Two things that the church gets right, says Guardian columnist Simon Jenkins over at Comment Is Free, are architecture and unofficial welfare. Describing the apparently magnificent restoration of St. Martin-in-the-Fields at Trafalgar Square, Jenkins provides a singular portrait of the architectural anomaly of steeple-upon-portico that became, in the 18th century, the template for many a church to come. But more than that, he adds, are the features that are at once just as permanent and, as individuals, totally transient:
The church is resplendent and the crypt still a refuge for those who have faltered in the battle for urban survival. Yesterday the homeless, the addicted and the miserable were still dozing on the seats among the tourists.
Critics of the Church of England should give credit where it is due. Its house journal, the Church Times, may be filled with feuding bishops, gay rights, embryo conflicts and health-and-safety woes. But there are some things the church does well. One is architecture and the other is unofficial welfare.
Across Britain’s cities historic neighbourhoods are being demolished and civic institutions fleeing to the suburbs, to be replaced by shopping malls. The police station is gone, the primary school closed, the youth club defunct, the library and post office shut, their staffs unionised into apathy or regulated beyond financial viability. Yet the old church plods on. The sooty spire soars over the wilderness while round its base fusses the exhausted vicar.
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The network of rebuilt crypts beneath the church is a warren of activity. Here are a clinic, a chapel and even a small concert hall. The homeless and other lost souls find beds, showers, laundry, counselling and comfort. They find a surgery, pedicurist and help with alcoholism and mental illness. Given the proximity to Chinatown these services are also available in Chinese. St Martin’s offers a one-stop urban welfare state, at an annual cost of £4m.
Jenkins is no big fan of the Church of England, mind. But he’s happy to give credit where he sees it fit. You can read the whole thing, including the critical bits and the comments on what Jesus would have done with the £36m it cost to refurbish St. Martin-in-the-Fields in the first place, here.