Letter: Church put too much faith in commercialism

From Mr Julian Cummins

Sir: Bryan Appleyard ("A church in psychedelic chaos", 28 November) is right to place the Nine O'Clock Service in the context of the church's decline. He is wrong to suggest that the "bourgeois backwoods" is the only alternative.

On Wednesday, General Synod debates the Turnbull Report, proposing at long last a modern, efficient and theologically appropriate structure for the church. Turnbull offers a means by which the spiritual can not only flourish, but flourish without the excesses seen in Sheffield.

Mystics have known from the early centuries that discipline and structure are indispensable in handling things that are deep and powerful; Turnbull offers such a structure. The most appropriate response that Synod can make to the widespread concern over both Chris Brain and the church's continuing decline is to endorse Turnbull, and endorse an early timetable for its implementation.

Yours sincerely,

Julian Cummins

Leeds

28 November