Church eh?

Whilst the Bishop Dean and his Chapter have been fretting their pretty little heads at St Paul's Cathedral over some minor infraction of local authority by-laws, a mile or two to the east, the parish church of St John on Bethnal Green have tonight been demonstrating what civil disorder is really about.

In a bloody cold church, and with chattering bar staff to distract us, a woefully small, but dedicated audience, watched "The Battle of Algiers'.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2000/jul/20/artsfeatures

A film made in 1966, directed by Gillo Pontecorvo, and the winner of more awards I can be bothered to list here, it tells the tale, with brutal honesty, of the uprising in Algiers in the early 1950's.

This post is not a film review. If you want to see it then beg and plead with St John on Bethnal Green to show it again. It will reward your persistance.

The purpose of this post is to say:

Whatever the dipsticks down the road at the Cathedral are doing, the church in their shadow is alive and well. It blesses, supports, and stands alongside, the angry, the pissed off, and, indeed The Cross.

I hold no brief for St John on Bethnal Green (a liberation I'm learning to rejoice in ) but I commend them to you. They are working for the Kingdom.