Fork's Forum

Along Priory Street in York, which is home to the city’s Baptist and United Reformed churches, is Q. This seems to be the latest incarnation of the Rock Church, a large Assemblies of God Pentecostal congregation which I visited about 15 years ago for its main, Saturday night gathering. Its focus was very much on dance and entertainment, its celebrity pastor famous for his trendy attire and designer shoes. My cousin was one of the dancers atop the large stage who clearly loved the place. The venue, once the town’s Wesleyan Methodist Chapel on this street of nonconformity, is now home to ‘Forum’. Forum is not a church, though it is somehow connected to Q which is somehow connected to the Rock Church which is somehow connected to Christianity. Forum maintains that it is based upon the old English coffee houses in which intelligent folk would meet over tea and coffee and discuss the pressing philosophical, political, theological and moral issues of the day. I rather like the sound of it, though I cannot see it as a substitute for church (‘doors open’ on Sunday mornings when Christians are – or might expect to be – in church). Hot coffee, convivial company, thoughtful enquiry: it all sounds so attractive. The Forum’s own site declares:

For those who aren’t familiar, The Enlightenment was a period in history that brought us out of The Dark Ages, dominated by religion and mysticism and into a time of reason & science, ultimately paving the way to liberty and the western values that we hold today. This was all occurring in coffee houses whereby people from all walks of life would be debating, questioning and exploring life in all its glory. My dad always used to say, “We aren’t here to teach you WHAT to think, but to teach you HOW to think.” I would say this embodies the sound of the Forum in a nutshell. We officially launched in October of 2024. (emphasis mine)

For all the organiser’s talk of intelligent conversation and informed debate, the above paragraph exposes an acute ignorance. From the Dark Ages straight to the eighteenth-century enlightenment? No mention here of the Reformation, of Bible influence, of spiritual light. In this timescale, the sixteenth- and seventeenth- century Reformations were still part of religious dark ages from which eighteenth-century rationalism delivered us. And for people who reject Jesus Christ and His gospel, this all sounds reasonable and agreeable. For those of us who are His disciples, Forum is just another expression of secularism, another religion-less church, another stage for man to show off his reason and exemplary nature. From Wesleyan Methodism, to Pentecostalism, to religious entertainment, to philosophical enquiries, the descent of this building is an instructive illustration of Britain’s spiritual decline. Perhaps it has a future incarnation as a mosque or supermarket. I love the idea of debate and enquiry, but not one framed in such a way as the Bible’s wonderful message is sidelined and ignored.

Let an ignorant voice of the Darkest Age have a word here:

“Reason is the Devil’s greatest whore; by nature and manner of being she is a noxious whore; she is a prostitute, the Devil’s appointed whore; whore eaten by scab and leprosy who ought to be trodden under foot and destroyed…”

How uneducated! How unreasonable! How philosophically naïve! How unsophisticated! Yet Doctor Luther, whom I quote, was made right with God by his Saviour, Jesus Christ. I would sooner be an ignoramus who knew God and the forgiveness of His grace than to be the wisest, slickest philosopher in York with the greatest questions on my lips but an absence of any answers in my heart.

Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.” John 8:12