Passing Through
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Interests & themes
  • Contact

Beyond the walls, but not by far

3/8/2021

0 Comments

 
Open Air pulpits can seem to me melancholy and dispiriting...
Picture
Garbage and Gospel: an interesting juxtaposition in South London
Not many churches have them. There was one at the church I worked at in London's West End, reportedly paid for by friends of The Revd McCormick in 1904 in the hope that, with his strong Irish voice, he would attract the crowds that passed along Piccadilly. But the sound of horses' hooves on the cobbled stones of Piccadilly drowned him out.

It is possible that my dislike of outdoor pulpits derives from my feelings about indoor ones. There was a time (before microphones and when larger numbers attended church) when sticking the preacher on a platform to be more clearly heard made sense ('pulpit' comes from the Latin pulpitum, meaning platform or staging). That no longer applies, and placing the speaker 'six feet above contradiction' seems inegalitarian these days.
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Categories

    All
    Art
    Church As Institution
    Dogs
    Feasts And Festivals
    Humour
    Language
    Liturgy
    Misc
    Music
    Observed
    People
    Places
    Power
    Prayer
    Quotations
    Sentimentality
    Sermons
    Signs & Wonders
    Vocation

    Sites I keep an eye on
    Beaker Folk
    Henry/Annunciation Trust
    Raptitude
    Mother Pelican

    Feral Spirituality
    The worker priest


Belief is reassuring. People who live in the world of belief feel safe. On the contrary, faith is forever placing us on the razor's edge. Jacques Ellul
No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of it for any one else. Charles Dickens (Our Mutual Friend)
Get in touch
(c) Hugh Valentine