Classic fm at Lichfield Cathedral

We hosted a tremendous event at the Cathedral on Thursday night -- though I suppose I would say that, wouldn't I? Actually, I wasn't sure about it beforehand; but in retrospect I'm convinced. It was really worthwhile.

It was the CLASSIC f M Christmas Concert, in association with John Lewis. That's to say (and I hope I've got this right!), it was a charity fund-raiser concert (raising funds for the Music Makers charity), organised, funded and broadcast by CLASSIC f M, sponsored by the John Lewis partnership, and (for the first time in the Midlands) hosted at Lichfield Cathedral.

'Carol Concerts' are a fairly new phenomenon. I have instinctive reservations about them. They are defined, I suspect, in opposition (or in contrast anyway) to 'Carol Services'. So they represent a secularising trend. It can feel as if they attempt to wrest Christmas free of its Christian moorings, and yet to keep those elements of a 'traditional' Christmas which at best resonate with our yearning for meaning, and at worst appeal to mere sentimentality.

But last night's event was moving and will work well on the radio, I think. We'll know on the night of Monday 21 December (at 9.00pm) when it will be broadcast (on CLASSIC f M, of course).

Maybe it was the sense that the performance was being recorded which gave the occasion an atmosphere of reverence. A cynic would say that that too is a sign of the times: it isn't the presence of the living God which evokes a sense of awe and wonder, but the presence of the microphone. And yet there was a sense of reverence -- and my impression is that, ultimately, it derived from the setting. The Cathedral somehow asserts itself on these occasions as a sacred space.

In truth, the event probably has to be a 'concert'. After all, it's not appropriate to charge people to come to an act of worship in the Cathedral. So if you're going to have a charity fund-raiser, with attendance ticketed (at prices which while, 'not knowingly undersold' were not bargain basement either), it's right to make it a concert. People expect to pay to attend concerts.

But (and this was my conclusion in the end) as a concert, it was a distinctly spiritual occasion. The 'programme' was led (extremely ably) by one of the CLASSIC f M requests team, Jamie Crick. It comprised a series of readings (two from the Bible, and two not -- all superbly read), with about eight choir items, all religious (mostly sung by our own Cathedral Choir, sounding terrific, conducted by Philip Scriven and accompanied by Martin Rawles; but also by 'Enchanted Voices' -- a group of female singers convened and conducted by Howard Goodall, composer of the 'Vicar of Dibley' theme-tune) and four 'congregational' carols. The mix was completed by the uplifting participation of 'Deco' (the Darwin Ensemble Chamber Orchestra), led by Alex Laing. The point is that however the event was billed, it felt to me throughout the evening, that we were more of a congregation (ie, at a service) than an audience (at a concert).

So it felt entirely appropriate when, at the end of the evening, the Dean stepped up to the microphone and pronounced a blessing. This may not make the broadcast. I believe 80 minutes of recording will be reduced to 60 minutes of broadcast and I won't be at all surprised if the blessing (like the Dean's helpful introduction) fails to make the cut. But 'live' it was entirely fitting.

And just by the way: behind the scenes (on site all day yesterday and in some cases most of the day before) the staff from both CLASSIC f M and John Lewis were exemplary in their cheerfulness and courteousness. The culture of the two organisations is impressive. There may be those who sneer at the polite middle-classness of it all; but if the individuals we met are typical of their employees, these firms are getting something important profoundly right. So thank you, CLASSIC f M and John Lewis. Please come again.

The Staffordshire Hoard

I was fortunate enough, this morning, to be among the first visitors at the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery to view a sample of pieces from the extraordinary treasure trove of Anglo-Saxon gold, news of which broke yesterday.

The national media has been full of this story today. On the 5th of July this year, a local man (Mr Herbert), using a £2.50 metal detector bought at a car-boot sale, struck gold on a friend's farm (Johnson's Farm near Burntwood). He'd been an amateur treasurer hunter for years, teased by his friends for chasing pennies. The find will turn him and the landowner into millionaires.

If, as is being reported today, their friendship has run into difficulties as a result, it will be no great surprise. Huge wealth, suddenly acquired, has a way of souring relationships. And yet, huge wealth, unexpectedly discovered, also remains a powerful metaphor for spiritual enlightenment. Mr Herbert's story calls to mind one of Jesus' parables. It's in Matthew's Gospel, chapter 13: 'The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field'.

After a few days, Mr Herbert reported the find to the proper authorities, who have now concluded a professional excavation of the site. They have been able to record the find and have conducted the kind of investigations which will enable scholars to interpret it -- the results of which are expected to transform our understanding of Anglo-Saxon England, and especially of the kingdom of Mercia (as this part of the world was known in the 7th-8th centuries). There's plenty which remains a mystery: who assembled the hoard and buried it and why?

In all, the hoard comprises more than 1500 pieces. Almost all are gold (about 5kg in all) or silver (about 2.5kg), and most appear to be parts of military equipment (sword-hilts and scabbards, and helmet clasps and checkplates etc), suggesting that this was war booty, probably taken from a battle involving royalty. Up close, the pieces (all of them small, some of them tiny) are spectacular: intricately decorated with celtic patterns and superbly crafted.

There are some Christian items: a few crosses (were they carried into battle as standards?), and a strip of gold (pictured) inscribed with some words from Psalm 68: 'Rise up O Lord, and may thy enemies be dispersed and those who hate thee be driven from thy face'. Presumably, some 7th century warrior carried that biblical text into battle, as a symbol of the support of the Christian God which he imagined himself to have.

For most Christians, it is acutely troubling that the God revealed by Jesus Christ to be a God of love has been pressed into service in this way, as a tribal-god in warfare. In the light of Jesus, there are many other verses in the Psalms which seem to speak much more fully of the nature of God: 'The Lord is gracious and merciful', for example, 'slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love'. That's Psalm 145.

For those of us in Lichfield, and perhaps especially for those of us associated with the Cathedral, the find is tremendously exciting. For one thing, Johnson's Farm is only 5 miles away. For another, the find seems to date from exactly the period which gave rise to our Cathedral. The indications are that the trove was buried in about 700. That's just the time the first Cathedral on this site was dedicated, as a place of hospitality to pilgrims visiting the shrine of St Chad -- who had died just a generation earlier in 672. The Cathedral has two great artefacts already, which date from about that time: the Chad Gospels (an illuminated manuscript only a little younger than the Lindisfarne Gospels and considerably older than the Book of Kells), and the Lichfield Angel (a limestone carving thought to be part of the original tombchest for the bones of St Chad, at his first shrine).

There must be some association between the Staffordshire Hoard and Lichfield Cathedral: the trove was buried within sight of the three spires. At the very least, we can expect some renewed interest in the decoration of our Gospel book and some further consolidation of the emerging consensus that Mercia was a centre of considerable wealth and culture during the 8th-9th centuries.

Happy Birthday, Sam

Today is an important day in Lichfield: we are marking the 300th anniversary of the birth of the city's most famous son, Samuel Johnson.

Johnson is best known for his compilation of the first truly comprehensive English Dictionary. It was published in 1755, after a decade of work. For each word, he offers an etymology (where the word comes from), a definition (what the word means) and then some examples of the use of the word in literature. It was an extraordinary achievement, and all the better for the flashes of humour to be found in it. To take only the most obvious examples: he defines oats, for example, as a cereal 'which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people'. A patron (he himself having had traumatic personal experience of patronage in the production of the dictionary) he suggests is 'commonly a wretch, who supports with insolence and is paid with flattery'. As for a 'lexicographer' (ie, a compiler of dictionaries) -- he describes him self-deprecatingly as 'a harmless drudge, that busies himself in tracing the original and detailing the signification of words'.

He was a devout Christian believer -- but one who (to judge from the tone of his prayers in particular) struggled with a profound sense of his own unworthiness. It doesn't sound as if he ever achieved much sense of assurance that he was accepted and loved by God. But his faith was nevertheless lively and sincere. Here is the very last of his recorded prayers:
Almighty and most merciful Father, grant that my hope and confidence may be in Jesu’s merits and thy mercy. Confirm my faith, stablish my hope, enlarge my charity, pardon my offences, and receive me at my death to everlasting happiness; for the sake of Jesus Christ. Amen

Our celebration of the anniversary began last Sunday, when BBC Radio 4's 'Sunday Worship' was broadcast live from Lichfield Cathedral -- an act of worship in which our Cathedral Chamber Choir sang a setting of that prayer, and in which my colleague Wealands Bell, the Canon Precentor, delivered a fine homily combining some glimpses into Johnson's life and faith with some reflections on the following day's feast of Holy Cross. A recording of the service is available for two more days on iPlayer at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qnds.

The celebrations continue this weekend. Tonight there is a 'son et lumiere' in the city Market Square, with images projected (I believe) onto the exterior walls of the Samuel Johnson Birthplace Museum. Tomorrow, in addition to the annual wreath laying and cake-cutting (also in the Market Place, at his statue) at midday, and the Johnson Dinner in the evening, there is a small commemoration at 3.30pm at Speakers' Corner, Lichfield: there will be a brief costume drama by Intimate Theatre, followed by some short speeches by (among others) the President of the Johnson Society. On Sunday, the Bishop of London will preach at a special evensong in the Cathedral at 3.30pm, in the presence of members of the Johnson Society.

Johnson had numerous character flaws, of which he himself was all too well aware. But a capacity to celebrate the good things in life was not one of them, and we will be attempting to do him justice this weekend!

The Lichfield Dash

'It's like Chariots of Fire' - that's the usual way to explain the Lichfield Dash.

Chariots of Fire was the 1981 film about the achievements at the 1924 Olympics of two remarkable men: Harold Abrahams, a Jew seeking to confront prejudice; and Eric Liddell, a committed Christian, running for the glory of God. In one particular scene, Abrahams attempts the Trinity Great Court Run: to run around the perimeter of the Great Court of Trinity College, Cambridge (a distance of 341 metres) in the 43 seconds it takes for the college clock to strike 12.

Well, the Lichfield Dash is some sort of equivalent. As it happens, the perimeter road around Lichfield Cathedral is a 430 metre circuit. So it's considerably longer than Trinity Great Court. But, as it happens, it also takes a bit longer for the clock of Lichfield Cathedral to chime 12 noon: almost 62 seconds in fact, which is just long enough for an elite athlete to get round.

So, each year in July, Lichfield Cathedral Close is given over to a foot-race. Actually, it's given over to a series of foot-races, the culmination of which is the Lichfield Dash itself at 12 noon. Earlier in the day there are age and gender differentiated races, some of them (for younger athletes) only cover the length of the Close. This year there was an innovation in the form of a cycle race.

The main event is usually won by a semi-professional male, who usually does manage to get round inside the time of the chime. But the highlight of this year's event was not the Dash itself, but the race which preceded it: the novelty relay. There were three teams: one representing Ansons (a firm of local solicitors); one (surely the favourites) representing the Lichfield Harriers (a running club); and a third, 'First Class Males', representing - you guessed it - Lichfield Cathedral. And the winners were - you guessed it - First Class Males.

Why 'First Class Males'? Because this time last year, the Post Office issued a set of stamps featuring images of some of Britain's finest Cathedrals. And the image selected for the first class stamp was an image of - you guessed it - Lichfield Cathedral. So we had some T-shirts printed up, complete with the image and the slogan 'First Class Male'.

So let's hear it for Lichfield Cathedral, a first class building; and for our first class relay team, the First Class Males.

Black Voices

Wow. Where to begin? I've just got home from a performance in Lichfield Cathedral by a female vocal quintet called Black Voices. Together with the specially trained Lichfield Chorus, they have given us an inspiring evening of Gospel Music, which ended in a standing ovation.

The first half of the programme was basically performed by the Chorus - a choir especially trained for the occasion, consisting almost entirely of white middle class people, aged (I guess) 7 to 70. We were told how hard many of them (including some experienced choral singers) had found it to work in the Gospel style - without written music, committing words and harmonies to memory, or improvising instinctively. It was a tribute to them that it no longer looked like hard work. It looked and sounded like a way of singing that came quite naturally. As one of the Black Voices herself put it, 'They even looked like they were enjoying it'!

But for me, the second half of the programme was even more moving. The Black Voices themselves performed a suite of Slave Songs (which is what we are now rightly encouraged to call the kind of songs which in a previous era we knew as Negro Spirituals). The sequence told a story.

The first song had no words. It was a setting of moans and hums, symbolising the way that slaves from West Africa, first captured and taken away from their tribal origins, might find themselves among people with whom they didn't even share a language, but did share a musical tradition which enabled them to communicate. I confess, I'd never really thought about the way that a single slave-ship might easily contain multiple language groups, and that occasionally slaves must have been separated from their communities and have found themselves utterly alone.

The next few songs were songs of lament and of loss, of anguish and grief and desolation - the sort of song you can easily image a person might sing, if they were wrenched away from home and family, from familiar routines and found themselves captive. I was reminded how many of the Psalms in the Bible are songs of lament, and how rare it is to find such things in church hymn books or in the repertoire of contemporary worship songs. We're good at praise these days, but much less at protest and complaint and at pouring out our sorrow to God. By and large, even in a recession, we don't know what exile feels like.

Ultimately, however, the cycle did indeed culminate in songs of praise. And there is something extraordinary about the human capacity, and maybe especially the Christian capacity, to rise above present circumstances, however disastrous and agonising they may be, and to find grounds for hope in the love and mercy of God. So the programme ended with songs of deliverance, the last of which was inevitably 'Oh happy day'. That's a song you have to sing from the inside, I suspect. At least, I can imagine that even a musician of great empathy might not get the most out of the song, without some inkling of what it means to know the forgiveness which Christians find in Christ Jesus: 'Oh happy day, when Jesus washed my sins away'.

It occured to me last night that really, fully to sing 'Oh happy day' or 'The Deliverer' from the inside it must be necessary to sing 'Nobody but me one' or 'Motherless child, long way from home' from the inside too. Fully to pour out your heart in praise to God, perhaps it's necessary to know what it is like to pour out your heart in sorrow too. Maybe truly authentic praise has that depth to it.

Lichfield Festival

I've just come home from an extraordinary performance in Lichfield Cathedral, of the Great Voices of Bulgaria: fabulous harmonies and extraordinary precision in ten female folk singers. It was a treat.

The first few items in the repertoire were explicitly religous - including a setting of the Lord's Prayer. But I found a sense of the presence of God as much in the apparently more secular items of the programme. There was just something in the intonation and collaboration which transported me to a sacred place.

It was one of those occasions when I marvel at the fact that I can access such beauty so readily. For me, it was a two-minute walk to get home at the end of the performance.

This, you see, is the ten days of the Lichfield Festival. What a wonderful opportunity. Over the next week, I am looking forward to performances by Black Voices (a wonderfully talented Gospel quintet from Birmingham), by Harry Christophers and the Sixteen, by the poet Michael Symmons Roberts and by the CBSO (City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra).

It is extraordinary to have all this on our doorstep. Today, for example, has been the Georgian Market. The Cathedral Close was - despite the wet weather - thronging with stalls and visitors. Many were in costume: in the past this has traditionally been the Medieval Market; but this year is the 300th year of the birth of Lichfield's most famous son, Samuel Johnson, so a change of emphasis was inevitable.

It is a great privilege for a Cathedral like ours to offer hospitality to so many people, looking for so many different experiences. There is a missionary challenge here that I don't yet feel we have got our heads around. Roll on 2010.

Calvin's 500th anniversary!

Yes! It must be an achievement of sorts: there was a letter in The Times yesterday, taking issue with something I have written. A badge of honour, surely?

There is a small and eccentric world, in which tomorrow is a big day: it's the 500th anniversary of the birth of John Calvin.

Last Saturday, I wrote a brief article for The Times, attempting to correct the exceptionally negative view most people have of this hero in the Christian tradition. It's online at http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6632482.ece. I admit, this is an unashamed piece of theological journalism - but most people accept such a caricature of Calvin that redressing the balance by emphasising his positive achievements seems like a worthwhile exercise to me.

However, I have provoked the ire of someone in Belfast - where presumably there are some pretty toxic associations with the name of Calvin. The letter is also online, and in the interests of fairness, I feel I ought to point you towards it: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/letters/article6661675.ece.

The issue is the extent to which Calvin may be, should be, regarded as a severe persecutor of heretics (and in particular how far he was responsible for the death by burning of Michael Servetus in 1553).

My critic quotes passages in Calvin's writings in which he rejoices gleefully in Servetus' death and takes personal credit for it. I don't dispute that there are ugly passages in Calvin's writings. From the point of view of the 21st century, it's hard to find a 16th century theologian in whose writings there are not ugly bits.

My argument is a) that Geneva was a relatively bloodless place in 16C Europe; b) that Servetus fled there after having already been condemned by a Roman Catholic court; c) that he was put to death by the secular authorities, and not by Calvin; and d) that Calvin intervened to request his sentence be commuted from death by burning to execution by the sword.

All this I stand by. Did Calvin believe heretics should be killed? Yes. Did he rejoice in the death of Servetus? Yes. Did he take pride in his own part in that process? Yes. Does this make him a villain? Not by the standards of the day. On the basis of their collusion in, even support for, the death of heretics by burning, you can't condemn Calvin as a bigot and then honour Elizabeth I, say, as 'Good Queen Bess'.

My stance is, that Calvin's theology is altogether more life-affirming, world-affirming and true to the grace of God than the contemporary caricature suggests, and I think the 500th anniversary of his birth is a date worth celebrating.

So, happy birthday John!