When I was horrible religious (3)

So there I was at aged 20, a pious Plymouth Brother preacher.

The “Peebs” had no ordained ministers, but they had full time workers who were missionaries, evangelists, or bible teachers. They were not salaried, and lived “by faith” as they would say, depending on monetary gifts from the faithful.

I decided to become a “full time evangelist” (big tents in my future!) and would therefore take myself to Bible College. For that I would need money, so I left my low pay job at the Westminster Bank to earn more money.

I took a job at a small manufacturing company by the Feeder Canal. The company made small metal components for the emerging and primitive electronics industry. My job was to collect the “swarf” (metal shavings) from under the lathes, and put them into huge centrifuges which would separate the metal from the lubricating oil. Soon I was promoted to inspect the components, using hand tools.

Then fate, or God, or my ego intervened. A “big time” evangelist Eric Hutchins decided to come to Bristol for a Billy Graham type crusade. I began to volunteer in the pre-crusade office, and mix with the “celebrities”.

The crusade came and left, and Mr. Hutchins invited me to join his “team”. Joy, oh joy.

He was to crusade in Bath (12 miles away) in about six months. I became the advance man, tootling around north Somerset and west Wiltshire on my motor scooter, and encouraging Priests and Ministers to support the crusade.

Even now it’s hard to think about this naïve, wet-behind-the ears, self confident young Plymouth Brother daring to encounter Oxford and Cambridge educated Priests. They were, almost without exception, gracious and hospitable.

One Priest in Chippenham told me that he certainly would not support the Crusade. I was a bit non-plussed so he reached for a “Billy Graham Crusade” hymn book. “Look”, he said, “all these hymns are about me, me, me, and my needs”. “I don’t want my congregation to attend a crusade which will be all about me, me, me.”

Another Priest asked me if I had read the recently published and controversial book by Bishop John A.T. Robinson “Honest to God”. I lied and said that I had, when in fact I’d simply read the reviews. We then had a discussion about the book, and I have never been sure if he saw through my bluff.

I visited a tiny Village near Radstock which had an Anglo-Catholic tradition. The Vicar was a sweet man, but our conversation revealed that we lived in different theological worlds. I liked him, and people pleaser as I was (am), I asked him to show me his Church and the Anglo-Catholic paraphernalia.

We walked across from the Vicarage, and entered through a side door. In the sacristy he showed me stoles, chasubles, incense pots and a monstrance. We walked into the Sanctuary and I spotted an inner wooden construction with two doors. “Oh” I said, “that must be the Confessional”. It wasn’t. It was the inner porch from the outside main door!

The time arrived for the Crusade. On the evening before “opening night”, the very Evangelical Rector of Bath Abbey offered a commissioning service. I joined “the help”, as we knelt at the Altar Rail with “the stars”. That Rector, Prebendary Geoffrey Lester, laid hands on each of us in prayer. Never before had I knelt at an Anglican Altar, and it “did something to me”, which would bear fruit much later.

My Sunday blog will be the sermon I plan to preach on Nov 4th at St. David’s, Englewood. On Monday I will go back to “further adventures with Eric Hutchins, and my downfall”.

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