St Mark's Church in Mayfair turned into a food hall

[successstories]

I was quite uncomfortable to see this former place of worship being turned into a food hall.

There was something disturbing about spaghetti and pizza being dished up in front of all the religious objects and imagery (which are very prominent, still in situ and pretty much intact)

Isn't there a Christian organisation that could have ensured this building was preserved for a more suitable use? If this had happened to a Synagogue or a Mosque for example, there would have been outrage.

AIBU?

All the people who feel these buildings should be preserved... do you regularly attend church, do you donate money to the church? If not please understand church isn't really about buildings it's about people and we need enough functional spaces to carry out our work not impractical expensive monuments to the past. If these can be put to other uses that's brilliant in my opinion. I work for the c of e

I'm curious now about when particular places started to be considered "sacred" within Christianity. Also things (at its peak with the fascination with relics in the middle ages). As far as I understand it, Judaism has only considered a few very special places/thing sacred in that way (the Temple, the Ark) so it must have been a later import, perhaps from classical paganism? Might have to do a bit of digging there! (Of course the things themselves, such as statues and paintings and stained glass, were made by artists who were in the main motivated more by money as religion...)

This thread has totally lost the plot, IYSWIM, why would any building be deemed more sacred just because some words have been said in it? What do think is going to happen if any religious building stops being used for that purpose and becomes something else? Would you rather it was completely demolished, and residential properties built on it? Where do you draw the line on what is OK? How do you feel about graveyards being moved ? Or gravestones/tombs removed or dismantled? All of those things constantly happen because the building is no longer needed, or a railway line needs to go through a churchyard, gravestones are regularly removed from the church where my ancestors repose, we live in more secular times which some of us think is the better option.

Aahh, but was there OUTRAGE OP?

Because of course the Christian religion is so persecuted in this country...

Churches that are not being used as a place of worship because they have lost their audience should be turned into other things.

some may be offended that others are profiteering from Christian culture and regard this as 'cultural appropriation'.

Running a business is not 'profiteering'. If it means that this nice building and it's artefacts, abandoned by the CofE, can be preserved at no cost to taxpayers, that's an absolute win-win. And it's certainly not 'cultural appropriation'; one of the major strands of U.K. culture derives from our history of Christianity over many centuries. Iirc Richard Dawkins has said he's 'culturally Christian'. We've still got an Established Church and bishops with automatic seats in the House of Lords ffs.

There's nothing inherently disrespectful about buying and selling and eating food. Far from it.

And if Gino D'Acampo's grandmother had wheels she would have been a bike.

It's not cultural appropriation unless they're styling it as some kind of christian style cafe or playing up to the religious aspect of the building in anyway. You've overreacted from minute one.

Your obsession with iconography/decoration/imagery in a church doesn't feel very COE/Protestant to me. Calvin & Zwingli would be most disapproving.

There's a Spoons near us that closed and is now being used as a Church, whilst multiple churches have been sold and converted into offices, private nurseries, gyms, temples/mosques, executive housing and knocked down for blocks of flats and road building since the 1960s. In DP's home village, there are two derelict churches and one that opens up once a month for instafriendly weddings or gigs. As the respective churches that once owned those buildings are the literal experts on whether it's sacrilegious or not (it's not. That's the entire point of deconsecration) to have a bypass or parking space for a Rangerover right on top of where thousands of people worshipped for decades-centuries, I think it's fairly safe to say that the OP is somewhat mistaken about what is appropriate use of the sites.

Proper old-school Christianity .....

@NightmareSlashDelightful “We’re not ‘aving it” is going to be my go to be my go to retort the next time I read the next spurious dog whistle or faux innocent thread on here. Thank you!

Old buildings cost a huge amount of money to look after, most church or other religious communities cannot afford to deal with it these days plus fewer people go to church. I'd rather old churches are used rather than knocked down and the history is lost. And I'm a Christian and don't see why a shop selling food is disrespectful.

I really hope the OP never finds out about the dissolution of the monasteries …

@FlorettaB good point - read and weep - I think in this instance Henry V111 had a point.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_the_monasteries

and the Bishop of Winchester running brothels on his patch probably to pay for the upkeep of the cathedral. Fair trade food seems fairly tame in comparison.

thetemplarknight.com/2012/09/09/the-winchester-geese-medieval-prostitution/

’and the Bishop of Winchester running brothels on his patch probably to pay for the upkeep of the cathedral’

Our local Unitarian church rents out the hall to Slimming World.

Unitarians shun idolatrous decorations but in an ecumenical, all roads lead to god sort of way. I saw a most moving play about a transgender Jesus at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2014 it was very moving and hats off to the Unitarians for hosting it. We could do with more of them in the world slim or otherwise.

www.theguardian.com/stage/theatreblog/2014/aug/07/edinburgh-festival-2014-gospel-according-to-jesus-domino-effect

One God and the oneness or unity of God.
The life and teachings of Jesus Christ constitute the exemplar model for living one's own life.
Reason, rational thought, science, and philosophy coexist with faith in God.
Humans have the ability to exercise free will in a responsible, constructive and ethical manner with the assistance of religion.
Human nature in its present condition is neither inherently corrupt nor depraved (see original Sin) but capable of both good and evil, as God intended.
No religion can claim an absolute monopoly on the Holy Spirit or theological truth.
Though the authors of the Bible were inspired by God, they were humans and therefore subject to human error.
The traditional doctrines of predestination, eternal damnation, and the vicarious sacrifice and satisfaction theories of the Atonement are invalid because they malign God's character and veil the true nature and mission of Jesus Chris

You haven't been there have you?

This is such hyperbolic nonsense. Its filled with people enjoying quiet cordial chat and something to eat.

The idea of a hypothetical noodle-strewn statue being 'horrific' with a sad face is very funny when you consider how many statues on the outsides of churches (well, those which survived or postdated puritan iconoclasm) are covered in birdshit.

I'm picturing someone carrying a ridiculously full bowl of noodles, slipping ona banana peel and covering a statue of the Virgin Mary in chow mein like in a cartoon.

Sounds like a great use of a church.

A church is its people not the building 🤷🏽‍♀️

I've just looked at the photos of it on Google Maps and it looks amazing! I'm glad they've kept the interior as it was and not just ripped it out and modernised it completely.

It's also made me hungry.