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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Church Services in Fiction
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Galilit
Shipmate
# 16470
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Posted
Many of Michael Arditti's novels.
Five in particular are The Enemy of the Good, The Breath of Night, Pagan and her Parents, Easter and and The Celibate
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She who does Her Son's will in all things can rely on me to do Hers.
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
Most of these references to have been brief scenes.
The main part of the action in James Baldwin's Go Tell it on the Mountain is during an all night session at a New York Pentecostal store front church.
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
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Niminypiminy
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# 15489
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Posted
Just remembered another one - The Perpetual Curate by Margaret Oliphant, which concerns a non-beneficed clergyman who has come under the influence of the Oxford Movement, while his aunts, who are patrons of a living, are devout Evangelicals. Not only are there lots of church services but the plot turns on the theology of his Easter sermon. (Besides ecclesiology there is also a love interest.)
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
Sounds a must have.
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Bishops Finger:
Altogether, quite a sympathetic view of early 19th C Anglican worship, contrasting with Silas' experience of the whitewashed walls of 'the church in Lantern Yard', where believers' baptism only is practised, deacons rule, and the minister preaches 'unquestioned doctrine'.
I have the impression that the church in Lantern Yard was a Huguenot congregation. I think I recall references to a foreign language, and Marner could easily be a French name.
Moo
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See you later, alligator.
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by venbede:
Most of these references to have been brief scenes.
The main part of the action in James Baldwin's Go Tell it on the Mountain is during an all night session at a New York Pentecostal store front church.
Would you recommend this novel? I've had it in mind for a long time.
African American writing has a relatively large space, I think, for church scenes, since churchgoing is such a significant historical part of that culture; and there's plenty of material for dramatic conflict regarding the gap between church teachings and the way that many people live.
At the popular end of things there even seems to be a market for African American church-based romance novels.
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Bishops Finger
Shipmate
# 5430
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Posted
I can't find any references to a foreign language in Silas Marner, but Eliot does refer to 'phrases at once occult and familiar' when describing the church in Lantern Yard (Chapter II), which could possibly mean speaking in tongues.
Later, Eliot mentions the fact that Silas has only ever seen adults being baptised, so that the idea of 'christening' the foundling toddler Eppie is quite alien to him.
My guess is that Lantern Yard is a Strict and Particular Baptist chapel, but would glossolalia have been common at that time (around 1800)?
IJ
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Our words are giants when they do us an injury, and dwarfs when they do us a service. (Wilkie Collins)
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
Silas isn't French. They sound pretty English to me..
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by venbede:
Silas isn't French. They sound pretty English to me..
I didn't mean that Silas is sounds French; I meant that Marner did.
Moo
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See you later, alligator.
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Bishops Finger
Shipmate
# 5430
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Posted
Well, the Huguenots had been in England for some considerable time before 1800...
Without wising to labour the point, I'm not sure that George Eliot had any particular (sic) sect in mind. There were lots of them about at the time she wrote Silas Marner, and it must have been hard at times for outsiders to differentiate between the various little backstreet or village chapels.
IJ
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Our words are giants when they do us an injury, and dwarfs when they do us a service. (Wilkie Collins)
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Bishops Finger
Shipmate
# 5430
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Posted
Niminypiminy - thanks for the reference to Mrs. Oliphant's The Perpetual Curate , wot I av just this minnit bort off Mr. Ebay for less than 3 quid...
![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
(It's a used paperback, BTW - can't run to a First Edition just at the moment)
IJ
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Our words are giants when they do us an injury, and dwarfs when they do us a service. (Wilkie Collins)
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Pangolin Guerre
Shipmate
# 18686
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Posted
Why it stuck with me, God only knows, but when I was 12 we read Moonfleet in English class. There are church scenes, but the one that stayed with me describes an old woman in church, pretending to be literate (but holds the book incorrectly?).
At the mention of Robertson Davies, comes to mind the scene in Fifth Business, in which Boy Staunton, an ambitious businessman, not born an Anglican, is described as his knee just barely touching the floor before taking his pew, at St Paul's, Bloor St, establishing his parvenu status. St Paul's is LC.
There is a very strange brief funeral scene in Graham Greene's Dr Fisher of Geneva.
On the subject of Greene, his Monsignor Quixote has been on my mind all day, because, as I was returning from lunch, walking ahead of me was a businessman wearing purple socks. I have a call in to Opus Dei.
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Amanda B. Reckondwythe
Dressed for Church
# 5521
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Posted
No one has yet mentioned the "Marilyn Monroe Cathedral" scene in the movie version of The Who's Tommy, where a statue of Marilyn Monroe is a thinly disguised substitute for the Blessed Virgin.
Eric Clapton on guitar is the worship leader, who sings "Eyesight to the Blind" as sidesmen in Marilyn Monroe drag and masks direct the faithful up to the rail with a "You! C'm here!" gesture.
At the rail, people in wheelchairs touch the hem of Marilyn's dress ("If I could only touch the hem of his garment") and then are wheeled away by their caretakers to await the miracle cure.
Of course, when deaf, dumb and blind Tommy is led up, the statue comes crashing down to the ground when he touches it.
Also worthy of mention is the "coronation scene" in the war-ruined cathedral in the film King of Hearts, where the inmates of the local lunatic asylum all break out and assume their only-dreamed-of roles. As the "bishop" spouts fake Latin as he crowns the "king", the choir of "ladies of the night" sing a hymn and incense is laid on extra thick so that the German soldiers looking for the "king" can't see him behind all the smoke.
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"I take prayer too seriously to use it as an excuse for avoiding work and responsibility." -- The Revd Martin Luther King Jr.
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Bishops Finger
Shipmate
# 5430
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Posted
Yes indeed - it's Granny Tucker in Moonfleet, 'who knew not A from B, [but] made much ado in fumbling with her book, for she would have people think that she could read'.
Once again, the rather down-trodden Parson Glennie is portrayed with some sympathy and respect, perhaps because the author (John Meade Falkner 1858-1932) was himself the son of a country clergyman.
My, my - what an erudite and well-read lot we are!
On a slightly different note, Walter Macken's novel Sunset On The Window Panes describes an anticipated apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary in rural Ireland. The apparition fails to materialise - or does it? You have to read the book yourself to decide whether it actually does or not!
IJ
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Our words are giants when they do us an injury, and dwarfs when they do us a service. (Wilkie Collins)
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Bishops Finger
Shipmate
# 5430
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Posted
Dear me, Miss Amanda. I really think you need to take a course of reading Wholesome and Edifying books....
IJ
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Our words are giants when they do us an injury, and dwarfs when they do us a service. (Wilkie Collins)
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Pangolin Guerre
Shipmate
# 18686
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Posted
In film, George Carlin in Dogma.
Rowan Atkinson's priest with the speech impediment in Four Weddings and a Funeral.
Bishop Finger, have I lowered the tone?
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teddybear
Shipmate
# 7842
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Posted
So very happy to find this thread. I have been trying to remember the name of a book read when I was in my 20's. It was about the vicar or a small village church who was struggling with his bishop over having a tabernacle in the church. He was was well loved by his parishioners, even though they thought him odd. They would take turns showing up in church during the week, so the vicar was able to have daily celebration of the Eucharist. I think the book was written in maybe the 1930's? Between the wars any way. The author was a woman, who may or may not have converted to Catholicism at some point after the book was written? I don't think it was Sheila Kaye-Smith, but I could be wrong.
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Bishops Finger:
Yes indeed - it's Granny Tucker in Moonfleet, 'who knew not A from B, [but] made much ado in fumbling with her book, for she would have people think that she could read'.
Once again, the rather down-trodden Parson Glennie is portrayed with some sympathy and respect, perhaps because the author (John Meade Falkner 1858-1932) was himself the son of a country clergyman.
Falkner had a feel for the Church. He also wrote The Nebuly Coat , a novel about an architect who comes to restore an old church, and, of course, the poem After Trinity.
[ 03. February 2017, 05:03: Message edited by: Albertus ]
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
quote:
Originally posted by venbede:
The main part of the action in James Baldwin's Go Tell it on the Mountain
Would you recommend this novel? I've had it in mind for a long time.
I certainly would, although I have no intention of re-reading it for fun.
Although Baldwin rejected his religion and is highly critical of how some people use it, he is highly sympathetic and recognises how it can be a context for human love and bravery.
This also applies to his play The Amen Corner set in a similar church and at the London National Theatre in the last few years.
[ 03. February 2017, 07:26: Message edited by: venbede ]
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
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betjemaniac
Shipmate
# 17618
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Posted
To boost the film side of things, there's of course the excellent morning prayer on the beach in Dunkirk - Bernard Lee gets killed during the Lord's Prayer. One of the most moving scenes in cinema for me.
If you go back to pre WW2, Michael Powell's The Edge of the World, a docudrama based on the evacuation of St Kilda, is not only a beautiful use of celluloid, but also has a church service which must these days approach the level of historical document for how people did things in the far flung Scottish isles before the evacuations.
Re Svitlana's point about British nonconformist literature, I think it would be worth reading Mary Webb's novel Gone to Earth, the Powell and Pressburger film of which I mentioned back on page 1.
In addition, nonconformity runs (IMO) through the novels of RF Delderfield like a stick of rock, particularly the Horseman Riding By trilogy, one of the subplots of which is the struggle of the rural Devon nonconformist Liberals against the Tory establishment.
It also plays a part in Francis Brett Young's novels (sorry to bring him up again on here but sometimes I feel like a lone propagandist for a forgotten master), particularly off the top of my head in The Black Diamond which has some good chapel services.
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And is it true? For if it is....
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Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by betjemaniac:
To boost the film side of things, there's of course the excellent morning prayer on the beach in Dunkirk - Bernard Lee gets killed during the Lord's Prayer. One of the most moving scenes in cinema for me.
And the - shall we say? - irreverent Church Parade in "Oh, what a lovely war!"
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
I have, running through my head, an appalling chapel scene in an American film from the days when films were made with black casts for the black audience. It was called, I think "Chapel in the sky" and the plot was one I have seen in a Bollywood film - the pious mother continues to pray for her reprobate son until he comes back to the fold. The congregation was mostly female, and as many were what we would now called mixed race (from Sinclair Lewis' "It Can't Happen Here" I now learn they could have been as little as one sixteenth black to count as fully so) there were women who could slot into my family unnoticed. (Not that we have any record of any black people back as far as we have looked. I expect they are there, though.) And when the ex-drinker, gambler and womaniser turned up, they sang a song I cannot imagine the extras felt happy about.
"Little Black Sheep, come on home,
Wash that fleece much whiter than foam."
I know it's got the history and tradition behind it, but didn't anyone think?
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betjemaniac
Shipmate
# 17618
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
quote:
Originally posted by betjemaniac:
To boost the film side of things, there's of course the excellent morning prayer on the beach in Dunkirk - Bernard Lee gets killed during the Lord's Prayer. One of the most moving scenes in cinema for me.
And the - shall we say? - irreverent Church Parade in "Oh, what a lovely war!"
I do occasionally find myself resisting the urge to sing the "other" words to the Church's One Foundation....
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And is it true? For if it is....
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Hedgehog
Ship's Shortstop
# 14125
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
The congregation was mostly female, and as many were what we would now called mixed race (from Sinclair Lewis' "It Can't Happen Here" I now learn they could have been as little as one sixteenth black to count as fully so) there were women who could slot into my family unnoticed.
[tangent]If you thought one-sixteenth was bad, check out the"one-drop rule" that any "black blood" in a person made them black.
And then watch Show Boat (1936) in which that rule is given an interesting twist. The show boat arrives in a southern town and the sheriff is coming to arrest the two stars because he has heard that they are in an illegal interracial marriage because the wife had "black blood" in her. Before the sheriff gets there, the husband rushes to his wife, slices open her palm and sucks on the bleeding hand, just so that the ship captain can honestly swear that, to his own knowledge, the husband also "has black blood" in him and, therefore, it was not an illegal interracial marriage.[/tangent]
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"We must regain the conviction that we need one another, that we have a shared responsibility for others and the world, and that being good and decent are worth it."--Pope Francis, Laudato Si'
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Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
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Posted
There is a good Revival meeting in the play "Dark of the Moon". My son did it at school.
Also a scene in Carlisle Floyd’s opera "Susannah" which I saw a few years ago. It's rarely done in Briain but often performed in the USA.
Much more recently, there is a Georgian "society" service at New York's Trinity Church is Francis Spufford's "Golden Hill".
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
There's some fine revival meetings in Guys & Dolls but I don't feel they're very realistic. The original Damon Runyon stories were only loosely based upon reality, and the transition to the musical stage loosed the tie even more.
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Pangolin Guerre:
Why it stuck with me, God only knows, but when I was 12 we read Moonfleet in English class. There are church scenes, but the one that stayed with me describes an old woman in church, pretending to be literate (but holds the book incorrectly?).
I remember it well - but more so the sound of casks of contraband spiits bumping together in the crypt.
I went to school only a few miles from Fleet, where the book is set.
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My Jewish-positive lectionary blog is at http://recognisingjewishrootsinthelectionary.wordpress.com/
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by venbede:
I certainly would [recommend 'Go Tell it on the Mountain'], although I have no intention of re-reading it for fun.
Thanks for that. I'd imagined that it was probably very good, but not a barrel of fun.
In perhaps a similar vein, Alice Walker's 'The Colour Purple' also contains a church scene, in which a sinful women returns hoping for forgiveness. The film version is moving but I've forgotten what it's like in the book.
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Signaller
Shipmate
# 17495
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Posted
For a record of the old way of doing things, it would be hard to beat the Whit-Sunday service in 'Went the Day Well', when the Germans burst into the church during the 'Veni Creator Spiritus'.
The post-blitz service in 'Mrs Miniver', on the other hand, takes place in one of the least convincing sets ever mocked up.
Posts: 113 | From: Metroland | Registered: Jan 2013
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Fr Weber
Shipmate
# 13472
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe:
No one has yet mentioned the "Marilyn Monroe Cathedral" scene in the movie version of The Who's Tommy, where a statue of Marilyn Monroe is a thinly disguised substitute for the Blessed Virgin.
Eric Clapton on guitar is the worship leader, who sings "Eyesight to the Blind" as sidesmen in Marilyn Monroe drag and masks direct the faithful up to the rail with a "You! C'm here!" gesture.
At the rail, people in wheelchairs touch the hem of Marilyn's dress ("If I could only touch the hem of his garment") and then are wheeled away by their caretakers to await the miracle cure.
Of course, when deaf, dumb and blind Tommy is led up, the statue comes crashing down to the ground when he touches it.
You may have forgotten to mention the priest (played by Arthur Brown), who moves down the line distributing pills and a chalice (making extravagant cruciform blessing gestures all the while).
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"The Eucharist is not a play, and you're not Jesus."
--Sr Theresa Koernke, IHM
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
Mention of 'Went the Day Well' reminds me of this, although it's not exactly a church service.
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My beard is a testament to my masculinity and virility, and demonstrates that I am a real man. Trouble is, bits of quiche sometimes get caught in it.
Posts: 6498 | From: Y Sowth | Registered: Jan 2008
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Amanda B. Reckondwythe
Dressed for Church
# 5521
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Fr Weber:
You may have forgotten to mention the priest (played by Arthur Brown), who moves down the line distributing pills and a chalice (making extravagant cruciform blessing gestures all the while).
I did forget that, but your mentioning it has brought it back. It's been a long time since I last saw Tommy.
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"I take prayer too seriously to use it as an excuse for avoiding work and responsibility." -- The Revd Martin Luther King Jr.
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Spike
Mostly Harmless
# 36
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Posted
I don't know if anyone else has noticed this, but whenever a drama has a scene in a Welsh church or chapel, the congregation always seem to be singing Cwm Rhondda. Don't film or TV people think they sing anything else in Wales?
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"May you get to heaven before the devil knows you're dead" - Irish blessing
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
I suppose they want to have TV congregations singing something that viewers recognise; and in such cases, something that non-Welsh viewers recognise as Welsh.
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
The filmic form demands condensation and 'signalling' rather than accuracy. Have you ever noticed in movie funerals (Batman's parents, Spider-Man's Uncle Ben, etc.) how the rites seem to be Catholic? And always graveside. The priest is fully robed, and there's always hymnal music scored under. They're saying 'funeral, Bruce Wayne is very sad' rather than making any doctrinal statement.
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Fr Weber
Shipmate
# 13472
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Posted
There's an embarrassing moment in Twin Peaks at Laura Palmer's funeral, when the clergyman begins by saying "The Lord be with thee" (there is more than one person present).
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"The Eucharist is not a play, and you're not Jesus."
--Sr Theresa Koernke, IHM
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betjemaniac
Shipmate
# 17618
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Albertus:
Mention of 'Went the Day Well' reminds me of this, although it's not exactly a church service.
Borrowed quite a bit from WTDW IMO - as, indeed, did The Eagle has Landed.
Nasty (in a good way) little film is WTDW, with a great Graham Greene screenplay and fine direction by Alberto Cavalcanti.
Some bits just stay with you though. The church is one of them, but I can still see the scene where the lady of the manor picks up the grenade from the floor of the evacuees bedroom and walks out onto the landing with it... For a film starring Thora Hird, it doesn't pull any of its punches.
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And is it true? For if it is....
Posts: 1481 | From: behind the dreaming spires | Registered: Mar 2013
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Bishops Finger
Shipmate
# 5430
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Posted
Just popping in to say 'Thank you' to whoever recommended Mrs. Oliphant's The Perpetual Curate.
Mr. eBay kindly sent me a copy (appropriately, perhaps, one published by Virago Classics), and I am presently enjoying reading it - to the extent that I shall probably seek out the rest of Mrs. Oliphant's Chronicles of Carlingford.
Very readable, with a gentle touch, and by no means so prolix as Dickens or George Eliot can sometimes be.
IJ
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Our words are giants when they do us an injury, and dwarfs when they do us a service. (Wilkie Collins)
Posts: 10151 | From: Behind The Wheel Again! | Registered: Jan 2004
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
I found Mrs Oliphant's Hester fascinating, but a slower read than Dickens. Also Miss Majoribanks.
I've got Salem Chapel on order and looking forward to it. I couldn't find The Perpetual Curate on my favourite Abebooks but I have it in mind.
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
I daresay they're on Project Gutenberg -- looks like something I'll have to read after I work through all of Gaskell.
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georgiaboy
Shipmate
# 11294
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Posted
I dug out Crispin's Fen books last night to refresh my memories.
In 'Holy Disorders' there is a 'black mass' presided over by a Nazi sympathizer priest. Not a lot of details given, but the ones there seem accurate. Lots of action around Tolnbridge cathedral, but no services. Fave line of all: in a telegram Fen says 'Come down and play the cathedral services, someone is killing all the organists. Don't know why, the music isn't that bad.'
In 'The Case of the Gilded Fly' there is the remarkable Evensong in Judas (sic) Chapel, Oxford, in which the organist is murdered between the anthem and the retiring hymn, an important clue is the stops which the organist had left drawn.
Crispin (aka Bruce Montgomery) was a talented composer and IIRC an Oxford man, so there is great attention to musical details throughout the books.
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You can't retire from a calling.
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
I daresay they're on Project Gutenberg -- looks like something I'll have to read after I work through all of Gaskell.
She wrote c100 novels.
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
We must be thinking of different authors; I am thinking of Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell, author of Ruth, North and South, Wives and Daughters and so on. Wikipedia lists her with only 5 novels.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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Tree Bee
Ship's tiller girl
# 4033
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
We must be thinking of different authors; I am thinking of Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell, author of Ruth, North and South, Wives and Daughters and so on. Wikipedia lists her with only 5 novels.
Ten novels, a few NF and many collections of short stories listed by her in Fantastic Fiction.
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"Any fool can make something complicated. It takes a genius to make it simple."
— Woody Guthrie
http://saysaysay54.wordpress.com
Posts: 5257 | From: me to you. | Registered: Feb 2003
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Niminypiminy
Shipmate
# 15489
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Posted
Glad to hear The Perpetual Curate is finding new admirers.
Meanwhile I've remembered there's a church scene in To Kill a Mockingbird - the children go to Calpurnia's church. I don't remember much about it except that the psalm is given out line by line.
We've probably already mentioned the wonderful outdoor preaching scene in George Eliot's Adam Bede.
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Lives of the Saints: songs by The Unequal Struggle
http://www.theunequalstruggle.com/
Posts: 776 | From: Edge of the Fens | Registered: Feb 2010
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
We must be thinking of different authors; I am thinking of Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell, author of Ruth, North and South, Wives and Daughters and so on. Wikipedia lists her with only 5 novels.
I understory you to mean you would investigate Maraget Oliphant after you finished Elizabeth Gaskell. Mrs O did indeed write lots, but everything I've read by her is worthwhile.
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
Posts: 3201 | From: An historic market town nestling in the folds of Surrey's rolling North Downs, | Registered: Sep 2011
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Fr Weber
Shipmate
# 13472
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Posted
The classic Black Mass scene in literature is the one in Huysmans' La-Bas. It thoroughly creeped me out.
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"The Eucharist is not a play, and you're not Jesus."
--Sr Theresa Koernke, IHM
Posts: 2512 | From: Oakland, CA | Registered: Feb 2008
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