St Martin in the Bullring

St Martin in the Bullring is a large Anglican parish church in the centre of Birmingham. I recall it being blackened by pollution the first time I saw it, but it has since been cleaned up, and it is the more handsome for it. Although Victorian, it has retained some of its previous incarnation’s medieval features, like a carved tomb belonging to the de Bermingham family, who developed the early manor into a thriving town. While awash with interesting curios and a busy, city centre location, it made some tolerably good attempts to share the gospel, unlike most of the parish church buildings at which I call. Similarly, the website, although twittering away about New Zero and other fashionable distractions, does have some gospel explanation.

It bespeaks the spiritual poverty of our day when I have to commend a church for deigning to share with visitors the Christian message. Modern Birmingham is worse than Ninevah in the sense of it being much larger than 120,000 persons, most of whom have never heard the real Christian message, much less accepted it. Yet no matter how feeble the churches and how pagan the people, the gracious God of heaven continues to draw people to Himself, even amidst the bullrings and cowsheds of our dirty, ignorant age.