St Blackpool's Church

St Peter’s Church at Blackpool, is a brash, red brick building, and well suited to the Blackpool cultural landscape. The Rev’d Tracey, who is to be contacted in the event of ‘baptisms, weddings and funerals’, is also responsible for another church up the road, Holy Trinity, a taller, more austere construction. On St Peter’s noticeboard is a rainbow Pride Flag, with the motto ALL ARE WELCOME HERE superimposed across it. This flag and memorandum of welcome is not found at the other church for which Rev’d Tracey is responsible, so perhaps the warmth varies from one place to another.

One of the problems of signalling virtue, offering token gestures and cheesy gimmicks is their failure to fulfil the purpose for which they were intended. Being welcoming is like being powerful; if you have to tell people you are, you aren’t (appropriate credit to Mrs Thatcher).

Whatever the sincerity and helpfulness of that Pride flag stuck to a church noticeboard, it tells me that I am not welcome. And if any at St Peter’s would message in and assure me otherwise, I would suggest that I would unlikely to be present to receive such a welcome. Christianity is counter-cultural, not conformist; it is about denying oneself and taking up a cross, not sanctioning, supporting and subsidising every lifestyle and world view. If your Christian faith is designed to impress a watching world and to receive its applause and adulation, be assured that the opposite reaction shall be observed in heaven.