John Hester

A recent obituary in the Telegraph of Canon John Hester of Chichester Cathedral. He is of interest here on account of his involvement with drama and the theatre: he was from 1963 to 1975 senior chaplain of the Actors' Church Union, an intriguing and under-documented group who acted as chaplains and advocates on behalf of those in the theatrical business. Hester was at the same time rector of Soho, and thus on the doorstep of the West End theatres. (St Anne's Soho had previously had as a churchwarden one Dorothy L. Sayers, incidentally).
He also was connected with the Religious Drama Society (on which I've been doing a little work recently) editing their journal Christian Drama. His later connection with Chichester, and with the Chichester Festival Theatre, connects his story obliquely with another figure, Walter Hussey, former Dean, who was in close touch with the Festival Theatre in its early years (although their tenures at the cathedral did not overlap.)

Rob Warner on worship

I note some recent blog discussion of Rob Warner's recent book on Reinventing English Evangelicalism, 1966-2001, particularly his views on the changes in church music. It reflects significant reservations about much that has happened in the last twenty years.
I'm bound to draw attention here to Ian and my own forthcoming article on music and evangelical identity, and the relationship between charismatics and evangelicals in the Church of England to 1991, soon to appear in Mark Smith (ed.), British Evangelical Identities.

Further information on Warner, including further publications, and reviews of this book, at his web page at Lampeter.

Christian Pop

I wonder if anyone caught Paul Bayley's fascinating BBC Radio 4 documentary 'The Strange Parallel World of Christian Pop' on Tuesday 12th February? The title and the trailers made it sound as though this might be another example of the 'see how weird these religious people are' genre of programming, but in fact the programme was a well-researched and even-handed account of the development and motivations of early pop and beat groups formed by younger Christians of the 1960s and 1970s. Band members interviewed on the programme explained how their music was partly missionary in intent - designed to present the Christian message in a form accessible to a rising generation fed on the Mersey Beat, folk rock and psychedelic rock sounds of the early sixties to early seventies. However, the motivation was not purely evangelistic, but contained a more general desire to make religious music in the style of the kind of music they might usually listen to. This is significant, given that critics of the music (both religious and secular) have often tended to assume that the missionary motive predominates, making for a product which is less satisfying both musically and spiritually. In fact, Bayley (who discovered Christian pop through the rare vinyl collector's scene) argues that amidst the mass of average recordings there is some genuinely original material which is the equal of its 'secular' contemporaries (its continuing appeal demonstrated by the fact that some records are changing hands in the wider rare vinyl market for hundreds of pounds).

If anyone who was involved in the contemporary Christian music scene of the late fifties to early seventies reads this blog and would like to add their own thoughts, it would be very interesting to read them!

[Peter adds:] A short description of the programme is available on the Radio 4 website. Bayley is loans officer for Art and Christianity Enquiry

The death of the book review ?

As something of a footnote to the various posts on the difficulties of assessing artistic worth, a piece in Prospect by William Skidelsky on reviewing and the authority of the critic in a blogging culture. Particularly interesting is his discussion, picking up the historical work of Ronan McDonald (The death of the critic, 2007), on the disengagement of academic criticism from literary journalism.
See earlier posts: Culture counts and From measurement to judgment

Crusaders

I've just begun reading a new novel; Crusaders by Richard T. Kelly (Faber, 2008). I note it here as an interesting, if uncommon, example of a novel with a clergyman as a central character. One thinks immediately of the various priests and ex-priests in David Lodge, but the recent portrayals of Anglicans are I think few.

I shall reserve any comment on it until I've finished reading it. There are in the meantime some reviews available online: in the TLS, Times and Sunday Times, two of which cast doubt on the strength of the characterisation of the priest, John Gore; and a very negative Adam Mars-Jones in the Guardian.