Stockport's Pulpit

9am edit

Stockport Parish Church, about which I have already written, is an ancient place but subject to much nineteenth-century 'restoration'. Thankfully, the late Elizabethan pulpit has been preserved, dated 1598. It is, however, just a decoration and cannot be used; a nod to the church’s early-modern past, a relic of the Age of the Preacher.

Anglican churches began demoting their pulpits to something of a sideshow in the nineteenth century, again fussing upon the sacerdotal status of the altars as the Eucharist elbowed aside the sermon. Furthermore, even nonconformist churches can despise good preaching. People come to Salem Chapel and comment on the primacy of God’s word, but few of us would have been considered great preachers in any other time of church history. The nation's pulpits, podia and lecterns might look impressive, but there is a famine of God’s word, in the church and across the land.