RADIO 4 offered listeners a brace of Easter-morning observances. The usual Sunday Worship slot at 8.10 a.m. was extended by ten minutes for a live eucharist from Canterbury Cathedral, with as many of the usual trimmings as is possible to cram into 48 minutes, including the cathedral choir in all its glory singing hymns and Psalm 150. Matthew King’s Canterbury Missa Brevis — composed especially for this service — was a real gift.
The Most Revd Sarah Mullally’s first Easter sermon as Archbishop of Canterbury, therefore, had to be compressed into eight minutes. “God does not wait for the sun to rise to begin the work of saving the world” was a particularly impressive line, and a tonic against the Pelagianism that the media usually want to impose on the Church.
Other compromises forced by the demands of live broadcasting were handled well. Even the shortened statement of faith which replaced the Nicene Creed was orthodox and reverent, avoiding the limpness that too often bedevils such compositions.
Completely different in tone was the Sunrise Service at 6.35 a.m., pre-recorded at the Laudato Si’ Centre in Salford, complete with “10,000 Reasons”, by Matt Redman, and enthusiastic singing by the pupils of Christ the King RC Primary School, Manchester, and interview snippets with them.
This garden-centred service, complete with birds gently chirping, was an ecumenical affair, compèred by the Revd Grace Thomas, of the diocese of Manchester, with the green-themed “sermon slot” filled by the RC Bishop of Salford, the Rt Revd John Arnold, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference’s lead on environmental issues.
Yet, even this consciously modern act of worship closed with Westminster College Choir singing “Thine be the glory”. Something about the grandness of Christian claims about Easter tends to demand the feast’s more traditional and majestic cultural expressions.
Later on Easter Day, Private Passions (Radio 3) caught up with Francis Spufford, an author of both fiction and non-fiction (Books, 20 March), who happens to be married to the Dean of Chelmsford. He is probably best known for his polemical and sweary defence of the faith, Unapologetic (2012), written when the New Atheism was still at its zenith and he had been nervous about “outing” himself as a Christian.
At length, he discussed with Michael Berkeley both the book — “written without the commitment to niceness that so often stymies conversation about religion” — and his reconversion to Christianity.
Although he had been brought up by churchgoing, academic parents, the Zeitgeist swept him towards atheism as a teenager, before music, particularly Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto, brought him back to faith. Discussing classical music also seems to enable conversation that is emotionally vulnerable while remaining adult: Mr Spufford seemed to pour out a great deal of his inner self in this programme, testament also to Lord Berkeley’s skill as an interviewer.