Rochester Cathedral said the golf course, which closed last Sunday, has helped improve general visitor numbers, with an 85 per cent increase in visitors since last year. “The response to the crazy golf has been amazing,” Reverend Nathan Ward said. “It was designed to engage local people, especially families, and welcome them into their community space.” Aside from his use of the flowery rhetoric tense I have a feeling that a goodly number of faithful christians may have a modicum of empathy for Micheal Feeney. I am not sure quite what the Reverend Nathan Ward was saying quoted here. I have never really thought of a Cathedral as being 'community space', unless he is suggesting that are forefathers should have built fewer cathedrals and more golf courses. I think I prefer to see Churches are 'thin places' where something of the wonder and the mystery of the eternal breaks through, and in catching the vision there we are better enabled to highlight God's presence in the world for others with whom we live our lives.
You can look at Rochester Cathedral from Google Maps. There's more than enough empty space next to it to accommodate a mini-golf course.
Definitely a Godly man, although I would call him a Confessor (having been the victim of libel in the press) rather than a Prophet.
I was simply quoting the Reverend Nathan Ward. I don't think that the data is bad, however neither am I confused - general visitor numbers clearly are a tourism business statistic - as against those numbers recorded in the Parish Register for attendance at divine worship. There is no doubt that these great building we have inherited from our forebears are capable of speaking to the soul of the visitor in witness to the gospel and the faith of those who have trod this path before. One of the reasons we tend the grass (outside), paint the wood, and keep our church buildings in good order and condition is that they might witness to the ongoing tradition of faith that continues to declare that what happens in this place (worship) matters. The truth is that this historic places are expensive to maintain, and the various people in attendance at worship are unlikely to be able to sustain that maintenance without some additional resources. The tourism dollar has helped sustain this income needed, while at the same time providing an opportunity of the witness to faith to proceed. It seems (to me at least) the installation of a mini golf course in the Cathedral is an example of secularising the sacred - and may indicate a confusion about the purpose of the building, which is not to attract tourist numbers or dollars, but as a proclamation of the presence of God in the ongoing life of this community. Faced with the expense of running these grand old buildings I think I understand why God told David he was happy in the tent Thus says the Lord: Are you the one to build me a house to live in? I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day, but I have been moving about in a tent and a tabernacle. Wherever I have moved about among all the people of Israel, did I ever speak a word with any of the tribal leaders of Israel, whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, saying, ‘Why have you not built me a house of cedar?’ 2 Samuel 7:5-7 Following the earthquake in Newcastle (NSW) the Cathedral repair bill came in at 43 million dollars. Since the earthquake in Christchurch New Zealand the Cathedral congregation now worships in a cardboard cathedral. These are some of the challenges of our own age. I however am not convinced that playing mini golf in sacred space needs to be part of the answer.
I am in favor of setting up a church... right in the middle of St Andrews golf course in Scotland.. right in the middle of their busiest golf game of the year....after all, its named after a patron saint and is thus clearly a holy place...
What hath golf and other trivialities to do with the holy liturgy and the divine services proper to the House of God?
What, wouldn't you like to play 9 holes while reciting the creeds and listening to the homily? Receive Eucharist on the 7th Hole?
For me is the first hole, unless I feel unusually good and the country club is otherwise empty, in which case it is the second hole, after I just barely manage to put a ball in the first hole with a score of ten over par, not counting those balls lost to the water hazard or the out-of-bounds.