28. Church of Scientology, Birmingham

Every generation has its own cult religion to be lampooned and feared in equal measure. Simultaneously scorned for holding daft views based on crackpot thinking yet cast in the role of bogeyman for leading innocent victims away from their homes and their sanity. 

Anyone of my age would remember the Moonies. The Unification Church under Sun Myung Moon had all the right cult attributes. Or so I recall, although I’d have to head for Wikipedia to flesh out the few things I can generally claim to know. Not letting details get in the way of rampant scaremongering, any sort of contact with the Moonies would - to my impressionable teenage mind - inevitably mean losing all your possessions, never seeing your family again and being forced to take part in a mass-marriage on the pitch of some cavernous football stadium in the far east. 

I’m perfectly prepared to accept that there were genuine victims of such cults and their stories are undeniably harrowing. But the combination of religious ritual and the control of a strong leading personality always seems to add up to terror and snowballing mistrust on a crazy scale.

If you had to identify who today has picked up the Moonies’ baton it could well be the Scientologists. Many of those who I’ve told of my choice today have joked about never seeing me again. The church is founded on a set of defining texts created by a pulp fiction sci-fi writer, their celebrity following inspires plenty of controversy and - crucial to their critics in this country - they look and sound thoroughly American. Even the introduction to ‘Birming-Ham’ on the website is more Hollywood than Hall Green.

The Church of Scientology in Birmingham is a massive place in every sense of the word. It’s housed in a vast building with a fine columned entrance and impressively-manicured grounds. The car park is large and, although it’s fairly empty when I pull in on a Sunday morning, suggests numbers are confidently expected.

I’m here this morning, hopeful - though not confident - of attending a morning service, as a result of a phone call I made in the week. If you care to browse the organisation’s website you can find a wealth of information about what the church is proud of, what it supports, how it is relevant to you - but not a single mention of when you might be able to attend a church service. Not finding the information I wanted I picked up the phone and, following a rather stilted, evasive conversation, put it down very little the wiser. The church, according to the woman answering, likes people to come and take a tour round the information centre and talk with one of its welcomers, but she was not sure they held anything like a service I could attend. She was most keen to learn my name and couldn’t hide her unease at whatever she perceived my motives to be.

Nevertheless the welcome, at the very hotel-like reception lobby desk, was warm. I had to fill out a card with my details and a few profile questions including wanting to know how I’d heard of the church - odd that from an organisation which presses its global status in heady figures of members, countries of influence, churches established and so on. Why would I NOT have heard of them?

Still unsure if there will actually BE a service or not, and whether I would even get to see it, I spend time in the Information Centre where a battery of big touchscreens are on hand to play any one of hundreds of videos on any subject I might like to explore. Bit by bit these build up a picture of Scientology. It’s clearly a religion backed by a pulsating backing track and one in which everybody - and I mean everybody - has perfect teeth. I have nothing against the perfect world of corporate video-making but it can pall after a while. There’s only so many times you can watch sets of perfect teeth smiling at equally well-dentured children watching high-definition raindrops on perfect leaves, before the danger of cynicism becomes overwhelming.

I’m particularly struck by a video profiling the religion’s founder L Ron Hubbard. Any faults the man may have had in his life have been glossed over to present a man who is better-read, more highly-qualified, more resourceful and shining with moral worthiness and probity than anyone who has ever existed. Bigging up the figurehead is nothing new of course, but I find myself wondering what would have happened had he ever met that equally over-praised leader Kim Jong-Un on the squash court - omnipotence in the otherwise mortal can frequently lead to absurdity.

There’s still no sign of a service and the clock has gone past the time I expected something to happen, so it’s back to the screens for more on how L Ron Hubbard’s words have cut crime or defeated the scourge of drugs or cured the psychiatrically vulnerable depending on which set of perfect teeth is talking to you. I prepare my excuses for a departure.

But then suddenly a surprise. I’m informed that Sunday service is about to start and I’m guided through to the building’s impressive modern chapel. It’s a very strange atmosphere though as there are only a dozen other people there, all of whom seem to have arrived together and are on chatting terms with my telephone answerer and guide who is now clearly about to take her first service. She directs rather than invites her congregation to sit closer and then haltingly reads the creed followed by the sermon - an article by L Ron - before introducing (no surprises here) a video to watch on the big screen. A hasty prayer, a quick parish notice and it’s all over, barely ten minutes in duration. I watch as my fellow attendees head out of the chapel door and back up the stairs to whatever offices or places of study they have evidently been coaxed from. I’m absolutely certain this ‘service’ has been constructed and performed entirely for me. I’m not sure what to think of that. It’s touching in a way but also bewilderingly naff.

It’s all a bit awkward as I leave with my guide still offering to answer any questions I may have, but I’ve seen all the videos I need to see. It’s hard to see Scientology as I’ve experienced it today answering life’s great questions, or any questions come to that.

27. Friends Meeting House, Warwick. May 19, 2019

Why do we go to church? It’s not a rare question to ask, I know. I’ve pondered it many times over the years. It’s a question people have asked of me when they read this blog.

But today I’m asking it of myself in a slightly different way. I’m less concerned with the word ‘why’ and more interested in the ‘we’. To put it another way, WE generally go to church together and do church things together, and I’m wondering why that is.

It doesn’t happen in every single faith, of course. My admittedly limited experience of Chinese temples seems to show people going on their own, when they want and carrying out a very personal and completely individual communion with the Gods or with their ancestors. Many churches, Catholics ones in particular, have areas set aside for individual prayer or confession.

But for the most part, going to church is a collective activity. It’s observed at an appointed place and an agreed time. I guess one of the reasons for this is that we want to share with others. Hearing other people saying the same things we do helps to underline validity. By saying a traditional creed you are, in a sense, making others a witness to your beliefs while simultaneously serving as a witness to theirs. It’s as if collectively we’re all looking round reassuring each other that what we’re doing isn’t mad, isn’t absurd or unique and makes sense.

There’s very little such openly-expressed confirmation at a Quaker meeting; it’s as long way from the ‘all singing together’ feel of other denominations, hence my first question. I have been to a Quaker meeting once before, many years ago. Although it’s a distant memory I can recall enough to know what goes on. And if I can’t, there’s a very helpful leaflet written specially for those attending for the first time. It tells you what will happen - or, more to the point, what won’t be happening. Having sat in silence diligently reading my leaflet, it’s a full five minutes into the allotted time before I realise we have started. 

There are around people twenty at this morning’s meeting in Warwick. Eyes are mainly closed as far as I can tell, heads bowed. There are so many different layers of silence. This silence is stronger than respectful hush of a doctor’s waiting room, deeper than the quiet that falls after someone’s said something inappropriate. I’ve been among tens of thousands of people observing a minute’s silence in a football ground and always been struck by how such a potentially noisy gathering can suddenly be almost invisible through its silence. It’s the same here.

My leaflet helpfully suggests a few things I might like to ponder given the space and time to think by this collective silence. I try, never having found it a difficulty to fill my time with theoretical meanderings and slowly coalescing ideas. But,of course, my mind wanders too. Yesterday’s cup final, the ebullient excesses of last night’s Eurovision spectacular, this morning’s early car boot bargains and so on. I begin to wonder whether others are doing the same. Alone among creatures we have the ability to grasp the likelihood that other people have minds too, and all the random, extended virtual worlds that go with them. When it comes to their thoughts on this morning’s meeting and its wider significance I have absolutely no idea what they’re thinking. And with no creed to recite, no collective shared liturgy to rehearse I have no way of knowing.

Quaker meetings stay in silent contemplation until someone decides to share a thought he or she feels would enhance the understanding in the room and advance us further. We have three such interjections this morning; one encouraging us to use our thinking time wisely, one reporting on historical points from a recent meeting and the last paying proud tribute to the musical offerings at a concert. To me they might seem unfathomably random, having no conceivable connection. But to each of their utterers they stand as natural conclusions to whatever road their thoughts were travelling. This, in turn, gives me something to think about and, in doing so, makes me see this silent exchange as every bit as lucid and natural as any conversation I’ve ever had.

After more reflection we’re joined by the children, who have been involved in their own activities elsewhere. They arrive full of energy but settle instinctively into the silence of the room, giving themselves over to their own thoughts. I’m struck, as I often have been on these travels, by the way young minds are content to accept as a perfectly rational norm, traditions, practices and behaviour we adults frequently have difficulty taking on board. Thinking about that fills my mind for a while too.

The time passes quickly and we’re suddenly shaking hands as the meeting reaches an end. Notices are given, new visitors are invited to introduce themselves and news is swapped. It’s a very supportive, highly respectful community. Afterwards I have a moment to compare stories with a woman whose circuitous spiritual journey brought her to Quakerism over a decade ago. Not having a creed to say, she believes, allows her to stay true to her faith but leaves her the wiggle room to find her own way within it. 

I feel she’s right. You can’t really argue with a religion which offers you something to think about and then has the confidence and good grace to provide you with every opportunity to do that thinking.

26. St Michael, Baddesley Clinton. May 12, 2019

Other people’s traffic stories can sometimes be a bit tiresome, just something you have to listen to and remember to provide the right combination of empathy and sympathy. Many work days and social gatherings begin with this  accepted ritual.

It’s rare to find the same thing at the start of a Sunday church service; most people only have a short distance to walk rather than a car journey to make. But today is different thanks to the combined efforts of some 17,000 cyclists. 

The annual Birmingham Velo - a lengthy circular route through the countryside south of the city - passes right by the front door and brings with it road closures and frustration for many. I’ve had quite a traffic story just to get here. Trusting my luck down a series of increasingly narrow and twisting roads, I’m turned back on three occasions by high-vis stewards. On the fourth occasion I decide to trust the road signs that say I’m only half a mile away. I put the car as far onto the verge as I dare and set off walking. There’s a path through the woods and the day is so glorious that whatever frustration and stress I may have had has dissipated by the time I arrive at St Michael’s.

The church has a proud history of its own but has become - in the eyes of many weekend visitors at least - part of its illustrious neighbour, the Baddesley Clinton National Trust estate. It has links to the estate obviously, and boasts a very smart pictorial guide to show it. There are coats of arms, plaques and a very fine stained glass window - just the sort of things the National Trust faithful lap up while downing the cream tea.

I’ve come here to enjoy the special Bluebell Service trumpeted on the website. My march through the woods may have cut it a bit fine on getting here, but I find I am sadly a fortnight late for the blooms. Partly due to the cyclists and partly due to the fact that the climate seems to have shifted forward, the church decided to move the date. Never mind. There’s a lovely postcard of the church surrounded by a sea of blueish purple and for 20p I’ll settle for that.

The service - led today by a Reader - is a very sparse affair. The congregation numbers five. The traffic is blamed, of course, and I wonder if the excitement of the final throes of the race for the Premier League might have proved too tempting for some. Either way it’s an odd affair. At times like this I feel very sorry for those delivering a service when the attendance is as obviously disappointing as this. I find myself trying to be supportive through smiling and - as the risk of being spotted mentally wandering off is so high - concentrating as hard as possible.

It’s very quiet though - not helped by three unfamiliar hymns and some sung responses a little too unexpectedly intricate for me to busk. I feel for the Reader whose carefully prepared sermon on the lessons to be drawn from today’s Gospel passages is heard by roughly the same number of people as when she read it through at home.

Outside in the sunshine there are thousands of people of all ages and states of fitness all turning the pedals and counting the passing miles. For many of them the road is one which will lead them to a longer and healthier life. 

While they are busy prolonging this life, those trying to settle their place in the next life are being outnumbered a thousand to one. Perhaps that is a measure of the task the church faces to win back the multitudes. I’m not sure how you’d ever redress the balance. More bicycle racks perhaps.

It’s  a very small service and, at well under forty minutes, it’s also one of the shortest I’ve attended. Suddenly I’m back out in the bluebells and, with the road closures blissfully lifted, I have a relatively clear route home.

25. Gurdwara Sahib, Leamington. May 5, 2019

Build it big. If you had to sum up the appearance of the Gurdwara Sahib on the southern edge of Leamington it would, perhaps, be in those three words. This is a huge building. High, wide and undeniably solid. Beautifully designed and constructed and set in its own acreage of rolling car park. This really is faith done large.

As a member of the local press I remember this temple being planned, built and opened. I also remember the building of the sprawling out-of-town development it sits in - a collection of truly nondescript retail units, family eateries, roundabouts and a bowling alley. All of which makes the objections to this startlingly beautiful, skyline enhancing temple all the more daft. 

You can see this building from miles around. I often catch sight of it when walking the slopes of Leek Wootton golf course the other side of Warwick. It’s a huge statement. But it’s not a statement of threat or intent; it’s one of pride and welcome. And it’s here to stay. How long will it be, I wonder, before we no longer talk about ‘that huge temple down by Sainsbury’s’ but ‘that supermarket just opposite the beautiful Gurdwara’.

As in so many walks of life, size isn’t everything. It’s what you make of that capacity. I’ve been in many cathedrals down the years when the towering vaulted interior has provided a cavernous backdrop to fewer than a dozen people. Many’s the time too I’ve been in vast football grounds only a fraction full, or sat on my own in a whole stand watching county cricket. And as for theatres - I’ve witnessed audiences in single figures. Sadly, it must be admitted, often from the stage.

The building can be as impressive as you like, but if the people don’t come, the open spaces and imposing architecture can hang very heavy indeed. Not so here. I began to get a suspicion that I wouldn’t be alone when, still a way short of the temple’s huge car park, I was firmly invited to leave the car on a grass verge and walk the rest of the way. 

Inside, the place is packed and buzzing. As well as the normal Sunday morning gathering in the main hall, today sees the handing over of power to the temple’s new committee, bringing in even more to discover who will be in charge of what in the coming months. Oh, and there’s a also a full-scale wedding with a host of beautifully turned out guests going on. It’s testimony to the size of the place that the wedding carries on without any crossover of noise or people. I can’t think of many places that can boast that capacity.

The main hall is large and is filling up. A central aisle divides the men’s carpeted area from the women’s. Ours is a fine display of beards and head-coverings (obligatory inside), theirs a riot of fabulous colours. Nobody does colour quite like India. It is a literally a brilliant sight. There’s a bench along the back wall - the only alternative to sitting on the floor - but it’s already shoulder to shoulder. As are the spaces round the edge where you could sneakily lean back against the wall. I truly take my hat off to anyone over the age of eight who can sit cross-legged in apparent serenity for hour after hour. Ever since the days of school assemblies I’ve always found it absolute torture and I’m aware of having to shuffle about sticking out an arm in an attempt to stay upright and stave off the pain. Enlightenment may follow suffering, perhaps; I just wish I could suffer in more comfort.

Over the course of an hour or so, every space is taken up. There’s an odd informality to the morning as people come and go. We all approach the front and respect the holy book with a bow before taking a place on the carpet. The readings are observed and responses made but there’s little involvement required other than listening. The readings and the examination of their meaning and interpretation that follows then give way to the business of announcing committee names and roles. It’s a seamless transition from the holy to the secular and underlines that this is a community not just a congregation.

It’s a community in the wider sense too. As part of the proceedings a party from Myton Hospice steps up to receive a generous cheque raised by the Sikhs. I’m not the only non-Sikh here this morning. My guide is keen to point out that the Gurdwara also numbers Hindus and Muslims among those who regularly attend. I feel welcome throughout. Perhaps it’s just recognising a fellow back-sufferer but there are smiling invitations for me to shoehorn myself into the already sardine-like bench at the back. And no end of smiles accompanied by prayer hands and a bow. 

After the committee business we get music - always a bonus for me. Three musicians provide a very traditional soundtrack as - having observed closely what others do - I join a succession of people placing an offering by the band, and an offering and bow before the Guru Granth Sahib and then heading out to be offered food in the form of a warm sweet piece of karah prasad as I go. 

As a postscript, as I head home through the roundabouts and drive-thru burger joints I pause at some pedestrian lights to let a group of senior Sikh ladies cross. Catching eyes for a moment I try out a version of the nod and prayer hands greeting and I’m rewarded with three beaming smiles and laughter. It could be that I’ve struck an interfaith chord, but as I discover when prowling the salad shelves at Morrisons later, it probably has more to do with me forgetting to remove the bright orange head-covering I’ve accidentally wandered off with. A buffoon is clearly a buffoon in any religion.

24. Holy Trinity, Stratford. April 28, 2019

This Shakespeare Service is part of Stratford’s wider annual celebrations of the Bard’s life and works. Shakespeare is (obviously) big business to the town and Holy Trinity, being his resting place, has a big role to play. Like the dramatic works it celebrates, this April fixture has a fine cast of characters, a splendid setting and a well-rehearsed script.

It’s a morning of civic pomp. The roads around are blocked off and a procession featuring, among others, the Mayor, the town council, the services, the scouts, the MP, other Shakespeare organisations and so on, makes its way from the town to reserved seats in the nave of this magnificent church. Many years ago, as a member of the local press, I used to take part in this tradition and if I had to pick a quintessential Stratford moment it might well be this. It’s church attendance performed as a demonstration of civic status and, as befits such an occasion, there are plenty of hats.

Holy Trinity is a church which lives up to its importance on this very public stage. It looks fabulous, enjoys a perfect setting on the river and boasts many fine bits of history on top of the oft-photographed memorial which today has him holding the ceremonial quill.

The church is full, once the full length of the procession has been directed where to sit, and the singing is full-bodied. The theme for the morning is the nature of mercy. We get top class readings from RSC actors and directors together with some fine musical moments. We also hear the Shakespeare Sermon from The Revd Canon Dr Jessica Martin whose credentials (let alone her titles) from Ely Cathedral and the English literature department at Trinity College make her words on mercy most interesting.

But what strikes me is not just the word ‘mercy’ but the nature of language itself and the power that words hold, particularly in this setting. 

Some of the words Shakespeare wrote are as clear to us today as when they first slid from that quill onto the page. But not all of them. Some represent ideas we now find abhorrent or tough to grasp. Many of the plays contain aspects which actors and audience alike would label difficult. And with only the bald, unadorned words to go on, there’s not a lot of help for those searching for the truth behind the words. Pretty much the same could be said of the Bible and the words of the liturgy we’re encountering again today.

Scholars of both books have spent many a fat volume of their own trying to tease out nuances in the endless search for the true meaning of the text. But, as anyone who has actually spent time pondering what ‘Brexit means Brexit’ actually means, would attest, meaning is a terribly hard thing to pin down with anything like complete accuracy. Words change their meaning over time and represent vastly different things to different people. Definitive definitions, it would seem, are often very hard to define.

The truth is that the bible - and I’d probably say the same for any holy book - shares with the plays of Shakespeare an ability to be interpreted and understood differently by different people over different generations. And it’s precisely there that the enduring strength of both works lies. 

Write a text with an exact explicit meaning and it will probably end up rooted in its moment and, as time and opinion move on, become ever more dated and irrelevant. It’s precisely because we CAN find mysteries and ambiguities in great books that they continue to speak to us and will always reflect our interpretation of them.

Some of those reading extracts from the plays during this service are currently to be seen in a production of The Taming of the Shrew which swaps genders to provide a fresh perspective of the age old battle of gender politics. It seems to have been a worthwhile exercise if the comments I’ve heard are representative.

I wonder then what the actors made of the service’s opening call from the KES head girl to ‘let us now praise famous men’. Perhaps it’s enough to note that Shakespeare’s old boys’ school now HAS a head girl at all; perhaps it’s a lesson that language can be just as powerful by its omissions as by what it says.

23. St Stanislawa Kostka, Coventry. April 21, 2019

There must be a point at which an exiled mission abroad becomes an established church in its host country. It might be to do with numbers attending; it could be to do with finding a permanent base at which to meet. It’s a point which has certainly been reached when the numbers attending pack out the beautifully dedicated church to overflowing.

The Catholic church of St Stanislawa Kostka is just off the city centre and caters for the city’s growing Polish community. Interestingly it is only a stone’s throw away from the Gurdwara Guru Nanak Parkash and the Shree Krishna Temple. A two minute stroll would get you to the Spiritualist Church or the Jamia Mosque. And there are plenty of others close by. Not a bad choice really - I’m surprised the city council hasn’t started marketing the area as Coventry’s multi-faith quarter. It’s probably only a matter of time.

It should be noted that, far from being new arrivals, these places of worship and the burgeoning communities they represent have been in the city a long time. They are well-established and clearly very popular. They are part of a very diverse cultural complexion which should, you’d think and hope, be a useful force in countering the violence and knife crime which blights these modern days. 

St Stanislawa’s really is packed this morning. The pews are shoulder to shoulder and there are people crowded in at the back and down the aisles. It being a glorious morning, the doors are open and there are even people peering in from outside. There’s a few up for baptism as part of this first mass and most are looking suitably smart for the occasion. It’s a lovely setting. A fine mix of modern light and colour with some traditional fittings included. There’s a similar mixture in the music too. The songs are led by acoustic guitar and percussion with a more traditional organ accompaniment coming in when called for.

From first to last there’s not a word in English, as you’d expect. Does that matter? Having been to a few masses in my time I don’t find it too hard to keep track of where we are in the normal course of things. The responses and songs all have a pleasingly Eastern tonality to them but much is the same. 

Not that it would make a difference if every word were in English such is the non-stop background babble of chatter - mainly, though not exclusively, from children. I’m convinced there are more children in this church than any I’ve been in. That bodes well for a lively, if noisy, church in years to come. I’m not complaining however. This whole service has a genuine feeling of family and community about it. It’s as if all those not directly involved in the baptisms have just come along to watch. There are times when the whole congregation suddenly responds in unison and I’m genuinely surprised to find they were all listening.

The service over, there are families grouping together for pictures to remember baptisms. This community strikes you as very together and very tight. Not excluding others (I felt entirely welcome) but celebrating what they share. I can’t help but think this is what it will be like back at the family home enjoying another very Polish Easter.

Wesolych Swiat Wielkanocnych as I believe they say.

22. Dawn Eucharist, Coventry Cathedral. April 21, 2019

Perhaps it’s Easter, perhaps it’s the very early start, perhaps it’s just the fact you can drive into the city centre without seeing another car and take your pick from any number of parking spaces - but there’s something rather special about this dawn service. And it’s a feeling which is sustained all morning.

The gathering starts in the old cathedral ruins. Lit only by a flaming brazier there is a brief service celebrating the creation of light and all it stands for. 

The appearance of this light picks up the symbolic extinguishing of light at the Maundy Thursday service which ends in complete darkness. It’s an arresting sight as the first hint of daylight creeps through the windows of the old cathedral.

Easter is, it’s somewhat obvious to say, a big event in the Christian calendar. The biggest really. And this is a big service. As well as two people who have taken the decision to get baptised on this day, there are a number of others being confirmed in the faith, some young some not so young. 

As the light begins to build through the cathedral’s wonderful stained glass and plain screen Easter is proclaimed accompanied by full-throttle organ music, fevered peace bell ringing and - despite the early hour - party poppers sounding like starting pistols in the echoing acoustics. It’s an unrestrained moment of joy and sets the tone for much of what is to come. 

The focus moves to the slightly incongruous plunge pool where the full immersion of those being baptised is carried out by the Bishop. No danger of a dipped finger on the forehead here as the two taking part are laid back under the water and then raised back to their feet with much acclamation and applause. It’s an experience neither of them will ever forget, which is as it should be.

There’s a huge feeling of joy about this service. There are lots of smiles not just from those being welcomed to the faith but from the whole cathedral team. After the dark reality of Good Friday it’s the new life, new dawn the whole church is built upon. And it’s enough to send you back out into the still early Easter morning with a spring in your step.

Outside I pause, along with quite a few, to view and take pictures of the Knife Angel. This imposing metal figure of an angel holding out empty hands is constructed in the main from thousands of knives surrendered to police in the fight against knife crime. It stands, temporarily, next to the cathedral’s own celebrated sculpture of St Michael subduing the Devil with a very sharp-looking spear in his hand. Many people have come to see the Knife Angel and left tributes to people they’ve lost through this current wave of senseless violence. There are pictures, ribbons, messages and so on. It’s very moving.

I pause to wonder how much those bereaved in such circumstances would love to be able to vanquish death and bring back their loved ones. Or to believe with certainty that they will all meet up somewhere in the future. This is the comfort the church is offering through the story of the resurrection and all it means and Easter is the embodiment of that.