Crumbs from the Table

We have just returned from a holiday in France, where we were staying in the village of Avernes, about 40 minutes from Paris. Avernes is in the département of Val d'Oise in the region of Ile-de-France (the region around Paris). At first glance, Avernes is just a quiet village - ideal for a quiet family holiday. As we went exploring, however, we discovered some fascinating things. For one thing, carved into the stonework of the ancient church were the words, "Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité". It turned out that during the period of "Dechristianisation" in 1793-4, the church was taken over to be a "Temple of Reason". Even more fascinating was a non-descript little historical notice on a wall. It turned out that from 1563 to 1685, there was a Reformed church in the village. This was destroyed literally days after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685; this was when the rights of Protestant Christians were rescinded. I have not been able to find out m...

Saint George, the patron saint of England, was an historical figure, although many things ascribed to him are not historical.  George of Lydda was born into a noble family in an area called Cappadocia (now Turkey), which at the time was populated by Greek speaking citizens of the Roman Empire. George was born around 280. His mother appears to have come from Diospolis/Lydda (now known as Lod, near Tel Aviv), the place where he was later to die. When his father died, George and his mother moved back to the town of her birth.  George was a soldier in the Roman army at the time of Emperor Diocletian. When the protracted persecution of Christians unleashed by Diocletian began to be directed at Christians in the army, George was martryred by decapitation at Lydda in the year 303.  George's death was said to have inspired Empress Alexandra of Rome (d. 314) to become Christian.  The later stories of dragon-slaying are not historical and do not appear in early hagiographies (...

 When you look through old photos of Bury, the town where I live in Greater Manchester, a recurring scene is the "Whit Walks". The pictures show crowds of people, young and old, processing with banners. In Bury, a muster point for these walks was the old Union Square which was demolished to make way in the late 1960s for what later became the Millgate shopping centre.  The origin of the Whit Walks was the Sunday school movement, which was started in 1781 by Robert Raikes in Gloucester. The first Sunday school in Manchester dates to 1784. The Whit Walks commemorate the anniversary of this movement, which provided basic education on a Sunday for children who were forced to work the other six days of the week. Dr Elmer Towns who wrote an early Raikes biography says “the early Sunday School basically aimed at teaching reading and writing with the Bible as a text book”. Many if not all churches locally ran a Sunday school teaching dozens of children every week; even our little chu...

In 663 a church council was held at Whitby in the kingdom of Northumbria to determine which customs should prevail in the nascent church in what is now England: the Irish or the Roman? The spokesperson for the Roman side was a young priest called Wilfrid, who had been brought up in Irish monasticism, but then travelled to Rome and elsewhere to further his education.  When challenged on their traditions (eg the date of Easter, and also the form of monastic tonsure), the Irish side, represented by bishop Colman, objected: "Are we to believe that our most revered Father Columba and his successors, acted contrary to the Holy Scriptures when they followed these customs?" Listen to how Wilfrid responds both graciously but also firmly:  " Concerning your Father Columba and his followers, whose sanctity you say you imitate, and whose rule and precepts confirmed by signs from Heaven you say that you follow, I might answer, then when many, in the day of judgement, shall say to our...

At my first church, St Paul's Brussels, and the churches where I served for 15 years in Russia, Communion was celebrated with proper wine, as was the custom in the Old Testament, and is the custom in Judaism.  I cannot remember when I first participated in Communion and it was grape juice. It came as a bit of surprise. The taste is much more watery, and the experience likewise. As I will argue below, almost inevitably the change in the element (from wine to grape juice) changes what is communicated.  I do understand that many brothers and sisters in our churches have a history with problem drinking and risk a relapse if Communion were celebrated with alcoholic wine. Some American missionaries I encountered in Russia actually considered it an issue of conscience NOT to celebrate communion with wine.  My Protestant/evangelical instinct on these things is to go back to the Bible. What was used to celebrate the Passover and later Communion?  Clearly, the "fruit of the vi...

Our family recently visited Ripon in Yorkshire, an historic town associated with a figure called Wilfrid. On our visit to the Cathedral, it turned out that there was no biography available in the Cathedral shop, so I am minded to write my own. While this history is full of unfamiliar roles and concepts, nevertheless, these were our, albeit imperfect, Christian forefathers. Paul, in 1 Corinthians 3, warns of "boasting in men" and then goes on to say, "All things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future -- all are yours, and you are Christ's, and Christ is God's." It is in that spirit that I have penned the present brief life of Wilfrid of Ripon. The 600s is a long time ago, and at that time the map of our country looked quite different to the way it looks today. Just 200 years earlier, settlers (the Angles, Saxons and Jutes) had sailed across the North Sea from what is now Germany, Denmark and the...

Yesterday, I was present for the " khutbah " (sermon) before Friday prayers at Noor-ul-Islam mosque on Yarwood Street in Bury. I was there by kind agreement of Imam Hassanat, a gifted Muslim preacher, whom I met a few months ago through a mutual acquaintance, and I was made welcome. Noor-ul-Islam is one of seven Sunni mosques in Bury, and follows the Sufi way, a more mystical interpretation of the Muslim faith.  I have been present at Friday prayers on at least one occasion before (at a Shi'a mosque). I do not actively take part in the prayers, however, local Muslim leaders have allowed me to be present and observe. In this case, I was present for the preliminary "khutbah" which corresponds to a Christian Sunday morning sermon.  For those not familiar with Friday prayers, this is the main weekly gathering of Muslims early on Friday afternoon to perform the prescribed prayer ritual together at one of the set times of prayer. At this time of year in this part of t...