Letter for October 2024

Dear friends

Our nation needs backbone. It was one of the features of the British people through the 16th, 17th, 19th and 20th Centuries, and of the English before that: a bit of backbone.

Backbone is a picture of strength, where several different contributors line up together. And all of the links are vigorous and healthy. Each and every one. With no weak links. Together they provide backbone.

Our national backbone started to emerge under Alfred and Athelstan. They established for early England, a good system of laws and a clear Christian identity. This helped the nation through a period of civil war (Wessex v Danelaw) and a disruptive invasion (from Normandy). The backbone straightened itself at the time of King John, through the cooperation of Crown and Church and Barons, with helpful steps forward in representative rights and government through the Magna Carta.

From that time England, and then Great Britain, developed a backbone which often involved the best of Royal Family and Church and Legal System and Civil Service and Armed Forces and Parliament and then Education providers and Police and Emergency Services and Local Councils and Voluntary Organisations. When each of these institutions has served the country well and when they have all lined up in a similar direction, our nation has had impressive backbone.

In the last 30 years we may have slipped a disc! Several of those institutions, which together have provided such corporate strength, have perhaps lost their way. Too many weak links and the backbone becomes a strength-sapping problem rather than a strength.

We can’t right all of the wrongs of the world, but we can seek to build up the resilience of the institutions in our locality. At St Luke’s we are glad to welcome local Councillors and leaders of voluntary organisations to the Holmes Chapel Civic Service on Sunday 29th September. We are pleased to welcome Guiding Groups to Harvest Festival on Sunday 6th October. It is a privilege to welcome members of the Armed Services, Emergency Services and Uniformed Organisations to the Remembrance Service on 10th November.

It helps to line up together. It’s a reminder that together we can be the strong backbone which our country needs. We wish to build lively institutions which increase the wisdom, the vigour, the spiritual strength and the resilience of our whole community.

We know a lively, faithful church is part of a good backbone.

And we want to play our full part at St Luke’s.

Yours in Christ,

Rob