search

Worship & war

Before this series signs off (next month, after four years; believe it or not, it replaced Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones in the paper), and before postmodernism is eclipsed by something else, let's try out a bit of pm-ism here. That is, the text you are reading and singing from may sometimes be crucially defined by its context or its readers, whatever the author thought it meant.

For example, however you chose to remember September 11, November 11 still reverberates at least in the older national British consciousness. 'Armistice Day' may have been transferred to 'Remembrance Sunday', but it is 11/11 which defines the relevant religious observance-for some, the last surviving vestige of a liturgical year.

Unless a British Christian of the current generation has been stolidly attending only one church, or one kind of church, for the past 20 years, it is unlikely that he/she will have failed to encounter 'Mission Praise', in one of its many shapes or forms.

The success of this book has been phenomenal; in some congregations it has swept the board, and even in otherwise catholic, reformed, liberal or charismatic assemblies it has crept in at least as an alternative option for Sunday or the week night gathering. How come?

The Pimlico Plumbers (plc) have twice been voted Domestic Installers of the Year. Or so I believe from the information displayed on the side of the white van parked just up the road from us.

For the intelligent evangelical reader, this piece of free advertising raises several immediate questions. First, what is their phone number? Second, when did this happen - recently or around 1924, for instance? Third, were the years consecutive and, if so, what happened the third year? Fourth (multiple), who were the voters, was the result close, predictable, or contested, and were the results independently verified? I am sorry that to all these queries I have no firm answers.