Chester Diocese
News Item
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Diocesan church overcomes past golf controversy
ONCE controversial stained glass windows in a Wallasey church are being used to help publicise the Open Golf Championship that’s coming to The Wirral coast in July. The church of St Nicholas, which stands right next to Wallasey Golf Course, has a pair of windows that depict Christ ‘at leisure’, walking in cornfields, and (in a smaller panel) two golfers. The Golfing Windows, as they are known, were installed in the 1920s when golf was highly fashionable and growing in popularity. But the windows attracted criticism at the time because many Christians felt that golf on a Sunday was a distraction which kept people from attending church. Other critics were unhappy at sacred images of Christ being portrayed in the same window as mere golfers. They complained bitterly in the 1920s. In fact, the windows were intended as an attempt to reconcile such worries. They show Christ involved in various activities on the Jewish Sabbath – attending the Synagogue (religious duty); healing the sick (part of his mission on Earth); and walking in the cornfields (i.e. at leisure). The implications is that ordinary Christians, like the Lord, can combine their duties as Christians with leisure pursuits … in the modern age, golf. Now the windows have attracted interest from a US TV network and from Wirral Council, which is promoting the peninsula as a tourism and leisure destination. The Vicar of St Nicholas, The Revd Jeff Staples, said: “People who come to the Open are most welcome at our church. There is considerable interest in our Golfing Window, and certainly no controversy these days, particularly as we are the local church for Wallasey Golf Course. The church was actually built on the golf course.”
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The controversial golfers in St Nicholas’ windows
Welcome to Wirral – the Revd Jeff Staples
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