Norwich Central Baptist Church

This photographic study juxtaposes the sleek horizontal lines of the foreground sports car with the background perpendicular architecture of a 13th century church setting up a pleasing contrast that evokes the mix of temporal and eternal duties of man’s life on Earth. The vaulting vertical stone tracery in the expansive windows of the mediaeval building signifies the striving Godward dimension of man’s life whereas the earth hugging lines of the motorised chariot are eloquent expression of thrusting Earthly purposes as the pilgrim on the road to heaven is challenged to do his utmost to stay in the outside lane to glory (1 Cor 9:24).

The very week after my last post reporting on the missing bust of Joseph Kinghorn, it suddenly reappears. The cover rumour for this reappearance is that Kinghorn reemerged to help host a minister’s fraternal. So it seems that the reputation of the good Rev Kinghorn hasn’t entirely dissipated and somebody somewhere decided that it would be a good idea for him to make the journey from some dusty cupboard back to his plinth in the Deacon’s room. I wonder if the church has a copy of “The Life and Works of Joseph Kinghorn” in its library? (Come to think of it, where is the NCBC library now-a-days?) The “Feelings versus Knowledge” dichotomy, such a common motif in contemporary Christianity, was also an issue in Kinghorn’s day. I wonder what his views on it were? – If indeed he expressed them – he seems to have spent some time challenging the “Unitarians” just down the road.