St Luke’s Church, Stickney

St Luke’s at Stickney in Lincolnshire is a pleasant old church. It seems to be tall and airy, and its roof beams reminded me of a series of gigantic bikinis. There is a legend that the great Oliver Cromwell came here on his way to besiege Old Bolingbroke and dismissed the Rector and replaced him with the godlier-sounding Obadiah Howe, Mayor of Boston. This sounds a little unlikely, though I wished I had photographed the List of Ministers board to corroborate the names.

The floor of the bell tower has become something of a second-hand bookshop; the church’s open door policy allows locals and visitors to inspect what is on offer and acquire whatever takes their fancy. Having myself too many unread books and knowing my weakness for collecting, I refrained from perusing the tomes. Doubtless, some were Christian, but many others were secular. I see nothing wrong with this, and have no qualms about reading non-Christian literature. The Bible is the foundation of our faith and the basis of our world view. For having imbibed its doctrines and shared its assumptions, those other fields of inquiry, such as science, art, history and geography, all make better sense. Truly, the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, and other disciplines and genres stand stronger when the foundation is right.