Are modern church practises compatible with tradition?

‘Devotees to Christ express their love in different ways, that much is certain’

This article featured in our December 2019 print issue, ‘The Communion Manifesto’, available here. If you would like to subscribe for future print issues, you can do so here.

Last year, I had the pleasure of attending the baptism of a friend at St. Luke’s in Birmingham. I had never attended an adult baptism before, nor been to one at a church near a university. It seemed a perfect opportunity to both support a fellow Christian and friend and also to learn more about the practices of his chosen church, which I had never before visited.

I donned a jacket, combed my hair and put on a tie, prepared for the ceremony ahead. Arriving at the church, I immediately felt different to how I would feel in church on any other occasion. An old industrial building repurposed for religious worship, with a Christian rock band taking sentry on the ‘stage’ that served as a pulpit and the vicar wearing skinny jeans and a t-shirt, it certainly contrasted with the hallowed stone structures and stained-glass windows of most traditional churches.

Starting the occasion off, the band offered a ballad of songs, with the lyrics displayed on an enormous screen above. It felt more Abba than Abide with Me, truth be told, and I got the feeling I might have overdone it with the tie.

Amid the excited waving of hands and dancing of the congregation, my friend (an atheist) confessed to the feeling that he was in a Louis Theroux documentary about cults. I, a Christian, conceded the same feeling.

After several songs, the young vicar (who I half-expected to be Tom Cruise or John Travolta) led the baptism service, arguing the importance of the baptism in the Christian faith and asking each of those being baptised (all of them adults) to express their reasons for doing so. With each touching response, the congregation’s warmth could be felt.

The vicar concluded the ceremony with a full immersion of the baptismal candidates in a pool, with each being met with the eruption of the congregation into joyous applause and each candidate now surrounded and embraced by the faithful members of the Church.

The service, while different to what I’m used to, had a beauty all its own in its energy and love and eased my earlier worries about having accidentally joined the Scientologists.

The vicar then offered a sermon to his congregation, sprinkled with pop culture references and one or two John Lennon quotes; yet it espoused as much Christian virtue as any other service, if perhaps not inspiring the same solemnity and feeling of connection to the divine.

He led us in prayer, inviting potential converts to the front to be welcomed as fellow believers, a comforting call to those among us seeking faith. The vicar then argued a passionate case for evangelism in the Church, of actively going out and spreading the teachings of Christ and in so doing enlarging the Christian family.

A brief break followed the sermon, during which the vicar asked that we talk to someone new and introduce ourselves. Kindly, a lady sat next to me introduced herself and told us of the church’s founding only some years ago. It was during this conversation I learned that this was in fact an Anglican church, a fact that would have forever escaped me had it not been told to me.

In my head I pondered the great differences between St. Luke’s and other, more long-established Anglican churches I had attended in my life, internally refusing to grasp that they were all part of the Church of England. I later consulted the archives (ahem, Google) to find that this was absolutely true.

The vicar then concluded the service and offered invitations to future events and upcoming carol services, before saying goodbye personally to any new faces at the congregation (myself included) and thanking them for their attendance.

Congratulating my newly baptised friend and wishing him all the best, I then said goodbye and took my leave.

Later that evening, I felt conflicted.

On the one hand, my initial objections to the approach of this church and my preference to more conventional services, but on the other a fondness, if not for the style but for the substance. I had seen a congregation of over 200 members, far larger than that of other churches I was used to, full of energy and excitement at the welcoming of a new member and all devoted to Christ.

Whilst I may have disapproved of the Christian rock in place of hymns, the community was there. Whilst I disapproved of the dancing and waving of hands I would normally associate with a pop concert, the belief was there. Whilst the vicar’s style was certainly modern and lacking in ceremony, the moral teachings in his sermon were there.

The beauty of traditional churches lay in their rituals that serve to uplift the service, the wise lessons of the experienced vicar encouraging solemn reflection among the congregation and in the warm knowledge that one has stepped closer to God and stood, if only briefly, in true communion with the divine.

I have no doubt the good people of the more modern St. Luke’s share in this feeling during their service, yet I regret that I could not say the same. Devotees to Christ express their love in different ways, that much is certain, and the knowledge that St. Luke’s is an Anglican church serves as a comfort that fundamentally, the foundations of our faith are the same.

I come away from this baptism at St. Luke’s optimistic for Christianity – if reserved and initially wary of the different approach – in the knowledge that despite the fact we may practice differently, we all stand as one in stepping closer to Christ.