The Church of England

4.1 Introduction

In this chapter we consider two Church of England parishes, Holy Trinity Church, Brompton and All Souls Church, Langham Place.1 The aim of the chapter is to describe these churches and their social engagement activities in sufficient detail in order to understand the ‘what’ of their social engagement. We seek to address what exactly it is that they do and the narratives by means of which these activities are expressed and explained. We also seek to identify key themes that emerge, which will be picked up and reflected on later in this study. We begin our discussion with Holy Trinity Church, Brompton.

4.2 Description of Holy Trinity Church, Brompton

This section reports the findings of the three-month case study research un- dertaken at Holy Trinity Church, Brompton. The research consisted of a review of relevant literature, not least the church website, but also other writ- ten material that informs our understanding of the church context. Sermons were watched online and the daily ‘Bible in One Year’ was read for the duration of the case study. The study also entailed participant observation at church services, social engagement ministries, and other church activities, generating hundreds of pages of field notes. Interviews were conducted with more than twenty people, from church leaders, to ministry leaders, volunteers and those who participate in the various activities of the church. In addition, informal conversations were held with people involved in the church at all levels. This data has been drawn together in this chapter to chart our findings regarding the social engagement activities of the church.

1 Intensive fieldwork was conducted by Dunlop at the following times: htb, April–June, 2014; All Souls, September–December 2014. Most empirically-gathered material was obtained during these periods. Apart from the Senior Pastors of these churches, any names used are pseudonyms in order protect the privacy of participants.

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4.2.1 The Parish Holy Trinity Church, Brompton (hereafter ‘htb’) is located in South Kensing- ton, a wealthy area of London with museums, the Royal Albert Hall and Har- rods, the iconic upmarket department store. The church was started in 1829 by ‘a small number of people with a vision for God’s ministry in the area’,2 the building was funded by Parliament’s Commissioners for Building New Churches.3 htb proceeded to grow and serve the community as a typical parish church, although the parish itself grew to include two other Anglican churches. In 1865 an Assistant Minister (otherwise described as a ‘Curate’) left htb to start Anglo-Catholic style services, acquiring the funds needed to build St Augustine’s Church, Queen’s Gate on the edge of the parish in 1869.4 In the 1970s the parish merged with nearby St Paul’s Church, Onslow Square. Further details regarding the church buildings that currently comprise htb and host the eleven weekly worship services are detailed more fully in a subsequent Section 4.2.4 below.

4.2.2 History Andrew Walker observes that, although the spread of Pentecostalism in Britain was sectarian and largely working class, when the Charismatic Renewal grew within the Church of England and the British Roman Catholic church, it was essentially a middle-class movement and formed a ‘church’ within the Church.5 Indeed, this is precisely the picture we see at htb in South Kensington in terms of its charismatic tradition within the Church of England. Furthermore, it is impossible to understand the social action motivations of htb without an understanding of their place within the Charismatic movement. Having provided an outline of the emergence of the Charismatic Renewal movement in Chap- ter 1, we briefly describe htb’s relationship to this movement more specifically. In the late 1960s an Assistant Minister, Nicholas Rivett-Carnac, invited speakers Jean Darnell and Colin Urquhart to teach about the Holy Spirit, which was credited with laying the foundations for what happened later within the church.6 Anglican Charismatics had already taken on many of the forms and practices of the Charismatic Renewal, for example, David Watson had been

2 From a sermon by David Walker, (htb Assistant Minister), 14 September 2014. 3 Barbara Clapham and Catherine Tye, Holy Trinity Brompton Through the Generations (London: Holy Trinity Brompton, 2005), p. 5. 4 Clapham and Tye, Holy Trinity Brompton Through the Generations, p. 29. 5 Andrew Walker, ‘Charismatics on the March’, Journal of Contemporary Religion, 6.2 (1991), pp. 11–13. 6 Clapham and Tye, p. 38.