Bath Abbey provides lunchtime inspiration

24th June 2011

If you are bored with your daily lunchtime sandwich, you might like to try adding a little inspiration as an accompaniment. Bath Abbey may have the solution with its Summer Lunchtime Programme, which offers anyone from stressed shoppers to busy office workers, the chance to get away from the hustle and bustle and to broaden their horizons. All are welcome to attend, no tickets are required.

Taking place every weekday during July and August, from 1.10 to 1.50pm, the Abbey’s Summer Lunchtime Programme comprises a real mix: Mondays see the opportunity for some quiet reflection time in the heart of the city, while Tuesdays offer a musical treat - a different organ recital each week. On Wednesdays, there will be live Bible readings accompanied by music as part of worldwide celebrations of the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible, followed by Holy Communion on Thursdays. Audiences during Friday lunchtimes will be able to enjoy two separate series of lectures that will appeal to anyone interested in social or religious history.

The first set of talks which will kick off the Summer Lunchtime Programme on Friday 1 July are intriguingly titled, ‘Curious Christians: Victorian Religious Eccentrics’, and will be delivered by Dr Boyd Schlenther, the author of a number of books and articles on British religious and social history and who lives in Bath. Dr Schlentherwill be enthralling his audience with tales of four fascinating yet very different real-life characters, one on the first four Fridays of the month (July).

Dr Schlenther said: “Even though the colourful eccentricity of these‘Curious Christians’ ranged from the humorous to the outlandish, if we proceed on the basis that there is not, nor should there be, an ideal ‘identikit’ Christian, it is possible to find useful reflections of godly truth refracted from these seemingly shattered sources.While I did find it difficult to pick just four ‘Victorian Religious Eccentrics’ to focus on, the characters I have picked are superb examples to illustrate this point. These include Robert Hawker, a former vicar of one of England’s most remote parishes: Morwenstow, as well as a noted eccentric. Hawker was well-known not only for his fabulous views regarding a world teeming with devils, pixies and mermaids, but for his extravagant wardrobe, both in and out of public worship.

“Another remarkable character I’ve chosen as the subject of the last talk in my series is Frederick Rolfe, also known as Baron Corvo. He experienced an unrelenting and unsuccessful, life-long quest to become a Roman Catholic priest, and is perhaps most infamous for producing a novel, ‘Hadrian the Seventh’ in which he writes about himself becoming pope.”

On the last Friday of the month, 29 July, Dr Alan Garrow, Bath Abbey’s Vicar Theologian, begins a series of five lectures on ‘The Didache’. What is this mysterious early Christian text, and how does it relate to: the birth of the group called ‘Christians’, a lost piece of Scripture and the infamous document known as ‘Q’? A documentary outlining an earlier stage in Dr Garrow’s research was broadcast on BBC Radio 4.

The Summer Lunchtime Programme will be interrupted briefly over Mon 4 to Thu 7 July as the Abbey hosts Bath University’s summer graduations, and will recommence on Fri 8 July.

To find out more, please call the Bath Abbey Office on 01225 422462 or visit www.bathabbey.org