Magpie or rainbow? Black and white or Sweet Pea? Pastel or deep-dyed? Sometimes on a Sunday morning it seems that English parish churches are not very good at colour. Carpets, for instance, are often red and black, an angry combination. Subtlety in drapes and pew furnishings may be absent. It is almost as though we allow ourselves to content ourselves with extravagant medieval stone-work and take no account of harmony in fabrics. The work has already been done, we seem to say. There is no need of further thought.
Yet if we worship a supreme being, a Maker, we can hardly bring less than the best to what honours his name. Our efforts to make newcomers feel at home are vain if we pay homage with less thought than may go into our home colour-schemes.
It is possible that the vesture of he clergy does not help in this matter. To reduce clerical garb to magpie wear is to renounce not only the fussy shortcomings of medieval religion but to renounce the quest for beautiful church interiors. It is also to renounce history.
It is a vain strategy to allow forensic categories (red and black) to dominate a welcome in a worship building. There are other qualities that should be evident. The Christian Gospel is not just a catalogue of right and wrong, of good and bad behaviour. It is that and it is more than that. It is on the side of beauty, good design and order.
The party loyalties in the Church that were sustained by apparel to reinforce or renounce particular doctrines had their day. These have become debatable or redundant. The big doctrines reminding us of a Maker, a Redeemer and of Good News can be in the forefront of our national and local agenda.
Cathedrals, as one might expect, shoulder the burden of leadership on this, even when new artistic ventures may falter as to how this may best be done. What matters is the outcome. This is not just a matter of redecoration, the kind of thing we do every few years in our own homes. It is a long-term undertaking like planting an avenue of trees.
We blush when we are embarrassed. We turn green when we are sea-sick. We declare ourselves by our colour. Such changes are part of being human, part of the evidence that the human lot, is not entirely under control, that it can change. ‘If any man is in Christ there is a new creation.’ (2 Corinthians 5.17)
STOCKS
With a population of 43,000 Wallsend, Northumberland three and a half miles from Newcastle has had its share of mining disasters. St Peter’s church, Wallsend, has had a colourful history with a tug-o-war going on between factions. It has settled down as an Anglo-Catholic stronghold and has one feature demonstrating a sense of humour: its stocks. These were set up in the churchyard for the benefit of sabbath-breakers and are now used by photographers for novelty wedding pictures.
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