had less pleasant encounters in the area.
Apologies for my emotional demonstration, I'm genetically predisposed to it. I just think you need a bigger pat on the back than most. Some of us have noticed your devotion to the movement and we appreciate the knowledge and wisdom you bring to us.
Very interesting. I believe our churches and Christianity generally to be so important for our cultural and spiritual and constitutional heritage. Brought up C of E I am a lapsed church goer. In recent years I have felt the need to return but am deterred by the woke, politically biased messages from the pulpit when I have tested the water. I wish there were more like Fr Marcus near me.
Use this resource: https://www.pbs.org.uk/branches/ its the Prayer Book Societies guide for Churches that use the traditional service thus very likely not to be managerial communists.
What's more worrying Gawain is the closed religious buildings being taken over and repurposed by another religion as their population gets ever larger.depressingly bleak vision for the future brother.
The Christian tolerance we have all been brought up with is being turned against us at every opportunity, be that for alien religions, skin colour, sexual identities, our capacity for tolerance, our desire for peace, or even our belief in inclusion, a term that's been hijacked by godless Marxists.
Whilst we stand idly by and witness the gradual destruction of our Christian underpinnings, even the 'evil' Vladimir Putin has built tens of thousands of churches across Russia. Christianity in China is one of the fastest-growing in the world in the face of stiff resistance from the CCP.
Our village church, mentioned in the Doomsday Book, stopped ringing its bells on Sunday mornings some years ago. I'm not 'religious', but that saddened me. They were more than just a call to prayer; they were a gentle reminder that church bells were once rung vigorously to warn of the approach of an invader.
I was recently walking in our rural market town on a Sunday and passed a gentlemen who said “glad I don’t live by those b****y bells”. My response was “I used to live opposite a village church and loved them” rebuking his misery! I’m an aethiest but do have a love and awe for religious buildings. However, the CofE’s decisions during Covid were so appallingly misjudged and selfish what little respect I had for the institution disappeared.
Can’t disagree with any of this, despite wanting to slip in a quiet reminder that the sacred has been struggling for space for just under 500 years. As much as there is a treasure chest out there that could do more, it is down to us in the pews or outside looking in to put in the effort. We can’t rely on cultural and material capital, tired clergy and ageing volunteers and just expect things to go on as before. The church is not a government service that just runs because the state pays for it - the people of God who want to worship need to do their bit. If we want the church to survive, like our pub and butcher and post office - we need to use them.
Brian join the Save the Parish organisation and make a monthly contribution to their superb work, and very importantly follow their instructions on the Synod election, you will have to register to vote at the Synod elections but that takes no time at all.
Start attending Church as often as you can, and join the Electoral Roll. (You don't have to believe in God - just be a Curious Observer). If you live in the Parish, you can join the Electoral Roll without attending Church, but a Church thrives on live congegations. Get to know the PCC Trustees, and they will advise you how they intend to spend any Donations they receive, as they hold your Donation (and others) in Trust to spend for the good of the Parish. They are obliged by Statute Law to do this (PCC Powers Measure 1956, Section 7). The good of the Parish does NOT consist of paying the illegal concept called the "Parish Share" to the Diocese to cover the payment and pension of your Minister. Save The Parish has spent five years trying to get PCC Trustees to understand that they should not be transferring Donations from their Parishioners (the Beneficiaries of the Trust they are Trustees of) to the Diocese. That money needs to come from the investment income of the Church Commission. If the Commission can afford Reparations for Slavery, and largesse to the wider Anglican Church outside Europe (which has excommunicated the C of E recently for being over-liberal and is in any case relatively wealthy compared to many English Parishes), then it can afford to attract more Ministers to call the British lost sheep back into the fold.
Since Protestants have foolishly allowed Priests to marry, a Priest needs to earn enough to support their Family (though there are a few Self-Supporting Ministers around who have other sources of income). As we know from the TV series "Father Ted", Catholic priests have no money worries and often don't even carry money. Their laundry, food and other expenses are all taken care of. This does not make them insensible to the money worries of their Parishioners, in my experience. Actually, it drives them to "do the rounds" IN PERSON in their Parish, calling in at every house that will offer them a snack and with any luck a tot of something. They are virtual Beggars - and none the worse for it. Some are mysteriously plump - but then Catholic households often shower Priests with food and drink which are hard to refuse politely.
As a Catholic but Secretary of my rural Anglican PCC, I persuaded the PCC to join Save The Parish the moment I read its website (about three years ago). It had a whiff of the Old Religion for me - like the wondrous Book of Common Prayer. I continue to be deeply impressed by STP. I have bought Alison Milbank's "The Once and Future Parish" which is surprisingly punchy, as Alison herself appears mild in the extreme. I have also bought Esme Partridge's booklet done for Civitas, "Restoring the Value of Parishes", which is an absolute gem.
One thing I noticed early on, from videos by STP on youtube about Church Finance, is the value of Accountants when they switch to being Avenging Angels. [I have noticed this in other areas of life too.] Idioms Online confirms the moral weight of calling someone or something to account. "To find the origin of the phrase "Called To Account", you have to look at literal, 16th-century bookkeeping. Used in English since the mid-1500s, the phrase originally meant exactly what it sounds like. Before the digital age, estates and businesses were run using physical ledger books (accounts). If an employer, lord, or king suspected a steward of stealing or mismanaging funds, they would literally “call them to account”, meaning the steward was summoned to physically present their financial ledgers and explain where the money went. By the late 16th century, the phrase evolved from a strict financial term into a metaphor for moral reckoning. Religious texts began using it to describe God “calling sinners to account” for their earthly deeds. From there, it naturally bled into the legal and political spheres, where it remains a powerful rhetorical tool today."
Not surprisingly, errant Accountants need to be "called to account" (or "brought to book") by other Accountants, in the Kingdom of this World. It is hard for a non-Accountant to get their head round the rows of figures, or to spot where Accountants have become over-creative with their Maths. There seem to be several wizard Accountants helping STP - the most engaging and the most high-viz is an American who has enthusiastically adopted England and the C of E as his spiritual home. His name is Robert Zampetti - sounds as if he should be RC, but no matter, he has the "gift of the gab" and this seems to be rare for an Accountant, in my experience. The two skills don't often go together, I guess.
Clever Accountants - like clever Lawyers - tend to work for "Establishment" companies and institutions - so the two professions have acquired a bad name amongst ordinary mortals who have a gut feeling that the books are not balancing (usually at District Council level, because local Councillors can be more street-wise than many over-educated politicians). Between the Wars, and after World War Two, District Councils became associated with kickbacks and shady deals with Developers - but these were (and are) relatively easy to bust. Nottingham, Birmingham, Woking (!) - profligate and bankrupt Councils are household names these days. National Government Departments are less accountable, as we can see by the size of the National Debt. Are any maverick Accountants looking forensically into Government expenditure of our taxes? Perhaps. But it is a task for AI really, due to the amount of data - and also to the amount of Odium such examination would incur. Easier to just wave a Chainsaw, like the President of Argentina. Also, the findings need to be dressed up in poetic or at least advertising language, if people are to digest them. Reading ABOUT figures can be as daunting as scanning the figures themselves.
Most people think it is "infra dig" to talk about Money, or even think about it. But Jesus only said we should not love it. He did not deny its importance in the Kingdom of this World, and perhaps we all need to become more financially literate as Money starts to get seriously too tight to mention, not only in the C of E. Synod spends an awful lot of time waffling about noble sentiments, without any serious theological input. It would do well to roll up its sleeves and focus on the Accounts for its non-Accountant Members. STP has done all the laborious "Travaux Preparatoires" already - as Publicans have to, and Pharisees don't have to.
Thank you for your article, Gawain. As an English Jewish atheist who greatly appreciates the history and beauty of English churches, I am very sad to read this indeed.
You may guess that I haven't been too impressed with our (if I can say 'our') Archbishop of Canterbury with her ignorance and dangerous wokisms. But with that aside, only last week I had a tour round St Mary's in Shoreham by Sea and also visited St Nicholas' Church there - the very stones recording a history going back to the Anglo Saxon times - the architecture, leaded lights and interiors recording not only the Norman Conquest, the later Reformation, Victorian arts and crafts ... and not least, recording sacrifices made in both World Wars, for which, despite being an atheist, I am *eternally grateful (*I think you know what I mean ....).
These churches, large and small, are of course primarily living and sacred places for the congregation, whether I personally 'believe' or not - *particular* and important places with clergy and rectors, organists, choirs, weddings, funerals .... and they need the money that is due to them, to keep them going - how despicable of the CofE to withhold a penny and treat these places as just a bit of administered real estate.
For shame, CofE - Save Our Parishes! Power to the People!
I will be attending and Gawain you have encapsulated the resonance of St Barts under Fr Marcus perfectly.
I wish I were there, I do hope it goes well
An excellent event, very well attended and a real boost to all present, although some of the examples given of what is being done to Parishes and Priests, especially in rural areas, still consumes me with a cold rage. The next Synod elections are crucial if we are going to reclaim the Church.
Great but depressing article about the decline of the Anglican Church, but there seems to be a candle of hope burning amongst the young - thank God! I Loved that reference about the memorials to Agincourt and the Somme being in the same Church - if you require real evidence of what it is to be English look no further than that. I always felt that strong sense of historical continuity mixed with the smell of incense when visiting a little village Church.
I haven’t lived in England for over twenty years now and the thing I miss the most is the English Village and its local Church. I once drove back from a trip to London through all the back roads right up to Birmingham and it made me weep for joy. Little England still existed out there along those winding roads. Lose that community, lose those tiny parishes and quiet hamlets and England will be gone forever.
I loved seeking out those places on weekend trips and one of the greatest, most humbling places I ever visited was St George’s Church at Morebath in Devon. Made famous by Eamon Duffy and his brilliant book ‘Voices of Morebath’ - an examination of the diary of the Vicar, Sir Christopher Trychay, who served the out of the way hamlet between 1520 and 1574. It is a tale of the dramatic change visited upon the Catholic Church of England during the Reformation - devoutly Catholic at the beginning and begrudgingly Anglican at the end! The English Church has faced existential crisis and change before - let’s hope this current leadership is just another aberration that has to be survived.
The story of Morebath is fascinating
When living in SE9 (1978-2008) and working in the City I often drove up to Sunday Evensong in Brian Brockless’ era. Beautiful church and Cloth Fair so nostalgic. (Have to also admit regular weekday attendances at the Rising Sun and other similar local refreshment facilities—when not driving). William Wallace and others had less pleasant encounters in the area.
God bless you and keep you, Mr Towler! I pray for your good health and for the long continuation of your work. I love every stroke of your pen.
You are way too kind, but thank you
Apologies for my emotional demonstration, I'm genetically predisposed to it. I just think you need a bigger pat on the back than most. Some of us have noticed your devotion to the movement and we appreciate the knowledge and wisdom you bring to us.
I’m sat here waiting for it to start.
Very interesting. I believe our churches and Christianity generally to be so important for our cultural and spiritual and constitutional heritage. Brought up C of E I am a lapsed church goer. In recent years I have felt the need to return but am deterred by the woke, politically biased messages from the pulpit when I have tested the water. I wish there were more like Fr Marcus near me.
Use this resource: https://www.pbs.org.uk/branches/ its the Prayer Book Societies guide for Churches that use the traditional service thus very likely not to be managerial communists.
There maybe one near you.
I do
Thank you - I will.
What's more worrying Gawain is the closed religious buildings being taken over and repurposed by another religion as their population gets ever larger.depressingly bleak vision for the future brother.
As is the building of new mosques.
The Christian tolerance we have all been brought up with is being turned against us at every opportunity, be that for alien religions, skin colour, sexual identities, our capacity for tolerance, our desire for peace, or even our belief in inclusion, a term that's been hijacked by godless Marxists.
Whilst we stand idly by and witness the gradual destruction of our Christian underpinnings, even the 'evil' Vladimir Putin has built tens of thousands of churches across Russia. Christianity in China is one of the fastest-growing in the world in the face of stiff resistance from the CCP.
Our village church, mentioned in the Doomsday Book, stopped ringing its bells on Sunday mornings some years ago. I'm not 'religious', but that saddened me. They were more than just a call to prayer; they were a gentle reminder that church bells were once rung vigorously to warn of the approach of an invader.
Ring our bells, please.
I was recently walking in our rural market town on a Sunday and passed a gentlemen who said “glad I don’t live by those b****y bells”. My response was “I used to live opposite a village church and loved them” rebuking his misery! I’m an aethiest but do have a love and awe for religious buildings. However, the CofE’s decisions during Covid were so appallingly misjudged and selfish what little respect I had for the institution disappeared.
Excellent piece!
Can’t disagree with any of this, despite wanting to slip in a quiet reminder that the sacred has been struggling for space for just under 500 years. As much as there is a treasure chest out there that could do more, it is down to us in the pews or outside looking in to put in the effort. We can’t rely on cultural and material capital, tired clergy and ageing volunteers and just expect things to go on as before. The church is not a government service that just runs because the state pays for it - the people of God who want to worship need to do their bit. If we want the church to survive, like our pub and butcher and post office - we need to use them.
Well said Gawain - as usual.
I get it.
I'd like to help.
What can a non church goer like me do to help my local parish church?
I'm mid eighties so cant do much in the way of practical work.
Monthly financial contribution??
Brian join the Save the Parish organisation and make a monthly contribution to their superb work, and very importantly follow their instructions on the Synod election, you will have to register to vote at the Synod elections but that takes no time at all.
Start attending Church as often as you can, and join the Electoral Roll. (You don't have to believe in God - just be a Curious Observer). If you live in the Parish, you can join the Electoral Roll without attending Church, but a Church thrives on live congegations. Get to know the PCC Trustees, and they will advise you how they intend to spend any Donations they receive, as they hold your Donation (and others) in Trust to spend for the good of the Parish. They are obliged by Statute Law to do this (PCC Powers Measure 1956, Section 7). The good of the Parish does NOT consist of paying the illegal concept called the "Parish Share" to the Diocese to cover the payment and pension of your Minister. Save The Parish has spent five years trying to get PCC Trustees to understand that they should not be transferring Donations from their Parishioners (the Beneficiaries of the Trust they are Trustees of) to the Diocese. That money needs to come from the investment income of the Church Commission. If the Commission can afford Reparations for Slavery, and largesse to the wider Anglican Church outside Europe (which has excommunicated the C of E recently for being over-liberal and is in any case relatively wealthy compared to many English Parishes), then it can afford to attract more Ministers to call the British lost sheep back into the fold.
Since Protestants have foolishly allowed Priests to marry, a Priest needs to earn enough to support their Family (though there are a few Self-Supporting Ministers around who have other sources of income). As we know from the TV series "Father Ted", Catholic priests have no money worries and often don't even carry money. Their laundry, food and other expenses are all taken care of. This does not make them insensible to the money worries of their Parishioners, in my experience. Actually, it drives them to "do the rounds" IN PERSON in their Parish, calling in at every house that will offer them a snack and with any luck a tot of something. They are virtual Beggars - and none the worse for it. Some are mysteriously plump - but then Catholic households often shower Priests with food and drink which are hard to refuse politely.
As a Catholic but Secretary of my rural Anglican PCC, I persuaded the PCC to join Save The Parish the moment I read its website (about three years ago). It had a whiff of the Old Religion for me - like the wondrous Book of Common Prayer. I continue to be deeply impressed by STP. I have bought Alison Milbank's "The Once and Future Parish" which is surprisingly punchy, as Alison herself appears mild in the extreme. I have also bought Esme Partridge's booklet done for Civitas, "Restoring the Value of Parishes", which is an absolute gem.
One thing I noticed early on, from videos by STP on youtube about Church Finance, is the value of Accountants when they switch to being Avenging Angels. [I have noticed this in other areas of life too.] Idioms Online confirms the moral weight of calling someone or something to account. "To find the origin of the phrase "Called To Account", you have to look at literal, 16th-century bookkeeping. Used in English since the mid-1500s, the phrase originally meant exactly what it sounds like. Before the digital age, estates and businesses were run using physical ledger books (accounts). If an employer, lord, or king suspected a steward of stealing or mismanaging funds, they would literally “call them to account”, meaning the steward was summoned to physically present their financial ledgers and explain where the money went. By the late 16th century, the phrase evolved from a strict financial term into a metaphor for moral reckoning. Religious texts began using it to describe God “calling sinners to account” for their earthly deeds. From there, it naturally bled into the legal and political spheres, where it remains a powerful rhetorical tool today."
Not surprisingly, errant Accountants need to be "called to account" (or "brought to book") by other Accountants, in the Kingdom of this World. It is hard for a non-Accountant to get their head round the rows of figures, or to spot where Accountants have become over-creative with their Maths. There seem to be several wizard Accountants helping STP - the most engaging and the most high-viz is an American who has enthusiastically adopted England and the C of E as his spiritual home. His name is Robert Zampetti - sounds as if he should be RC, but no matter, he has the "gift of the gab" and this seems to be rare for an Accountant, in my experience. The two skills don't often go together, I guess.
Clever Accountants - like clever Lawyers - tend to work for "Establishment" companies and institutions - so the two professions have acquired a bad name amongst ordinary mortals who have a gut feeling that the books are not balancing (usually at District Council level, because local Councillors can be more street-wise than many over-educated politicians). Between the Wars, and after World War Two, District Councils became associated with kickbacks and shady deals with Developers - but these were (and are) relatively easy to bust. Nottingham, Birmingham, Woking (!) - profligate and bankrupt Councils are household names these days. National Government Departments are less accountable, as we can see by the size of the National Debt. Are any maverick Accountants looking forensically into Government expenditure of our taxes? Perhaps. But it is a task for AI really, due to the amount of data - and also to the amount of Odium such examination would incur. Easier to just wave a Chainsaw, like the President of Argentina. Also, the findings need to be dressed up in poetic or at least advertising language, if people are to digest them. Reading ABOUT figures can be as daunting as scanning the figures themselves.
Most people think it is "infra dig" to talk about Money, or even think about it. But Jesus only said we should not love it. He did not deny its importance in the Kingdom of this World, and perhaps we all need to become more financially literate as Money starts to get seriously too tight to mention, not only in the C of E. Synod spends an awful lot of time waffling about noble sentiments, without any serious theological input. It would do well to roll up its sleeves and focus on the Accounts for its non-Accountant Members. STP has done all the laborious "Travaux Preparatoires" already - as Publicans have to, and Pharisees don't have to.