Union Chapel

In many respects, Union Chapel in Islington is a busy and active church. It is currently looking for a minister, and its info pack excitedly states:

Union Chapel describes itself as an open, progressive, liberal, inclusive church. Our congregation is diverse, welcoming, creative, and questioning. While relatively small, averaging 35 each Sunday, it is growing in both numbers and commitment. The church holds special services and events for Holocaust Memorial Day, Homelessness Sunday, LGBTQ+ Pride Month, Refugee Week, Black History Month, Trans Day of Remembrance, and Remembrance Sunday. 

The church looks huge from without, a veritable cathedral of nonconformity. It has reinvented itself as a concert venue, which presumably helps to pay the huge heating bills. On two separate occasions I contacted the church to ask to look around; last year, I was advised to come another time or on a Sunday (not possible in my work, nor likely on account of the paragraph above); this year, I phoned and emailed, but no one picked-up or replied. This struck me as odd for a church which employs a Social Justice and Community Outreach Worker, a Communications and Development Worker, a Musical Director, an Administrator, and an ESOL and Volunteer Coordinator. Still, who am I to talk when it comes to not replying to emails promptly... 

Instead, I repaired to the Evangelical Library in North London and found a number of published addresses which were preached at Union's ‘new’ building’s grand opening in 1877. Among them was the great London Baptist Charles Spurgeon and Birmingham Congregationalist leader R.W. Dale. On that great night, Dale said:

If God has not been mindful of our race, and is not mindful of it still- if He has not visited man in past ages, and if He does not continue to visit man in our own days- this building is the monument of a ruined hope, and the enduring memorial of a glorious but tragic delusion.

Readers may judge for themselves whether liberal Christianity is a monument of ruined hope, a tragic, but well-meaning, delusion. Spurgeon that night said:

“JESUS CHRIST Himself" is to occupy all our thoughts to-night. What an ocean opens. Here is sea-room for the largest barque! In which direction shall I turn your  thoughts? I am embarrassed with riches. I know not where to begin: and when I once begin where shall I end? Assuredly we need not go abroad for joys to-night, for we have a feast at home. The words are few, but the meaning vast-"Jesus Christ Himself."

Whatever our preoccupations, our local needs, our pet projects, may Jesus Himself and gospel of grace always be the very centre.

For if I preach the gospel, I have nothing to boast of, for necessity is laid upon me; yes, woe is me if I do not preach the gospel!

1 Corinthians 9:16