St Pauls Cathedral: The Times holds The Rest Is History host Tom Holland to scrutiny for remarks on its use for concerts
The Times (14th September) has reported that St Pauls Cathedral plans to hold more all seated music concerts. The use of religious premises for concerts is hardly unknown.
It reports the view of Tom Holland, co-presenter of The Rest Is History podcast, and not someone noted for his progressive views. He comments that ‘a church that comprises a sense of itself as a sacred space does risk diminishing itself to the status of a landmark’.
The Times seeks other views. Diarmaid MacCulloch an Emeritus Professor of Church History at Oxford notes that when St Pauls was known as Paul’s Walk it was a ‘backdrop to anything Londoners felt like doing there’ and concludes that it’s a ‘fuss about nothing’. JG Davies in the Secular Use of Church buildings wrote that before the Great Fire of 1666 St Pauls ‘hosted eating and drinking, the selling of goods, meetings, legal proceedings, financial transaction, storage and games’.
It seems that whatever Tom Holland may think music at St Pauls is in line with the traditions of the place
Leave a comment