Shop Window, Flagship, Common Ground

Judith A. Muskett

Description

‘Shop-window, flagship, common ground’ views the rich ministry and innovative mission of cathedrals through the novel lens of metaphor; and it offers comparative insights on cathedrals and cathedral-like churches.

Informations

• Publié par: Hymns Ancient & Modern
• Date de parution: 30 novembre 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780334058434
• Langue: English

Extrait

© Judith A. Muskett 2019
Published in 2019 by SCM Press
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978 0 334 05841 0
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Contents
Preface
Acknowledgements
Foreword by Grace Davie
Part 1 Introduction
1 Cathedral Studies and Greater Churches
2 Metaphor
3 Metaphors in Cathedral Studies
Part 2 Interpreting Popular Metaphors
4 Shop-Windows of the Church of England
5 Flagship, Beacon, and Magnet
6 Sacred Space, Common Ground
Part 3 Metaphors Stimulating Research
7 Shop-Windows and Vicarious Religion
8 Flagships in a Sea of Unbelief
9 A Greater Church as Sacred Space, Common Ground
Part 4 Cathedral Thinking
10 Cathedral: Adjective, Misnomer, Yardstick, Metaphor
11 Conclusion
Bibliography
Index of Names and Subjects

Preface
Metaphors are everywhere. They ‘beautify poems, they elevate political speeches, they help out the limping sermon’, and so on (Mangham and Overington, 1987, p. 11). Metaphor is commonly drawn on in the creation of meaning in religion (Charteris-Black, 2017). Metaphor creates such meaning by making connections, often from the known to the unknown. David Docherty suggested that ‘it is impossible to do religion without engaging the creative imagination in trying to explain the invisible from the visible means at your disposal’ (2001, p. 95); and Sallie McFague claimed that ‘we never create – as the tradition says God did – out of nothing, but use what we have, seeing it in a new way’ (1982, p. 35). In his acclaimed volume The Splash of Words: Believing in poetry , Mark Oakley asserted that ‘faith is nothing without metaphor’ (2016, p. xxiv).
The origins of this book lie in an article that I published in the journal Practical Theology , entitled ‘Mobilizing cathedral metaphors’ (Muskett, 2016). I had come across copious metaphors while reading widely about cathedrals for the collection Anglican Cathedrals in Modern Life , on which I collaborated with its editor, Leslie J. Francis (2015). Spotting metaphors almost became a form of entertainment. Each time one popped up, I asked myself: What does the writer mean by that? I wondered if the writers were always conscious of their metaphors. I wondered what light the metaphors shed on the significance of cathedrals in our changing religious world. Sometimes, I wondered if there were any unintended connotations.
At the same time, I was preparing to downsize to a smaller home. Sorting through bookshelves, I found the Penguin paperback The Annotated Alice , combining Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-glass . Recycle? Charity shop? Keep? It was, by then, a familiar routine. As I tried to decide between the different options, Lewis Carroll’s book fell open at the page where Humpty Dumpty scornfully says to Alice: ‘When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean − neither more nor less.’ On another page, Alice thoughtfully challenges Humpty for making the word ‘impenetrability’ mean far more than might be supposed, and Humpty replies, ‘When I make a word do a lot of work like that, I always pay it extra.’ The book of Alice’s adventures joined the ‘Keep’ pile and I began to ponder how Humpty Dumpty’s theory of meaning might illuminate cathedral metaphors.
With the arrival of a new incumbent, my parish church (a ‘Greater Church’) had adopted the strapline ‘sacred space, common ground’ for its development plans. Parish churches, as well as cathedrals, employ metaphors. What was this metaphor saying to us? I decided to apply some Humpty Dumpty philosophy to that four-word formula; and the framework for the article ‘Mobilizing cathedral metaphors’ presented itself. Like Alice, I stepped through the glass into the ‘Looking-glass room’ and noticed that the images there come ‘all alive’.
A literature search revealed that I was by no means the first author to adopt a whimsical perspective and introduce a journal article with Humpty Dumpty’s words: ‘When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean − neither more nor less.’ As Gillian Beer (2016) has remarked, the Alice books continue to spark ideas in a wide range of domains. Humpty Dumpty’s ‘When I use a word . . .’ occurs in articles in various academic fields (sciences, including medical sciences, as well as humanities). The notion of paying a word extra for doing a lot of work is less common. However, I discovered that it was mentioned by David Ritchie in his reflections on metaphor:
Words can be made to do a lot of work, and carry a lot of meanings. Some of the tools for putting them to work include using metaphors, storytelling and wordplay. As Humpty Dumpty suggests, we can get a lot more work out of a metaphor vehicle if we pay extra. In particular, we need to pay extra attention to contexts, and pay extra in processing effort. (2013, p. 201)
Humpty Dumpty’s theory of meaning is at odds with Dr Samuel Johnson’s perspective on metaphor that ‘it gives you two ideas for one’ (as cited by Richards, 1936, p. 93). Humpty Dumpty would not fill his trolley in a supermarket of words with ‘buy one get one free’ bargains. Rather, Humpty Dumpty’s theory pays due attention to the efforts of a word that does a lot of work. As Ritchie (2013) implied, the notion is eminently well suited to an exploration of metaphors.
I thank Nigel Rooms, Editor of Practical Theology , for warming to the Humpty Dumpty philosophy in ‘Mobilizing cathedral metaphors’; and I thank Leslie J. Francis, Editor of the journal Rural Theology , for publishing my subsequent narrative case study of a Christmas Tree Festival held at the ‘sacred space, common ground’ parish church (Muskett, 2017) − an article that was also inspired by Humpty Dumpty’s theory of meaning and Alice’s adventures. I concluded that Humpty Dumpty might well ‘pay extra’ to the words ‘sacred space, common ground’ on account of the amount of work they perform together as a thought-provoking metaphor that highlights rich opportunities for mission yet also draws attention to an inherent tension in the two faces of church/cathedral life. I thank Father Stuart Cradduck (rector of St Wulfram’s Church, Grantham) and the Revd Jacqueline Bell and the Revd James Robinson (assistant curates) for their kind help with the Rural Theology case study.
Shop-Window, Flagship, Common Ground not only brings together those two journal articles in accessible form, it also incorporates research that I carried out on the ‘shop window’ metaphor and Grace Davie’s (2007) notion of vicarious religion, research that Andrew Village and I carried out on the flagship metaphor, and also new analysis of a range of other contemporary and historical church and cathedral metaphors. Through the lens of metaphor, I hope to provoke a new look at the ministry and the increasingly innovative mission of cathedrals and greater churches in our changing religious world.
I thank Grace Davie for her encouragement of my work and, in particular, for writing the Foreword to Shop Window, Flagship, Common Ground . My thanks are due also to the colleagues who have helped me advance my ideas, especially Andrew Village (York St John University) and Leslie J. Francis (Warwick University). I thank Andrew for allowing me to base Chapter 7 on our joint article in the Journal of Contemporary Religion . I am grateful to Grace Davie and Martyn Percy for their helpful comments in the early stages of the preparation of this manuscript. I am indebted to my friend and former Oxford University colleague Richard Hughes, and also to Lorna Mackinder, Keith Mellor, Leslie Francis, Anthony Weale, Trevor Watson, Emma Eccles, Lis Ward, Mollie Kidd, Carole Mackinder, Sally Powell and Angela Payne, for their valuable research assistance during the project. For practical assistance with accessing a wide range of literature and other source material, I am greatly indebted to Clare McCluskey-Dean, Katherine Hughes and others at the York St John University Library: without their unfailing patience and resourcefulness, this project would not have come to fruition. I am also grateful to the University of Oxford for access to a wealth of online literature through the Bodleian Digital Library Systems and Services.
In addition, I express gratitude to Harriet Earle, Victoria Nesfield and Helen Newdick, to colleagues in Theology and Religious Studies within the School of Humanities, Religion and Philosophy at York St John University, and to staff of the Diocese of Truro for their general encouragement of my research. I am most grateful to Lynne Cameron (Open University) for her valuable comments on the early version of Chapter 2 about metaphor. I thank my friend and former Culham College Institute colleague Leslie Francis for his encouragement of the book and for valuable comments on all d