POSTSCRIPT

Was this a pilgrimage? If so, it was a strangely protracted, episodic one. At 2206 kilometres in length, the amount of walking involved was roughly equivalent to journeying from Rutland to Rome or Santiago – slightly more in fact. In five and a half years, time had seen off two UK Prime Ministers, and we’d watched aghast as Trump came and went from the White House (for the first time?) Two months after I began the project, Britain voted to exit Europe, and the May and Johnson governments then twisted and turned as they effected that exit. In opposition, Corbyn rose, and sank again, amid enormous recriminations. We are in the middle of a perplexing national discussion about the rights of minorities, in which the right to be ‘mainstream’ (including Christian) seems increasingly obscured. Our uniquely British conversation about these matters is influenced by and mirrored in debates within other countries, developed and less so. A pandemic arrived out of the blue - to those of us who were innocents in epidemiology – and two years later it’s still with us. We’re told by one expert that we may be nearer its beginning than its end. Alternatively the arrival of the omicron variant may signal the start of Covid’s slow decline into being just another regular winter ailment. We all seem to have travelled a very long and weary way since April 2016.

It took about 676 hours on the road from Weston Favell to Peterborough, which makes for an average speed of about 3.3 km per hour (or 2.1 mph in old money). If that seems slow, well, no allowance was made for stopping and staring, or for eating the odd sandwich and drinking the occasional ginger beer. This was never an exercise in ‘power walking’. Slightly weird to think that this was about three months of my life, expressed as working days.

Of the 417 churches I visited (approximately 393 of which were in the diocese), 182 were open and 235 shut – and these figures were clearly skewed slightly, but not overwhelmingly, by the Virus. Since moving from urban Northampton to rural Rutland, my consciousness has been raised about the different challenges town and country face – from vandalism to staffing. I’m less inclined to be judgmental about the closed face of our churches now, but it still asks some questions about the C. of E.’s public image, and how we ‘do’ evangelism. And into the pot must now go how ‘eco-church’ sits with our extensive built portfolio.

The architecture and furnishing of these usually beautiful places of worship is awesome and humbling. The sheer amount of manual labour is staggering, the craftsmanship a thing of wonder. We owe such a debt of gratitude to the medieval workpeople, and then to the Victorian vision for evangelism. The C. of E. is currently involved in a great debate about how many new church plants can be initiated on housing estates up and down the land in houses, schools and community halls, (but not in purpose-built churches) – do I hear five thousand, no bid me ten thousand, I’ll see you and raise it to twenty thousand…  We are all currently in thrall to the magic of the computer. But IT isn’t the only way forward – though it is, in one sense, the most cost effective. Please at this point reference the parable of the sower. What is ‘good soil’?  Are on-line ‘communities’ the most desirable kinds of communities?  How do places become notionally ‘sacred’? Can one play basketball in a space, and 24 hours later maintain a sense of the numinous there? And if one does, how does one communicate that to someone outside the faith?  Will they see the hoops or will they see the altar?

I’ve become aware how great is the turnover of clergy. So many parishes and benefices I’ve passed through have been in vacancy. It would be an interesting exercise to see how many of the clergy to whom I wrote at the time are still in post, and how many have moved on. We put too much onto their shoulders, and they too readily accept it. The dynamics between clergy and congregation are now more discussed and rightly so. There are always atavistic, pre-Christian tendencies in play. Humans clearly often like to have intermediaries between them and God, to act ‘vicariously’ (!) for them, to explain, to guide. Yet sometimes we laity want to assert our rights to be the ones in charge. In short we want our cake and eat it (and these days, if it’s one thing the church is good at giving – it’s cake, or at least, this was true until March 2020 and the arrival of Covid. We’re even getting better at supplying decent coffee).

More trivially I clambered over more than 700 stiles, and opened more than 1400 gates. A single pair of Berghaus boots, and two pairs of Merrill trainers shod me all the way. My dad’s lovely knobbler staff was my constant companion, though I nearly lost him in a field near Preston Deanery. I also lost a hat in Braybrooke, and a map near Uppingham. I fell over five times, once at some peril to my life on the A605 near Titchmarsh, and another time with some uncomfortable and long-lasting damage to my hip and knee down a few feet of the railway bridge in Oakham. Partly as a result of Matt Dawson’s misfortune I became very wary of tick bites even in our overwhelmingly friendly countryside, and despite my predilection for shorts, increasingly swathed my legs in tough trousers and socks. There were a couple of dodgy moments with cattle. My ongoing advice would be never to underestimate their maternal protectiveness or teenage playfulness, and to take a conservative view, even if it’s inconvenient. The most beautiful encounter with an animal I experienced was with a grass snake by Ketton quarry. I won’t forget it.

I add here the dedications of the churches I encountered on my way. This list may not be statistically completely accurate, but it gives some pointers to who and what past Christians have thought important – and in turn asks questions of Christian worshippers today about their role models. We in the C. of E. have no power to canonise, but suppose we did, who would we choose?

 St. Mary’s (73)                            

All Saints (47)

St. Peter and St. Paul (29)

St. Peter (28)

St. Andrew (24)

St. John the Baptist (23)

St. Michael ( and all angels) (18)

St. Nicholas (12)

Trinity/Holy Trinity (8)

St. Mary Magdalene (8)

St John (the evangelist) (8)

St. Botolph (7)

St. Leonard  (7)

St. James (7)

(St James the Great) (3)

(St James the Less) (1)

St Lawrence (St Laurence) (6)

Holy Cross (5)

St. Luke (4)

St. Margaret  (4)

St. Mary and All Saints (3)

St. Matthew (3)

St Mark  (3)

St Edmund (3)

St. Martin (3)

St. Bartholomew (3)

All Hallows (3)

St. Denys (Dionysius) (3)

St. Helen (3)

St. Giles  (2)

Emmanuel (2)

St. Benedict (2)

St. Columba ( & northern saints) (2)

St. George (2)                                      

St. Katherine (Catherine) (2)                

St. Augustine (2)                                   

St. Faith (2)                                         

St. Stephen (2)                                     

St. Mary and St. Peter  (1)                  

St. Mary and St. Edmund (1)              

St. Alban (1)                                       

Holy Sepulchre (1)                               

All Saints and St. James (1)                

Christ Church  (1)                                

Christ the Carpenter (1)                        

Christ the King (1)                                

St. Peter and St. Andrew (1)                 

St. David (1)                                        

St. Francis (1)                                     

St. Paul (1)                                         

St. Rumbald (1) probably =                                    

St. Rumwald (1)                                   

St. Guthlac (1)                                     

St. Barnabas (1)                                    

St. Pega (1)                                            

Church of the Holy Spirit (1)               

St. Remigius (1)                                    

Whitefriars (1)                                       

BVM & St. Leodegarius (1)                 

St. Oswald (1)                                       

St. Etheldreda (1)                                   

Church of the Epiphany (1)                  

St. Kyneburgha (1)                                

St. Mary Magdalene & St. Andrew (1)

Women are better represented in formal church life than they were, but not all Anglicans agree even now that this is God’s will. Are complementarian ideas merely prejudice repackaged? Ironic then, that so many of our churches are dedicated to Mary. Or is it?  Depends on the image you have of the mother of Jesus. Equally tellingly, neither the Gospel writers or (particularly) Paul attract dedications. The latter is just too difficult, too choleric. You wouldn’t want him to be your presiding genius, would you?  Yet notionally he’s responsible for most of the New Testament. But he's OK if we add St. Peter as a balancing personality. Because that always worked so well. Matthew, Mark and Luke don’t do a whole lot better. Why? Is this a peculiarity of our diocese or a nationwide preference? The variety in the list is wonderful, intriguing, and sometimes eccentric.

I’m going to end by quoting an old and much admired teacher of mine, Rev. Prof. Stephen Sykes, sometime Bishop of Ely and Principal at St. John’s Durham. I had the great privilege of being supervised by Stephen in his younger days at Cambridge when a course on dogmatics rather unexpectedly formed part of my final degree. Much other teaching at my alma mater had been dry and undistinguished. Some of it had been downright intimidating. In stark contrast, Stephen was friendly, engaging and holy, as well as being super-bright. He became Dean of Chapel at an astonishingly young age. In his 1984 book ‘The identity of Christianity’ he wrote:

            ‘The major part of Christian history has assumed that the community of true believers will actually be of one heart and mind. Discord, on this account, is a phenomenon of the margins.  I propose a wholly different picture, to the effect not merely that it is inconceivable that Christians could agree with each other, but also that it is actually undesirable that they should do so – with the proviso that they should share enough in common to be capable of worshipping together.’

I too find this a rather surprising, stand-it-on-its-head thought… and yet immensely comforting and wonderful.

We are folks, BETTER TOGETHER and BETTER IN COLOUR.  We are Church.

This has been such fun, and I’ve learned so much. If you have been, thank you for reading.