St Oswald's, Oswestry

St Oswald’s Church in the Shropshire town of Oswestry was just about to close when I arrived, but the locker-upper graciously gave me a few minutes to run about and take some pictures. It is as old and interesting a church as a town such as Oswestry should warrant, and is dedicated to the same Northumbrian King and Christian martyr, Oswald, as the town itself.

The insides were rather dark, though spacious; the tower of the church struck me as particularly impressive. Its bulk and solidity seemed even greater than that enjoyed by Lancashire’s Ormskirk. Whatever the bloody episodes of the Anglo-Welsh border, Hitler’s bombs and the Cold War, I suspect that Oswestry’s tower was staunch and steadfast enough to withstand the lot. Those faithful buttresses, thick walls and deep foundations have served well the ancient edifice.

On one of the noticeboards was stuck an A4 poster advertising the church’s ‘inclusive’ credentials. This is contemporary code for re-writing its views of sexual identity and marriage, in contrast to traditional Anglican rubric and the plainest, most obvious meaning of scripture. Adroitly swinging its theological and ethical weathervane in order to blow in the direction of worldly winds, such statements offer greater danger to churches than bombs and persecutions. Truly, Oswald’s tower will crumble and decay as the foundations of Christianity are undermined and destabilised. Its rot spreads from within rather than without; the seeds of its destruction fell from its own flower.