There were giants in those days (2)

This flowering of culture occurred, to a significant extent, within and with the support of both churches. Bishop Bell was clearly a significant figure within Anglicanism in encouraging and supporting the arts, while the formation of the Guild of St Joseph and St Dominic as a religious community was stimulated by the Dominican Prior, Father Vincent McNabb.

Barbara Reynolds has described the way in which Eliot, in his essay ‘The Idea of a Christian Society’, visualised “the setting up of a Community of Christians, of clergy and laity, who shall speak with authority contesting heretical opinion and immoral legislation, individually and collectively setting themselves to form the conscience of the nation”. She has described how Sayers seized on this idea and used it as the basis of her book, Begin Here. This idea is not just representative of Sayers’ activity though, but also of Gill, Lewis and Eliot himself in the books, broadcasts and lectures that they produced throughout the war years.

Additionally, their groupings contributed to the formation of several support groups and communities for artistic Christians. Gill, of course, formed the Guild of St Joseph and St Dominic which continued until 1989. The Religious Drama Society grew from those involved in the Canterbury Festival beginning in 1930 with Bishop Bell as its President, while Sayers actively supported the formation by Dom Bernard Clements of the Guild of Catholic Writers.

All of these developments contributed to the optimism within the church and these groups regarding the possibility of revival. Gill, for example, had written that:

“there is a possibility that religion is about to spring up again in England. A religion so splendid and all embracing that the hierarchy to which it will give birth, uniting within itself the artist and the priest, will supplant and utterly destroy our present commercial government and our present commercial age”.

Given all this it is perhaps surprising to note the conclusion which both Wilson and Raine reach, that this flowering of culture was part of the last days for these churches. Wilson speaks of, “the last days before the final eclipse” of the Anglican Church and Raine of, “the last days of a triumphalist [Roman Catholic] church”. While “last days” may be an over-exaggeration, if we look at numbers alone their analysis is borne out. Michael Moynagh’s view, for example, is that church attendance in the UK has plummeted in the latter half of the twentieth-century:

“In 1979 5.4 million people in England attended church on an average Sunday. Ten years later that number had dropped to 4.7 million. Nine years later, in 1998, the total had collapsed to 3.7 million. A 13% decline over ten years was followed by a staggering 22% fall over nine years.”

Given the significance of these artists and the support they received from the churches, why this implication of failure? Why was their impact not greater? There are, of course, many cultural, organisational and sociological factors that would need to be part of a comprehensive answer to those questions. Many of which are broader and more significant that the artists under discussion here, but in the remainder of this series of blogs I wish to explore three factors that are closely connected with these artists in particular.

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James MacMillan - Seven Last Words From The Cross, Part 3.