Kipling knew a thing or two. When he referred to Triumph and Disaster as two impostors that come our way, he demonstrated that we all too readily make mountains out of mole-hills. And always when we are being tempted to take our troubles too seriously, we can look to clowns and comedians to cheer us up. We can also turn to headline-writers.
‘Slowdown continues to accelerate,’ one sub-editor came up with. ‘Breathing oxygen linked to staying alive’ wrote another. ‘Cows lose their jobs as milk prices drop’ wrote another.
My mind turned to these uses of literacy as I looked at last week’s ‘Church Times’. This journal for serious members of the clergy never falls into the traps confronting more everyday publications that call in puns, alliteration and other tropes in their bid to entice readers. The headline that caught my eye was ‘Cathedrals facing cash crisis’.
We all know a cathedral when we see one. Well, that may not be altogether true. The Anglican cathedral in Oban is not all that easy to detect and St David’s cathedral in Wales is so tucked away down a deep slope that it can safely escape discovery by passers-by, particularly latter-day Vikings. In general a cathedral is a prominent part of the landscape, Salisbury and Lincoln being outstanding examples.
In a rising tide of secularisation cathedrals and other large church buildings survive precariously as markers of an age of belief when lesser churches become burdensome for the few who value them. An anthology published 20 years ago investigated the place of cathedrals in our society. Its final sentence made the claim: ‘So they are models of what the Church can be: flagships of the spirit’ Daring then, that claim seems even more daring today.
And now cathedrals face a cash crisis. That, of course, does not make them exceptional. Plenty of companies and individuals have the same problem. But cathedrals are unusual in being at the point where Church and State – not to mention heritage – find themselves encountering one another. Cathedrals are a litmus test in a society moving away from its Christian foundation to, well, to what? Don’t forget Kipling’s impostors.
If you have a comment on this post please send an email to Revd John King. Edited extracts may be published. To forward this to a friend click on the chain icon below.
Comments