Melbourne Hall, Leicester

I walked a little out of my way to see Leicester’s Melbourne Hall. This is a large evangelical church in that city, once pastored by the great F.B. Meyer. Its style is peculiar; one might expect classical, but it seems to be a mixture of gothic and Byzantine. This church seems to look east for its architecture. Although this might not have been known to its builders, many who now live in that city came from the orient and one of its gospel signs includes languages other than English.

Christianity, especially nonconformist, evangelical Christianity, often looks very Western, or even British or American, but it isn’t. Biblical Christianity is eastern: it came from Judea, via Turkey, then Italy. The gospel of Jesus Christ is for all people, all tongues, all ethnicities. Well might an English church building from the heyday of evangelicalism be constructed in an exotic, ‘eastern’ style, but its message is not British or European, and not even just Hebraic, but heavenly.

After thy name, God, so thy praising is spread abroad into the ends of earth; thy right hand is full of rightwiseness. Psalm 48:10, Wycliffe's Bible

A  D