Since 2017, Revd Tony Shutt (see photo) has been engaging his congregation, the local community and passers-by with some thought-provoking paintings, leading them through the ‘Stations of The Cross’.These 15 paintings were created by Tony, the Vicar of Send Parish Church, between 2017 and 2018, and, although having taken a break last year due to pandemic life, have been used in various ways ever since.Tony speaks of his inspiration by saying, “I wanted to make my own interpretation and version of the Stations of the Cross in a way that made them portable, placeable and to some extent vulnerable.”Each station is an acrylic painting on wood which has been considerably varnished to withstand the elements – very helpful considering the ways in which they’ve been used and helped them stand the test of time.When churches were closed during the Easter season in 2020, the stations were set up along Vicarage Lane in Send for the many lockdown walkers to see.This Easter, Tony has displayed the 15 paintings in the churchyard at St Mary’s in Send and will stay there for all to enjoy and reflect on until the end of April.One member of the congregation commented on Facebook saying, “I was delighted to see the stations of the cross in the churchyard.”Tony hopes that people will think about the sufferings, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ as they see the installation.
I was brought up short, in the Commons debate on referring the prime minister to the Committee of Privileges to determine if he had knowingly misled parliament, when Steve Baker, the Conservative MP for High Wycombe, referred to Ian Blackford, the Westminster leader of the Scottish National Party, as “a brother in Christ”.Blackford, who is a member of the Free Church of Scotland, looked a little taken aback. Baker asked him if he didn’t believe in redemption, to which Blackford replied blandly: “I believe in truth and justice, and I believe that a prime minister who has misled the house should face appropriate sanctions.”The question was a strange one, not just because it was phrased in explicitly religious terms, but because when Baker came to give his own view it turned out that, although he did believe in redemption, he didn’t think that Boris Johnson’s contrition was genuine: “The prime minister’s apology lasted only as long as it took to get out of the headmaster’s study.” So he too thought the prime minister should go.Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrat MP whose Christianity caused him difficulties as party leader on the question of gay rights, addressed the philosophical question of Boris Johnson’s sincerity in similar language: “I do not know how contrite the prime minister is. I do not know how sincere is his repentance, or his apology. Only two beings know the answer to that question, and I will not make any assumption that I know it, because I am definitely not one of them.”However, Farron nevertheless managed to come to the same conclusion as Baker. Although he believes that “forgiveness is available for everything and for everyone”, he said, “even forgiven sins bear consequences”. He quoted the Bible story of Zacchaeus, a tax collector and cheat who repented of his sins but who also made recompense: “He gives back four times what he has taken.” The prime minister has not borne the consequence of his sins, Farron said, which is why he thought Johnson should be removed from office.It was as if we had been transported back to the 18th or 19th centuries, when MPs debated matters of state in religious language and biblical analogy. Chris Bryant, the Labour MP who chairs the committee to which the prime minister has been referred, commented that he felt as if he was back at theological college.As the only MP who is an ordained minister of religion – he was a Church of England vicar before entering parliament – he said he thought he was the only person in the Commons who can actually pronounce absolution on anybody.However, he has recused himself from the Committee of Privileges in this case because he has criticised Boris Johnson so sharply over Downing Street parties, so his power of forgiveness is not going to be tested.Yours,John RentoulChief political commentator
Two years ago, churches across the land stood empty on Easter Sunday, their doors locked by government decree. Even priests were banned from entering by order of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who delivered a sermon from his kitchen.Justin Welby, who has entered his tenth year as the spiritual leader of the Church of England, was widely condemned for that decision and conceded that he had not “pushed hard enough” to keep churches open for individual prayer during the first lockdown and had “made a mistake” in locking priests out.His apology has not quelled the lingering anger of some worshippers and clergy over the move, but all this was put aside last weekend for a moment of “joyous” celebration.For thousands of Church of England parishes Easter Day, the biggest story on Easter was not Welby’s headline-making condemnation of the government’s new migration policy. It was the return of hope.Not just the hope offered by the resurrection of Jesus in Christian teaching, but the hope that there is still life in the Church as the pews filled for the first restriction-free Easter since 2019.Priests across the country reported seeing familiar faces, including many older and more vulnerable parishioners, making a first foray back into congregational worship since the pandemic began.“We were amazed and thrilled,” said the Very Rev Andrew Nunn, Dean of Southwark. “It was back to the kinds of numbers we would have had pre-pandemic, the first time that has happened. Quite a few people said it was the first time they had dared to come back, for Easter.”Many priests reported that their Sunday congregations even before Easter were up to 70 or 80 per cent of pre-pandemic levels, often with more watching online. The trend for streaming services on YouTube or Zoom began during the pandemic and is here to stay for those in care homes, the housebound and even those who wish to do something else with their Sunday mornings and watch the service on catch-up later that day.Vicars hope that those worshippers who came back in person for Easter will now feel emboldened to return every Sunday. However, some may not have that choice.Sir Tony Baldry, a former Conservative minister who ran the Church Buildings Council after quitting parliament in 2015, told The Times that a growing number of churches are likely to become “festival churches” that only hold services on special occasions like Easter and Christmas because they do not have enough worshippers or money to hold services every week. Instead of having to close their doors for ever, these bastions of English heritage can be preserved, staying open as community hubs for local people between hosting occasional services, said Baldry, who now runs the Association of Festival Churches.In Lincolnshire, in the church’s largest diocese, some 28 per cent of churches surveyed since the pandemic — 174 out of 615 — said they were likely to revert to this model in future.Welby conceded last autumn that 2022 would mark 70 years of unbroken year-on-year decline in church attendance. Despite more than £170 million of investment during his tenure in schemes designed to attract new, younger and more diverse worshippers, there has been no let-up in the slow but relentless decline that has left many parish churches with empty pews and empty coffers, struggling to maintain their ancient buildings and remain open for worship.This is why many feared the pandemic could prove terminal for the Church of England. Some laid part of the blame for this with Welby himself who, with his fellow archbishops and bishops, wrote in March 2020 telling churches to close and priests to stay out.“I didn’t push hard enough to keep churches available for at least individual prayer in the first lockdown,” he said last year. “We also said clergy couldn’t go in, and personally I feel I made a mistake with that.”“I think it was a great mistake to look keen to shut churches,” agreed the Rev Marcus Walker, rector at Great St Bartholomew’s in London. “I think his reputation has taken a big hit.”
