Church in a spin

Keep it in the open

Quick thoughts on some memorable Easter images ... and some we might want to forget. Radio 4 kicked off with Easter worship from St Michael le Belfrey in York at 8.15am with Archbishop, Dr John Sentamu, baptising a group of new Christians on the forecourt in the shadow of York Minster. Made for great radio- and would have made for even better television. We needn't have worried - what the radio 4 service didn't show were the cameras and reporters who were there in abundance - pictures in most of the Monday dailies, and clips throughout the day on News 24, showed a motley collection of hacks and photographers who had elbowed their way to the front, completely surrounding the heated paddling pool, and blocking the view for families and friends who were there to support the candidates. They should have pushed them in. A colleague once said you need just two things to be a good press photographer - F7 and brass neck. Well, sometimes you can overdo the brass neck, lads.

Italy has better weather than England but that didn't explain the huge disparity between our own Dr Williams's foray into the open air and that of the new Pope. Whilst the latter made his way through the thousands of pilgrims in St Peter's Square, the former was seen on TV standing windswept and alone waiting to enter Canterbury Cathedral, with just the company of our old friend Martin Short, fresh out of Church House and apparently a little uncomfortable with his new royal blue costume which billowed around him as he almost hit the cross he was carrying on the lintel of the west door. Very Anglican and Trollopian. Cut to the sermon in which Rowan apparently talked about conspiracy theories - I say apparently, because the sentence in which he presumably mentioned the Da Vinci code was deemed too long for a soundbite and was rudely cut off in the middle of a compound adjective.

BBC TV's worship came from Spring Harvest at Minehead which had the advantage of Steve Chalke (MBE) but the disadvantage of being indoors - and not looking a bit like a church. Why is it that there's always a high cringe factor when Christian worship takes place in a tent? It could be that some of the worshippers looked like they could do with a wash and a change of clothes. It could be that the lights, and performance element seem to sit uncomfortably with the idea of 'corporate' worship. Or maybe it was the fact that we were forced, well before the 9 o'clock watershed, to watch people engaged in intimate acts which involved their bodies and their passions. Worshipping their maker with body, mind and spirit, seeingly unaware that their every movement wass being scrutinised by the audience in their living rooms. Its the age old conundrum which Colin Morris, a former head of religious broadcasting, tried to dissect in Wrestling with an Angel. For some it might be refreshing and convicting - let's hope. It doesn't work for me, but maybe I'm just an old cynic. Answers on a postcard please!

posted by John Carter @ 10:27 pm