Humpty took offence. He is usually agreeable when we discuss things. I made the mistake of saying something that made him think of sitting on a wall. He’s a bit touchy about that. This is what I said.
‘The Church of England abhors extremes. It enjoys being a via media. This opens it up to the charge of sitting on the fence, of being neither fish, flesh nor good red herring.’
I know. I should have used more discretion. I undertook some damage limitation. ‘The result,’ I said, ‘is a church of moderation, of differing understandings of Christianity and a polite respect for each other, high or low, broad or narrow, worldly or unworldly.’
That had Humpty beaming. He likes to think of himself as a reasonable man.
Later I thought it over. In one respect the C of E is, yes, rather good at extremes. Take geographical extremities. The most northerly C of E church in England is Holy Trinity with St Mary, Berwick-upon-Tweed. This is a rare example of a church built during the days when Cromwell was Lord Protector. As might be expected, it is a plain structure, utterly unlike the medieval conception of a church. Berwick has found itself switching allegiance from England to Scotland and vice versa, as the encircling battlements suggest.
The most southerly church in England is found on the Lizard peninsula, Cornwall. St Wynwallow’s, Landewednack is a beautiful little church built, I’m told, of local serpentine stone. It would win prizes in a church building beauty contest. It was here, they say, that in 1674 the last sermon in Cornish was preached. (There are other churches that dispute this.)
Cornwall, that county replete with outlandish saints’ names, also has the most westerly of mainland English parish churches in St Just-in-Penwith. But here we have to recognise that England does not end at Land’s End. This admits All Saints, Bryher in the Isles of Scilly to its prime westerly position. So Cornwall scores twice.
And the most easterly? For that we have to go to Lowestoft, where we find Christ Church. Now dwarfed by a nearby wind turbine, said to be the tallest in England, this is a reminder that once upon a time Lowestoft was a major fishing port. Lowestoft is now all about offshore wind-farms. Christ Church is a 19th century neo-gothic building home to a bustling 21st century congregation.
Far from shunning extremes, the Church of England, that paragon of moderation, delights in them. Only a John Betjeman could do justice to such benevolent perversity. When I next see Humpty I’ll tell him that. Come to think of it, Humpty would have got on well with Sir John.
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